Recent News

In the Republican primary race, the newest NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll shows Donald Trump has the frontrunner spot to himself, with 28% support among Republican and independent voters who lean Republican. Support for Ben Carson, who was tied with Trump in last month’s online poll, has fallen off by 8 points and the former neurosurgeon is now tied with Ted Cruz at 18%.

The Republican Party has traditionally favored governors (sitting or former) as presidential nominees, with vice presidents also getting significant consideration. In the past 50 years the Republican Party nominated exactly three presidential candidates who hadn’t been either a governor or vice president, all three of whom were crushed in the general election. Setting aside incumbent presidents, every Republican nominee who was either a governor or vice president won.

So we note with some interest that the first three candidates to drop ... Read More >>

Republican voters actually aren’t divided into ‘establishment’ and ‘outsider’ camps

Given this year’s crowded Republican presidential field, one of the most important questions is who else people would be willing to vote for if their preferred candidate drops out of the race. To better understand this, we asked likely Republican primary voters some unique questions in a new national poll.

Fox News Poll: Trump rules GOP race in New Hampshire, Sanders by 1 over Clinton

Donald Trump leads the race for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire, while Bernie Sanders edges Hillary Clinton among Democrats.

That’s according to the latest Fox News poll, released Wednesday, and conducted since Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

Republicans overwhelmingly pick Ben Carson over Donald Trump for having the better temperament to be president, but they have far more confidence in the billionaire than the retired surgeon to take on terror, handle Russian President Vladimir Putin and fix immigration.

There’s widespread agreement that the Islamic State attacks in Paris could shake up the GOP primary. But nobody knows how.

USA TODAY GOP Power Rankings: Rubio up, but Paris dominates

The Paris terrorist attacks are likely to mark a fundamental turning point in the GOP presidential nominating contest, but thus far our political experts say it is unclear which candidate will benefit from that.