I think we saw this movie before.
It’s called Scott Walker. A near total collapse in polling support in a short period of time with no obvious explanation.
This time it’s happening to Carly Fiorina. She gained a lot of attention after the Fox News undercard debate, making it into the CNN primetime debate. Fiorina was the near unanimous choice for winner of the debate, and she had a surge in the polls into the teens.
Her confrontation with Trump was a winner for her.
That support is gone now:
Carly Fiorina’s time near the top of the Republican polls may have come to an end, as another national CNN/ORC poll out Tuesday suggests. Just 4 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters said they would cast their votes for her in a primary election, down from 15 percent in September.
The CNN poll is similar to other polling, as this Real Clear Politics table of all recent polls shows:
Fiorina’s campaign is putting a happy face on the situation, as a CNN reports:
Fiorina’s campaign dismissed the notion that her candidacy may be stalling and the candidate has pointed to early state polls — which show her jockeying for third or fourth place in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — as a sign she has momentum.Her fundraising has improved dramatically. Last quarter, Fiorina raised $6.8 million — a wide improvement from the $1.7 million she raised the previous quarter — and a larger sum than many of her Republican opponents.”We’re really happy with the way things are going,” said Anna Epstein, a campaign spokeswoman, adding that voters are still in the process of getting to know Fiorina. “We’re still introducing her to as many people as we can. That’s definitely not over.”
Why did this collapse happen?
First and foremost, since the CNN debate Fiorina has been out of the news. She gets almost zero earned media, as the Donald and Ben Show rolls on and on. Carly made a name for herself in the primaries by being the fighter – taking on Hillary and then Donald. But we don’t see any of that.
Out of sight, out of mind.
She also doesn’t have a natural constituency unlike the other second-tier contenders — Cruz, Rubio, Jeb — from their prior political activities.
Fiorina has fallen, can she get back up?
Reader Poll open until midnight (Pacific time) on Friday night, October 23, 2015.
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