Carson Campaign 'Finished,' Reagan's Top Strategist Says

Ronald Reagan's top political strategist has declared the presidential campaign of Ben Carson is essentially over.

"At this point, I think his candidacy is finished," Ed Rollins, a top Republican strategist who managed President Reagan's 1984 re-election, told The Washington Post late last week.

Rollins' comments came on the heels of the announcement made just before the New Year that some 20 Carson staffers had quit the campaign, including its manager, Barry Bennett, and two senior aides.

"He has money but his staffers are gone and nothing really to keep him going. Iowa isn't seriously in play, he has no strength in New Hampshire," Rollins said.

Carson, who once led polls in Iowa, now places in third or fourth.

The Post reported that despite massive online fundraising success, Carson's campaign never invested the money in a serious organization to get out the vote in states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Instead the campaign re-invested funds to continue building its direct marketing lists.

The Post reported that "others accused the campaign of misusing its funds, reinvesting the bulk of its earnings into raising more money, chartered flights and into bloated campaign salaries instead of building the sort of robust infrastructure in early voting states that will be crucial for whomever locks down the nomination."

Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist, has seen his core evangelical voters flee in the wake of reports he used fetal tissue from aborted fetuses in medical research he conducted during the 1990s. He also backed gay rights initiatives at several Fortune 500 companies he served as a director.

The collapse of the Carson campaign has directly benefited Sen. Ted Cruz, who now leads Donald Trump in recent Iowa polls.