Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is also running for president, and Cruz’s longtime Senate nemesis John McCain, R-Ariz.
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“He’s got a problem”, Trump told an audience packed into a gym of the University of Northern Iowa, repeating his case that the issue will hang over Cruz’s head if he wins the nomination.
For example, in a Quinnipiac University poll days before Christmas, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton beat Trump in a head-to-head decision by college-educated voters (57 percent to 33 percent).
The calls and radio airtime are paid for by the pro-Trump Super PAC American National, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo. Many of Trump’s brazen positions that have offended pretty much everyone else, in particular his call to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. in December, resonate with white supremacists who have finally found a major-party frontrunner who agrees with some of their ideas.
Trump’s ability to stay atop the GOP field for months has put a spotlight on disaffected voters.
Cruz has been careful not to take on Trump directly even as a few other rivals have savaged him. Democrats had better explore that question – or be surprised by the answer. And The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson reported from the scene about the seemingly haphazard, just-yell-your-questions structure of the event.
Trump is zeroing in on Cruz’s Canadian birth as he tries to remove the senator as a threat to his candidacy. They simply could not be part of some kind of suspicion-raising grand strategy. If that is true, then any restriction placed on persons so born was and is likely unconstitutional – – and furthermore that many Justices of the Supreme Court are not serious people. They can connect everything and anything to what they view as the core issues of their campaign. “I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America”.
The “natural born citizen” issue continued for Cruz over the weekend, with Trump unrelenting. Even if divisive and unfounded, they might be prudent.
“So they want to shoot Cruz with this silver bullet so they can get Donald”.
“Let’s take this righteous anger and frustration and make it productive for our party and for our nation”, Chris Christie said, making a pitch to New Hampshire voters last week.
So, you see, with Iowa just weeks away and Trump’s lead already whittled to the possibly non-existent margin, victory there is far from assured.
And Bernie Sanders, who has captured voters’ attention with his message of economic populism, is leading Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and is catching up to her in Iowa.
The NBC poll cited above also looked at general election match-ups in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Asked in Decorah, Iowa last week how he differs from Trump, Cruz offered that he is campaigning in the “Iowa way” – an aggressive schedule of retail politicking, which Trump has not done to date.
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Rubio has started to add doom and gloom to his optimistic pitch: The economy no longer works for the middle class, the United States is no longer a power on the global stage, and the world seems to be more risky.
