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Here's one reason Ben Carson is still fighting for the GOP nomination

Feb 25, 2016, 23:04 IST

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Ben Carson.AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has yet to finish in the top three in any of the first four voting states during the 2016 election season.

The other remaining candidates have all recorded at least one top-three finish, with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump all consistently finishing at the top of the pack, with the exception of Rubio in New Hampshire.

Carson isn't faring well in upcoming states either.

In the swath of "Super Tuesday" states that vote next Tuesday, and which have polls listed on RealClearPolitics, Carson is among the top three candidates in just one: Alaska.

Nationally, he places dead last among the remaining GOP candidates, per the RealClearPolitics average.

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So why has Carson remained in the race? A former Carson insider told Business Insider it's because he can afford to be.

The source said he believed the "dirty trick" from the Cruz campaign on the day of the Iowa caucuses - during which Cruz's campaign suggested to voters that Carson was dropping out of the race - helped Carson's campaign raise money.

After the last FEC reporting period, which spanned January 1 to January 31, Carson's campaign had more than $4.1 million in cash on hand. Compare that to Rubio, considered a far stronger candidate, who had roughly $5 million on hand. And that reporting period came before the Cruz incident in Iowa.

Earlier this month, just after the Iowa caucuses, Barry Bennett, Carson's former campaign manager and current volunteer adviser for the Trump campaign, said that unless Carson could raise more money quick, he'd have to bow out before Super Tuesday.

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"Short of a big uptick in fundraising, it's going to be very tough for him," he told Business Insider.

Carson's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the time, Bennett said Carson should use his large following to "do some good in the world," adding: "It's probably not going to be inside the White House."

This week, after another poor showing - this time in Tuesday's Nevada caucuses - many of the replies to Carson's tweets on Wednesday seemingly begged the candidate to drop out:

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