Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump jumped in national and Iowa polls just as he questioned the heroism of Sen. John McCain’s war service.
Trump, who questioned whether McCain is a war hero because he “got captured” (a Chris Rock line) at a forum with pollster Frank Luntz in Iowa Saturday, fended off attacks from most of his Republican opponents during the ensuing media controversy.
Trump clocked in at 24 percent in the Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday, leading Wisconsin governor Scott Walker (13 percent) and Jeb Bush (12 percent).
How about in the Hawkeye State, where Trump made his comment?
A new Monmouth University poll released Monday shows Trump in second place in the GOP field in Iowa, trailing only Scott Walker 22 percent to 13 percent. Trump’s 13 percent figure is nine points higher than he scored in Iowa in May in a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll.
Both polls were conducted Thursday to Sunday.
Conservative surgeon Dr. Ben Carson is running third with 8 percent, while Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz are tied at 7 percent and Huckabee came in with 6 percent support.
“Support for Trump fell sharply on the one night that voters were surveyed following those comments,” the Post reports.
The Post-ABC poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, and the Monmouth poll has a margin of error of 4.6 percent.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note that the polling only measured one day after Trump’s comments.