Donald Trump is either "brilliant" or "completely crazy" in his quest to win South Carolina presidential primary, veteran pollster Matt Towery tells
Newsmax TV.
But he's not sure which.
"What's going on though in South Carolina is very interesting. Either Donald Trump is a brilliant strategist or he's completely crazy and we won't know until we get down the road," Towery said Tuesday to J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime."
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"He's trying to delay this race. He's going after [former Florida Gov. Jeb] Bush, which is bringing Bush up. And taking [Sen. Marco] Rubio [of Florida] sort of out of the conversation.
"At the same time, he's going against [Sen. Ted] Cruz viciously and overnight among those who identify themselves as being evangelical voters, Trump was still winning substantially among those voters in South Carolina."
Towery believes Cruz can score points against Trump with a TV ad he released Sunday attacking the billionaire developer for once saying Planned Parenthood "serves a good function." In Saturday's GOP debate, Trump said the group "does do wonderful things, but not as it relates to abortion."
"If Cruz runs that ad and runs it hard, I can only expect that Trump's numbers among those evangelical voters will come down because there's just so much that they can take and the word 'Planned Parenthood' is just not in their vocabulary," Towery said.
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to file a birther lawsuit against Cruz, questioning whether he can serve as president having been born in Canada, if the Lone Star State lawmaker Texas doesn't remove "false ads and retract his lies."
The Palmetto State primary will be held on Feb. 20.
A new CNN/ORC poll shows Trump holding a commanding 16-point lead over his Republican rivals.
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