Because of The Factor’s reporting on the Ben Carson-Ted Cruz Iowa situation, a major controversy has broken out in New Hampshire.

Briefly: Dr. Carson says the Cruz campaign, aided by a false report on CNN, dishonestly swayed Iowa voters.

Donald Trump has now taken up that cause, bashing Cruz, who has apologized, but says he did not know anything about the false report as it was unfolding.

So you can see it's a mess and the issue is being widely discussed in New Hampshire.

A new daily tracking poll from WHDH and the University of Massachusetts says the following:

Donald Trump in the lead with 36%.

Marco Rubio, 15%.

Ted Cruz, 14%. 

Jeb Bush, 8%.

John Kasich, 7%. 

Chris Christie, 5%.

Ben Carson, 4%.

Carly Fiorina, 3%.

Undecided, 8%.

So it would seem that Donald Trump has it if the undecideds are that low.

But that's not really the case.  Anything could happen in New Hampshire as Trump zeros in on Cruz:

DONALD TRUMP: "I think what he [Cruz] did is disgusting. He said that Ben Carson, who is a fantastic guy, had dropped out of the race – during the caucus, he had dropped out of the race and vote for Ted Cruz.  All of those people, come and vote for Ted Cruz and many of them did.  I think it was a disgrace that he did it."

((EDIT))

TED CRUZ: “I wake up every day and laugh at the latest thing Donald has tweeted because he's losing it.  We need a commander-in-chief, not a Twitterer in chief. ((EDIT)) We're liable to wake up one morning, and Donald if he were president, would have nuked Denmark.”

The beneficiary of the Trump-Cruz brouhaha may be Marco Rubio, who at this point is trying to float above the Carson controversy.

No matter.  The next five days will be very intense because whoever wins New Hampshire will obviously have momentum going into South Carolina, Nevada, and then Super Tuesday.

Talking Points believes that the Carson/Cruz situation will disappear unless a criminal investigation is mounted.

The mainstream media does not seem very interested in this, and so it will vanish, unless new headlines occur.

Tomorrow on The Factor, we will talk with Donald Trump, also Chris Christie, as the New Hampshire tensions mount.

And that's the memo.