Recent News

Businessman Donald Trump leads retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, 22 percent to 18 percent, according to WBUR’s first poll of the race.

At 27 percent nationally, Donald Trump maintains his frontrunner status among Republican primary voters, but Ben Carson is now close behind him, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

Perry’s Exit May Have an Impact on the Race

The news at the end of last week that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination and exiting the race took few by surprise, as numerous stories in recent weeks had reported on his campaign’s lack of funds and poor showing in the polls. The New York Times this morning has an interesting story detailing polling data that show Perry lost more than half of his support to businessman Donald Trump when the latter ... Read More >>

A lot of the support for Donald Trump is fueled by outrage against the Republican establishment. But those who ask us to understand this anger—as if it were a totally new phenomenon that none of us had ever noticed before—are ignoring the fact that Trump divides the right just as much as the establishment does.

As current New Jersey Republican Chris Christie struggles to qualify for next week’s prime-time debate on CNN, other candidates are just hoping to achieve relevance and rise past (or even get to) the 1 percent level in polls. Several “super PACs” plan to ride to the rescue to boost these faltering candidates’ chances (super PACs can raise unlimited contributions but cannot legally coordinate their efforts with campaigns, although the definition of “coordinate” is a bit tricky). Here’s a sample of ... Read More >>

CNN moves prime-time GOP debate to 8 p.m.

CNN has moved its primetime Republican debate from 9 p.m. EST to 8 p.m., eliminating the long gap between its main event and the earlier forum for second-tier candidates, the network told campaigns in a conference call Tuesday afternoon.