Texas senator Ted Cruz is locked in a tight contest with Mr Trump in Iowa.
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Recent polls have Trump leading the GOP field heading into Monday’s caucuses, with a roughly 6-point margin over Cruz.
Trump was his typically blustery self Thursday night, but it’s within the margin of possibility that some percentage of Iowa voters take offense at his dissing their only GOP debate in this cycle.
Trump has an “odd-ball coalition” of Republicans that includes moderates and those who describe themselves as mainstream party members, Selzer said.
“Ted Cruz may not be a US citizen, right?”
“He really got pummeled last night”.
“You don’t get 30 seconds to respond”.
“Well, you know, you were joking just before we went on air that it was sort of like Voldermort, He Who Must Not Be Named”, Cruz mentioned in a post-debate interview with Kelly.
As Trump told it, Fox News was still begging him to reconsider even late last night and that he “wanted to do it, frankly”. “The entire lead up to this debate was talking about whether Donald Trump is going to show up for the next debate”.
“When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights”, Trump said in explaining he was skipping the debate because he felt Fox News had dealt with him unfairly.
Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate not in attendance to get a boost from the debate.
“We’ll see”, said Dr. Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. One in five acknowledged concern about Cruz’s eligibility, given that he was born in Canada – another line of attack from Trump. He boycotted the debate after a longstanding feud with moderator Megyn Kelly and said satirical statements the network released this week pushed him over the edge. “If Marco Rubio were to win, that would be a shock”. The appearance of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, both of whom arrived after the undercard debate had concluded, added legitimacy, if not star power, to Trump’s event.
The State Department said they were not marked classified at the time that they were sent, but her opponents said leaving them stored on her private email server was a security breach and said she should be prosecuted.
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“If you guys ask one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage”, Cruz said.
