Ben Carson is so hot right now. How hot is he? Surging to 1st place in Iowa hot!

Eight points ahead of Donald Trump hot!

Ben Carson has surged past Donald Trump in Iowa, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of likely Republican caucus participants out Thursday. The retired neurosurgeon leads the Republican field with 28 percent, while Trump has fallen behind with 20 percent. A September survey had Trump at 27 percent, and Carson at 21 percent.

The strong showing from Carson, who has gotten accolades for his debate performance and campaign style despite tossing out some inflammatory comments about Muslims and mass shootings, comes in part from his support from women, who back Carson 33 percent to Trump's 13 percent.

Carson also has “almost unheard of” favorability numbers according to Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

He's even killing Trump with white evangelicals! You know, the ones who are all racist and stuff?

Now, the usual disclaimers. It's only one poll and the only poll that matters is when people vote and blah blah blah. But when you're Trump and you're entire campaign is about how good you're doing in the polls, and you have Ben Carson knocking you out of first place, you wake up like...

We've talked about this before. Slow and steady wins the race. – though to be fair, the real moral to the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare is, if you're in the middle of a heated race... don't take a nap – Ben Carson is a different kind of candidate. He's not the kind of guy who excites people off the bat with snappy rhetoric. We're not saying that he'll win, but we've always said his campaign would have to see a slow build. While everyone else got dirty, while everyone else got down in the mud, he stayed the course. Now we see the results.

Not bad for the the guy who speaks more slowly than a sloth on Xanax.

Still, today you know Trump's gotta be like...

Okay that was the last one.