Why is Carson surging in polls?

By Clarence Lusane

Tribune News Service

There is one candidate in the Republican presidential race who can potentially derail the Donald Trump Express, and it’s not Jeb Bush.

The Donald’s dominance in the GOP race so far has obscured the equally amazing rise of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. For weeks, Carson has been second, tied or even leading in the polls.

As the lone African-American in the race, he has been compared to Herman Cain, the black businessman who ran for the Republican nomination in 2012.

Carson may yet implode, but so far he has avoided any disabling scandals, and his ignorance of issues is presented more as an asset than a liability. On his campaign website, he leans toward broad statements rather than policy specifics.

However, when he has taken a position or voiced an unrehearsed opinion, his stance has been every bit as extreme as that of anyone else running.

Carson resonates with the same base of far-right Republican voters that Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speak to, but he may have more staying power.

Favorable, unfavorable

Carson’s favorability rating (68 percent) is the highest of all Republican candidates, while his unfavorability (14 percent) is the lowest, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey. This compares with Trump’s ratings of 56 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

Carson also has the highest “second-choice” ranking, at 13 percent. This means when Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and other low-polling, likeminded candidates eventually drop out, Carson is poised to pick up significant support.

Carson’s perch at the top of the polls demonstrates that it is not just Trump’s outsized celebrity, oversized ego and unorthodox campaign that have the billionaire stealing the show. Carson’s and Trump’s anti-immigration and anti-welfare-state ideology animate GOP voters.

Carson speaks a language that is unwaveringly white and conservative – and his supporters understand this.

Republican leaders have prayed for a Trump collapse and disappearance, believing that his winning the nomination would doom their chances for seizing the White House. The real issue for the GOP, however, is that neither of the party’s top two candidates is qualified to be president.

Clarence Lusane is the chairman of the political science department at Howard University. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project.