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According to a recent Pew poll, Donald Trump is still leading the polls of the GOP presidential race with 25 percent. Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson comes second in line with 16 percent, while Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio compete for the third place with 8 percent.
Jeb Bush is no longer in top five, Rand Paul may soon abandon the race, while Ted Cruz tries to catch up with 6 percent. Pew researchers were also interested on how the presidential hopefuls fared in polls on two hot topics – immigration reform and taxing the rich.
These major subjects gave Trump a popularity injection whose effect may soon wear off, as several analysts claim. Trump put a bet on taxing the rich and America’s aversion towards illegal aliens. Other GOP candidates were not that inspired as the poll results show.
Other presidential hopefuls addressed the immigration issue but none of them made it in such a loud and vexing way as Trump did. And none of them mixed that with a pinch of ‘taxing the wealthy’ salt. According to Donald Trump’s campaign, taxes would be reduced for both low-income Americans and the wealthy but in a progressive manner.
Trump also caught public attention when he launched against Obamacare and Social Security. So, he doesn’t rely only on immigration to harvest GOP votes. He takes a deeper dive. Benjamin Wallace was very inspired when he called Trump “an outrage candidate for good times.”
And people are not drawn to Trump because his celebrity status alone, although celebrity did propel Trump on the public stage like no other candidate was. Trump’s views on how things should be done made him popular among Democratic voters with conservative views on cultural matters, as well, analysts noted.
The Democrats always had a shape shifting voter base that were with the left for economic reasons but voted with the right for cultural reasons. Analysts criticize these voters who are culturally conservative but they vote with the left because of economic reasons, for voting against their own interests. Nevertheless, cultural issues are very important to many Americans not only to Democrats.
Republicans are also concerned that they may lose their voter base if they partner with corporations that want looser immigration rules and lower taxes for the rich.
Rick Santorum tried to win this group’s hearts and votes but he didn’t go that far to advocate for tighter immigration laws as Trump did.
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