Pollster Matt Towery told
Newsmax TV that Thursday was "a disaster for the Republican Party."
"You had a knife fight in one room and you had a circus in the other — and if people don't recognize that, they will down the road," he told host J.D. Hayworth on the "Newsmax TV Post-Debate Special."
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He was referring first to the GOP debate in Des Moines that occurred without front-runner Donald Trump, who skipped the event in a tiff with Fox News over debate co-moderator Megyn Kelly — instead holding a rally for veteran's organizations at nearby Drake University.
"This was not a good night for the Republican Party, no matter what they think," Towery said. "Donald Trump wasn't playing to Iowa. He was playing to South Carolina."
The Palmetto State holds its primaries on Feb. 20.
"That's what he was doing tonight with these veterans," he told Hayworth. "That's where this race is going to be decided.
"It's going to be decided in South Carolina and the Southern states that we're going to be polling and after that the SCC primary," Towery said, referring to the huge March 1 primary that includes contests in six states in the South.
"Tonight didn't do a damn thing for anybody but keep this circus going."
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