Fiorina: Trump is the 'Kim Kardashian of politics'
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina largely brushed off her low poll numbers and stood behind her campaign’s ground game strategy during a Wednesday morning meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board.
“Voters never ask me about the polls,” Fiorina said. “Everywhere I go, voters are turning out and they're asking questions and they're walking away saying, ‘I’m caucusing for you.’”
Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, also took a swipe at businessman Donald Trump during the almost hourlong conversation, saying he "doesn’t have a plan to solve any of (our national) problems.”
“He is absolutely fantastic at promoting himself,” she said. “Give him credit, he is the Kim Kardashian of politics. He is famous for being famous and the media plays along with it. But this isn’t a reality show. It's not entertainment. It's deadly serious now.”
A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll released Wednesday showed Fiorina, who’s never held political office, tied with Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 2 percent. The pair are just ahead of former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who’s in last place with 1 percent.
The new poll marked a slip in support for Fiorina. In September's Iowa poll, she was in seventh place with 5 percent, just behind U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
But polling data is “imprecise,” Fiorina said, pointing to the 2015 Kentucky gubernatorial polls that showed Democrat Jack Conway leading over Republican Matt Bevin, who eventually won by a large margin.
“Polls taken at this stage in presidential contests have never been predictive,” Fiorina said. “If they were, we would have had a President Howard Dean, we would have had a President Rudy Giuliani, we already would have had a President Hillary Clinton and we never would have had a President Ronald Reagan.”
“What we know about Iowa is that it always decides late and your poll confirms that,” she said. (The Iowa poll released Wednesday showed 56 percent of likely caucusgoers haven’t settled on their first-choice candidate or could be swayed by Feb. 1.)
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Fiorina also noted she’s taking the stage with two former Iowa caucus winners during Thursday’s Republican debate, where her poll numbers bumped her from the main debate to the “undercard” debate.
As she often points out during campaign stops, Fiorina said she started out “17 out of 16” in this race because “pollsters didn’t even ask her name.” Now, she’s sixth nationally in Fox News’ latest poll, she said.
“Most of the people running have been known by voters for a really long time,” she said. “Everybody knows Donald Trump. Everybody knows the professional politicians. Everybody knows Hillary Clinton. I started as a virtual unknown, so it takes time.”
But “the way to make the sale is the way Iowans have always expected people to make the sale,” she continued. You “show up in the diner, show up in the dining room, show up in the community center look ‘em in the eye and tell ‘em here’s who I am and here’s what I want to do with you to take our country back.”
Fiorina on unrest in Chicago:
The full interview: