Ben Carson would destroy Donald Trump in head-to-head matchup, poll finds

Ben Carson at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention

(Image credit: Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

last updated 4 September 2015

There's one 2016 matchup that Donald Trump doesn't stand a chance at winning, a new Monmouth University poll finds. While The Donald dominates just about everyone else in the Republican field in a head-to-head matchup, he loses to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson by a whopping 19 percentage points. Faced with the choice of Trump versus Carson, voters chose Carson over Trump, 55 percent to 36 percent.

However, outside of a head-to-head matchup, Trump still leads Carson — and everyone else — by a strong margin in the national polls. The Monmouth University Poll shows Trump in first place with 30 percent of the vote, followed by Carson with 18 percent of the vote. But even if Carson isn't beating Trump in the national polls just yet, Trump had still better watch his back. Carson is quickly gaining traction among Republican voters, with support for him up 5 percent from the last Monmouth poll taken before the Republican debate.