[Ben] Carson, too, flamed out as a presidential contender, winning only eight delegates before he abandoned his quest for the White House in early March 2016. As political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, [UCI political science professor] and Lynn Vavreck explain in Identity Crisis, their account of the 2016 campaign, “Carson’s trajectory was emblematic of ‘discovery, scrutiny, and decline.’” The discovery phase began when he jumped in the Iowa polls in late summer 2015 on the heels of a heavy ad buy. From mid-September to early December 2015, Carson emerged as Trump’s primary challenger in the national polls. But then the scrutiny was brutal as reporters seized on Carson’s shaky grasp of foreign policy (even compared to Trump) and dubious assertions about his life history, such as his claim that he had been offered a “full scholarship” to tuition-free West Point.

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