Poll: Cruz Closing the Gap with Trump

With Ted Cruz pulling closer to Donald Trump in the polls, the race for the GOP presidential nomination is shaping up to look like voters may be forced to make a choice between the equivalents of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.  Both Cruz and Trump are playing hard to the racists in the Republican Party Base and while Cruz has the backing of every Christofascists hate group in Iowa, Drump is now courting FRC's Tony Perkins and stating that Christians are under attack and losing their power.  As a gay American who works hard, keeps up our home, and pays plenty of taxes with my husband, I am beyond over having assholes like these two narcissists promising to strip me of legal rights so that they can gain the support of religious extremists and outright bigots.  Politico looks at Cruz's disturbing rise in the polls.  Here are excerpts:

Donald Trump's perch atop the 2016 presidential polls is looking a little shakier this morning.

In the latest Quinnipiac University national survey released Tuesday, Trump leads Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by just four percentage points.

Trump's share remained essentially unchanged from the university's last poll, ticking up one point to 28 percent. Cruz, meanwhile, shot up eight percentage points to 24 percent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio finished third with 12 percent, a five-point drop since late November, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson continued his downward spiral with 10 percent, a six-point hit in the same period. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie registered 6 percent, his highest level of support in a telephone poll since late May. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took 4 percent,. . . 

Cruz commanded pluralities of support over Trump among those describing themselves as members of the tea party (38 percent to 27 percent) and white, born-again Evangelical Christians (33 percent to 22 percent). Cruz also led Trump among very conservative supporters (38 percent to 27 percent), while Trump led at least nominally in every other demographic polled.

In Iowa, Cruz leads Trump by 9 points, according to the latest CBS News/YouGov poll. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll released Dec. 12 yielded a 10-point advantage for Cruz.