Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, who surged in polls this fall, has seen her support wilt as backers across the board have shifted from her to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
It’s part of the candidate merry-go-round, as voters seek the best insurgent champion in the GOP field, much as they did in 2012 when they tested all the alternatives to eventual nominee Mitt Romney.
This time, those finicky voters have a more complicated task: They want an insurgent but one who isn’t billionaire businessman Donald Trump, who draws his own unique base of support. A former technology company executive, Mrs. Fiorina was an attractive option early on, but voters appear to have moved on.
“She was attracting the same type of voter that Ben Carson was: someone who wanted an outsider, but someone not with the bombast of Donald Trump,” said Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University Polling.
“Fiorina’s appeal would have been to the more moderate anti-establishment voters,” Mr. Murray said. “When her poll numbers rose, that is who took a look at her, but I don’t think she measured up quite as well as Ben Carson did in those people’s minds.”
Indeed, the two rivals, who both entered the race on May 4, have been headed in different directions recently, according to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, which shows that since Oct. 1, Mr. Carson has climbed more than 8 percentage points and Mrs. Fiorina has plummeted nearly 9 percentage points.
Her September surge was fueled by a boost in moderate conservatives, liberal Republicans and some white evangelicals, but now she has dropped back to low single digits among those groups.
She’s not the only one whose popularity is dropping: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush continues to slip, seeing his support crater across all demographics.
Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, meanwhile, are on the rise, with Mr. Cruz in particular picking up evangelical and very conservative voters.
Analysts said the contours of the race are still being shaped by Mr. Trump, who has divided what’s usually a two-sided debate — between establishment and insurgent Republicans — into a three-way fight, with the real estate mogul in a category all his own.
“You have those three separate options,” said Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan. “With Trump, his support seems so much more solidified than some of the others.”
The Fiorina camp says it’s still confident in where she is.
“Carly was 16 out of 16 when she launched her candidacy on May 4th,” said Anna Epstein, a campaign spokesperson. “The polling companies didn’t even ask about Carly’s name because less than 4 percent of them had heard of her.”
“In Milwaukee, she was in sixth place on the main stage,” Ms. Epstein said, alluding to this week’s GOP candidates debate in Wisconsin. “We are very pleased with Carly’s trajectory in the race as she continues to raise her name ID with voters around the country.”
Like Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump, Mrs. Fiorina has never held elected office — though she has been a familiar face in GOP circles. She served as a top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain during his failed 2008 presidential campaign, ran an unsuccessful bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in the 2010 California Senate race and served as vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Still, she is running as an outsider, casting herself as a voice for those fed up with Washington’s “political class” and arguing that she is the best Republican to take on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.
Her strong performance in the first GOP undercard debate drew support — but also more scrutiny of her business record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and of comments she made on the campaign trail.
“She is a great speaker, a really natural talented debater, and she gets some coverage out of her debates performances,” Mr. Kall said. “But she has not catapulted that into other success on the campaign trail — either signature issue or policy position that is the same kind of publicity that she gets out of the debate stage.”
He said she appears to be hoping for an implosion by Mr. Trump or Mr. Carson, leaving her to pick up the pieces.
Mr. Murray, though, said it will be a challenge for Mrs. Fiorina to emerge as the champion for either non-Trump faction.
“The anti-establishment voters are really coalescing, and she has been pushed out of that, and I am not sure how she gets herself back in there — and she is not establishment enough to make a go on that side of the primary,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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