A New Poll Says Ted Cruz Is Now Leading the Republican Race, But It’s Probably Wrong

Test ticker

Monika Bauerlein,
CEO

Dear Reader,

The next few months are make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and we need more online readers to pitch in than have been of late. In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we take a level-headed look at the brutal economics of journalism, why investigative reporting like you get from us matters, and why we're optimistic we can grow our base of support in a big way—starting with hitting a huge $300,000 goal in just three weeks. Please learn more and donate if you can right now.

The next few months are make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising. We need to raise $300,000 quickly, and we need more online readers to pitch in than have been. Please learn more in "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," where we go into the brutal economics of journalism, and what makes Mother Jones unique and worth supporting if you can right now.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The big campaign news of the day is a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing that Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump nationally, 28-26 percent. But this seems unlikely: Four new national polls have been released since yesterday, and three of them continue to show Trump with about 38 percent support compared to 17 percent for Cruz.

So what’s going on with the NBC poll? If it’s an outlier, it’s a hell of an outlier. I couldn’t even find a table extensive enough to tell me how unlikely it is to be just a sample error. One in a million, maybe? So maybe it’s a problem with NBC’s likely-voter filter? Could be. Or maybe there’s been an enormous negative response to Trump’s debate performance last Saturday? The NBC poll is the only telephone poll done entirely after the debate, so if that were the case it would show up most strongly there.

Very odd. I guess we wait and see.