Poll: Cruz closes to within 5 points of Trump in South Carolina

At one point polls showed Trump up by 16 points over Cruz in South Carolina. If this poll is accurate and Cruz has really closed the gap this much, it's going to set up quite a tense night tomorrow:

The poll found that support for Mr. Trump dropped to 28% among likely Republican voters in South Carolina, down 8 points from January, while support for Mr. Cruz rose slightly to 23%. What had been a 16-point lead for Mr. Trump is now 5 points.

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The rest of the GOP field remained bunched at a distance from the top two contenders: Sen.Marco Rubio drew 15%; former Gov. Jeb Bush had 13%; and Gov. John Kasich and Ben Carsoneach had 9%. One question heading into Saturday’s voting is whether the primary will establish a clear front-runner among the field’s centrist, establishment-friendly candidates. But the close showings by Messrs. Rubio and Bush in the poll suggest that South Carolina voters could leave it to a future contest to winnow the field.

It's hard to picture it now, but you have to think that at some point the GOP is going to settle on a not-Trump alternative to take him on head-to-head. Every poll I've seen that features a one-on-one matchup between Trump and another Republican candidate show's Trump losing that matchup, but with the field this big the non-Trump vote keeps splitting. You'd think it would need to happen soon if the GOP wants to head off a Trump nomination - and my guess is that they do - but then again I suppose it's always possible that unsuccessful candidates could release their delegates. The trickier question is which candidates step aside. I don't think Carson, Bush or Kasich consider themselves done making whatever point they're trying to make by running at this point, but you know they're all going to fall away eventually - and that's going to create a three-way race between Trump, Rubio and Cruz. I think Trump still wins that matchup, and I don't see either Rubio or Cruz being the slightest bit interested in bowing out to clear the way for a head-to-head matchup between Trump and the other one. I think the party regulars really would like to see Cruz step aside for Rubio, while the activist base would like to see Rubio step aside for Cruz. The Trump voters don't fall into either category. Then again, if Cruz keeps his momentum going and manages to somehow win South Carolina, we might be looking at a sea change in the race regardless of who stays in and who gets out.

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