Few voters looking to bounce Rubio, Carson into lead

Marco Rubio and Ben Carson might have less potential to climb higher in the GOP horse race in Iowa than their glowing popularity ratings suggest.

Some Iowa Poll respondents think very highly of the two candidates but describe both of them with two words: “Not ready.”

The dream of trailing candidates is that they’ll suddenly hit a last-minute jackpot in Iowa and jump to the top of the polls, guaranteeing scads of congratulatory news coverage that might turns voters’ heads in states that vote right after Iowa.

The Republicans best poised for such a windfall are Carson and Rubio, because they’re already in the running for the bronze podium and so many likely caucusgoers view them favorably, the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll shows.

They trail Ted Cruz at the head of the pack and Donald Trump just behind, yet 73 percent of likely caucusgoers report having favorable feelings about both Carson, a retired doctor, and Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida. No one else is in that popularity league except Cruz, a Texas U.S. senator who has a 76 percent favorability rating.

The Register asked two dozen poll respondents who have “very favorable" or “mostly favorable" views of Carson and Rubio what it would take to make one of them their No. 1 choice.

The answer from all but one: At the moment, they can’t see themselves caucusing for either on Feb. 1.

COMPARE THE CANDIDATES: Compare Rubio, Carson on the issues

“He’s a real nice young man,” said poll respondent Marcine Luke, 74, of Marion, referring to Rubio. “There’s probably a future in him, but I don’t know when.”

Tea party backer John Jones, 50, a school teacher from Adel, agreed. He has a similar reaction to Carson: “I like Ben Carson, but his lack of experience in politics is what it is for me.”

A common media narrative is that hope remains alive in the national race for the candidate who does best in the establishment lane in Iowa. The candidate viewed as most likely to fill that lane is Rubio, but can he gain enough post-Iowa momentum if voters here give him only a half-hearted hug?

“Rubio has managed expectations well enough that a strong third-place finish helps him claim the mantle of being the top alternative to the Cruz-Trump slugfest,” said GOP strategist Kevin Madden, who is neutral in the race for the GOP nomination.

That would be a good place to be, Madden said, as the field heads into New Hampshire, where business mogul Trump leads strongly, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a distant second, then Rubio and Cruz.

Carson is battling hard against Rubio for third place in Iowa. But after hemorrhaging support from 28 percent in October to 11 percent in January, would third or fourth be enough to build a recovery in later states?

“John McCain took fourth in Iowa (in 2008) and ended up being the nominee,” said Tina Goff, Midwest political director for Win Ben Win, a pro-Carson super PAC. “Honestly, we would want to finish first. The polls don’t really show that happening. We just need to do as well as possible, and I think we have a lot of momentum right now.”

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Rubio backers also see momentum in Iowa, possibly enough to give him a tight third place. The Jan. 7-10 Iowa Poll showed Cruz with 25 percent support and Trump with 22 percent. Rubio was at 12 percent, gaining only 3 points between October and January.

“You can just feel it — what we’re doing is going over well, and we’re getting more and more people on board every day,” said Rubio’s Iowa co-chairman, Cam Sutton.

Rubio at first set expectations high by saying he’d win Iowa, then dove in deep with the heaviest spending on TV advertising here of any campaign. Rubio’s team has since tempered expectations, describing a “3-2-1” strategy — meaning Rubio needs to nail third place in Iowa, second place in New Hampshire a week later, and No. 1 in South Carolina Feb. 20, the National Review reported Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported Rubio’s team has conceded he likely won’t win any of the three, not even South Carolina, but aides still believe he can game out an eventual victory in the delegate battle. Every GOP nominee in modern history has won at least one of the three early states.

“I think any time you’re predicting something will happen that’s never happened before, you need a lot of good reasons to believe that,” said Stuart Stevens, a GOP strategist who is unaffiliated with any of the 2016 campaigns. “To win you have to win. … If you lose the first four states, why should you go up? It doesn’t make sense.”

Is the hard-right, religious-right skew of the Iowa caucus electorate a trouble spot for Rubio?

No, the Iowa Poll shows.

CAUCUS HISTORY: Results by county, candidate, year

Both Rubio and Carson share very strong favorability ratings of 74 percent or higher with evangelical conservatives, with caucusgoers who attend worship services at least once a week and with born-again Christians.

But if it's possible candidates can be popular but not viewed as presidential material, the reverse is also potentially true, said Iowa Poll pollster J. Ann Selzer. In others words, a candidate could win caucus support without being as popular as rivals. Far fewer caucusgoers view Trump in a favorable light (52 percent) than Carson and Rubio (both 73 percent), yet Trump leads them in the horse race by double digits, she noted.

Valerie Robbins, 59, of Anita told the Iowa Poll earlier this month that she’d never vote for any of the candidates except Carson, Rubio, Trump or Cruz. In a follow-up interview this week, Robbins said she really likes Carson’s stances but thinks he might be “too mild-mannered” to be president. Rubio is “a little easier on immigration than what people want to see,” and is also “on the tamer side,” she said. She’s “strong on Trump” right now, but she’d still consider the three others, she said.

However, more than 20 others who told the Iowa Poll they have “very” or “mostly” favorable feelings about Carson and Rubio told the Register this week they doubt they’d switch their support to either.

“Oh, boy, years ago, I absolutely loved Marco Rubio. I was like, ‘I hope that guy runs for president,’” said Cruz supporter Brad Martsching, a 46-year-old over-the-road truck driver from Indianola, who told the Iowa Poll he thinks very favorably about Rubio. “But Marco Rubio is so pro-amnesty."

Martsching, who describes himself as very conservative, likes Carson generally, but thinks he's too “passive” and isn’t as strong on constitutional issues as Cruz, he said.

ON THE TRAIL: Behind the scenes with Rubio, Carson, others

Independent voter Jeff Graber, a 57-year-old Donnellson resident who works in a manufacturing facility, said Rubio has good qualities, but “he doesn’t have enough track record to say he’d be the man for the job.” Graber, who describes his views as “moderate,” said he's concerned about Carson's credibility. Graber said he’s caucusing for Trump even though he’s “kind of a crazy guy.”

Jared Jensen, a 25-year-old graduate student from Arizona who will be caucusing for the first time, said of Rubio: “I guess I’m a fan, but to me the whole not showing up for votes thing was kind of a big deal. That’s your job.”

Jensen backs Kasich, who has just 2 percent support in Iowa but is a contender in more secular New Hampshire. Asked if there’s anything that Rubio or Carson could do to win his vote, Jensen said yes, if Carson could be “more forceful about things.” But for Rubio, “it’s just a tough sticking point — he had a job and he didn’t really do it,” Jensen said.

Holstein resident Deloy Bruns, a 47-year-old supervisor at a production facility, likes Rubio as a person, but his favorite is former tech company CEO Carly Fiorina, who sits at just 2 percent support in Iowa.

“I know some of it’s the attack ads, but it seems like Rubio switches his positions a lot,” said Bruns, who described himself as a born-again Christian and a tea party backer. “I realize things can change, and it’s good he has the ability to explain why he changed his views, but if you’re going to be president of the United States, you need to not have such a short-term outlook on things. You need to be able to see further down the road.”