“You could literally hop in the back seat of a vehicle and drive across the state with a presidential candidate and a driver, ” said Yepsen, who spent 34 years at the Des Moines Register.
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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shakes hands Friday during a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa.
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz directed much of his final advertising against the Florida senator in the frenzied weekend prelude, feeding a Republican feud that turned increasingly bitter in the final days.
For Republicans, it’s all pretty simple as party members gather, hear brief speeches for candidates and then fill out ballots.
Sioux Center, where Lee and Mouw came out to see Bush speak on Friday, is in the heart of Iowa’s conservative Christian northwest corner, which helped push Huckabee to victory in 2008 and Santorum in 2012.
The three Democrats and 12 Republicans aiming to be their party’s 2016 torchbearer are leaving it all on the field in Iowa, hosting several dozen events across this snow-swept heartland state as they gear up for Monday’s debut vote in the presidential marathon.
Sanders also would not address reports that the Clinton campaign is training its caucus leaders to potentially throw some support behind long-shot candidate former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in order to blunt potential Sanders gains as a means of exploiting the complicated Iowa caucus rules.
The result Sunday was a blur of sometimes conflicting messages.
For Republicans, meanwhile, the warm feelings toward the top candidates are not universal: 50 percent have a positive view of Trump, 65 percent of Cruz, 70 percent for Rubio and 72 percent for Carson. Trump did not offer any senators’ names. In testy statements, the Clinton and Sanders campaigns publicly aired their demands for site locations, underscoring tensions between the two sides in the days before Monday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses.
One development – the weather – was beyond the candidates’ control. “He’s gone down very much in Iowa”.
“Gov. John Kasich of OH, though a distinct underdog, is the only plausible choice for Republicans exhausted of the extremism and inexperience on display in this race”, the editorial board wrote.
Sanders tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that his campaign has gotten lots of people involved in politics who hadn’t been before.
“When we began this campaign, people said, ‘Well, it’s true Bernie combs his hair really nice. I feel ready. I feel strong and I think I’m the best person to be the nominee and to defeat whoever they nominate in November”. “One of the reasons that I’ll win and, I think, none of the other guys will win is because I’m going to get states that they’ll never get”, he told CBS’ “Face the Nation”, citing Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, along with strong hopes for NY and Virginia. Even Sanders’ blue signs – “A Future to Believe In” – recall Obama’s old “Change We Can Believe In” slogan.
The two states combined account for only 53 delegates, or 2% of the total, but Scala said taking both states would make Trump or Cruz very tough to challenge.
With that, he tried to set expectations so that if Rubio finishes better than third, it can be proclaimed a great performance and if Cruz doesn’t win, it will be seen as a great failure.
One ad said of Rubio: “Tax hikes. Amnesty. The Republican Obama”.
“You have a right to be angry”, Rubio told more than 300 people at a university hall in Ames, Iowa.
At Sanders’ Manchester rally, Ruth Lewin, a retired grocery store clerk and child care provider, said the latest news about Clinton’s emails reinforced why she will be caucusing for Sanders on Monday.
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In the last major preference poll before the caucuses, Trump had the support of 28 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, with Cruz at 23 percent and Rubio at 15 percent.
