Since he decided to enter the race to become the next President of the United States, Jindal has done everything possible to position himself for a serious run at the White House. Jindal has been polling at or below 1 percent in each national poll conducted by various news media outlets across the nation.
However, after failing to receive the necessary 2.5 percent support in a CNN poll to achieve a spot at the national debate’s main stage Oct. 28, the Louisiana Indian American governor told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Oct. 20 he isn’t committed to attending the CNBC undercard debate. “We haven’t made a decision yet,” Jindal told Blitzer. “They still have the opportunity to do the right thing.”
A new poll out Monday, October 26th confirms that Ben Carson is topping Donald Trump in Iowa’s Republican caucuses — this time by 14 points. According to the Monmouth University poll released Monday, Carson is leading Trump 32% to 18% among likely Republican Iowa voters. In a Monmouth poll conducted in August, the two had been tied at 23%. The poll confirms a shift in the state identified by two other polls in the past week. In the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll, Trump was up 9 points, and Quinnipiac University showed him up 8 percentage points.
The poll had good news for other GOP candidates, as well. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has picked up 6 percentage points since August, to 10%. That’s good enough to tie for third place with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Jeb Bush has picked up three points to be in fifth place, at 8%. His favorability rates have also improved 8 points since August. On the other hand, Carly Fiorina’s post-debate bounce has seemingly ebbed, as she dropped from 10% in August to 5% in Monday’s poll.
Earlier this months, polls pointed to Donald Trump as their strongest general election candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights the sharp contrast between the party’s voters and its top professionals regarding the billionaire businessman’s ultimate political strength. Seven in 10 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters say Trump could win in November 2016 if he is nominated, and that’s the most who say so of any candidate. By comparison, 6 in 10 say the same for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who, like Trump, has tapped into the powerful wave of antiestablishment anger defining the early phases of the 2016 contest.
Jindal, the first ever Indian American to be on the campaign mode, seeking to win the White House has been trailing behind almost all other Republican candidates. Jindal, in the CNN/ORC poll published Oct. 21, joined Jim Gilmore and George Pataki with less than 1 percent support. Four hundred sixty-five Republicans were polled. Those polled were asked who would be their first choice among the current GOP candidates and Jindal received an asterisk, or less than 1 percent support. When asked for their second choice, 1 percent of those polled said they would choose Jindal.
According to published sources, his record of good governance in his state is lackluster. He is described as a supporter of the rich. In his state, he was in favor of abolishing all corporate and personal income tax but in favor of raising the sales tax in order to make up for the loss of revenue to the state. His legislature wisely refused to go along with him for such regressive taxation.
Jindal refused to accept federal funding of $1.65 billion to expand Medicaid to the poor. He is pro-life and anti-abortion, and against same-sex marriage. He is against public funding of embryonic stem cell research. He favors the teaching of intelligent design in schools. He was against enforcing laws for the prevention of hate crimes in his state. His state ranked last for transparency in the United States.
Month after month, week after week, Gov. Bobby Jindal has been working to make himself relevant to the 2016 presidential election. Every week, Jindal made some (increasingly) desperate attempt for attention and relevance. On the rare occasion he made an appearance in Louisiana, he’s done everything possible to establish himself as a champion of “religious freedom.” He signed an executive order to give license to businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples. He’s even championed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would outlaw same-sex marriage.
As per media reports, despite having made a wreck of the state’s budget (including structural deficits for years), he’s also sold his soul to Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although he has approved more than $700 million in tax increases, Jindal desperately wants GOP voters in Iowa and New Hampshire to see him as the candidate most violently against tax increases. According to CNBC’s guidelines, candidates need at least 2.5 percent on an average of NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN and Bloomberg polls to qualify for the main stage event, debating to win the Republican presidential nomination.