Detroit native Ben Carson — whose quiet, soft-spoken demeanor has helped his voice rise above the rancor of presidential politics — is leading among Michigan Republicans in a new statewide poll on the 2016 race to the White House.
EPIC-MRA’s poll found that Carson, a political neophyte and retired pediatric neurosurgeon, would win in a head-to-head contest against Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the Detroit Free Press reports.
The poll of 600 likely voters was taken Oct. 25-31 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Against Clinton, Carson would win by a margin of 46 percent to 40 percent. He would beat Sanders by a margin of 45 percent to 36 percent, according to the poll.
New York businessman Donald Trump couldn’t beat either of the top two Democrats in Michigan, according to the poll. Against Trump, Clinton would win by a 46 percent to 38 percent margin, and Sanders would win by a 48 percent to 36 percent margin.
“Clearly, this shows that what’s happening nationally with the surge for Ben Carson is happening in Michigan as well,” Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA, told the Free Press. “That quiet manner of his compared to the bombastic approach of Donald Trump is paying off right now.”
A poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University in Camden, CN, showed Carson and Trump in a statistical tie. Carson would top Clinton by a margin of 50 percent to 40 percent, and Sanders by a margin of 51 percent to 39 percent
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll quipped. “There certainly is, and at the moment, Dr. Ben Carson is delivering a troubling diagnosis to Secretary Hillary Clinton.”
Real Clear Politics has an aggregate of other national polls showing similar results.
The election is still a year away, and that’s “an eternity in presidential campaigns and this race has already left some former front-runners on life support,” Malloy said.
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Porn of Michigan agreed that Carson’s surge may not last. Trump’s popularity is fading as people look more closely at his views, and the same thing could happen to Carson, Porn said.
“With Donald Trump, he’s saying some things that are causing people to question their support,” Porn said. “But that hasn’t started occurring with Carson yet. It’s more about his style than anything else right now.”
Carson’s Michigan campaign chairman, state Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, told the Free Press the candidate’s quiet demeanor and his status as a political outsider resonate with voters.
“There is no one who has had to make tougher, more on-the-spot decisions in his lifetime,” Shirkey said. “I just like his demeanor. I think the country is ready for someone like him, who isn’t deeply entrenched in the political establishment. He speaks from his heart and that’s the single reason he’s resonating with people across America.”
Carson, who drew standing-room-only crowds of thousands for his May announcement and a stump speech in September, is second in fund-raising in Michigan behind Clinton, according to the Free Press report.
Still, Michigan Democratic Party chairman Brandon Dillon told the Free Press that Carson’s views are “so far out of the mainstream, including abolishing Medicare, that once people start paying attention he won’t get much traction in Michigan.”
Though soft-spoken, Carson has made controversial statements that could haunt him if he remains at the front of the Republican pack. He suggested being gay is a choice because people “go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay”; he called President Obama a “psychopath” and compared his Affordable Care Act to slavery; and recently compared gun control efforts after a community college shooting in Oregon to the Holocaust.
On an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in September, Carson downplayed the long-term effect of those statements.
“As people get to know me, they know that I’m not a hateful, pathological person like some people try to make me out to be. And that will be self-evident. So I don’t really worry about that,” he said.