Drawing a contrast with less well-resourced candidates, Cruz often told reporters that he did not view Iowa as a “must win”, stressing that he could run a nationally-focused campaign.
Advertisement
Soon after the latest Iowa Poll was released, Hagle said one concern for Cruz may be taking this large of a lead with plenty of time left in the game.
Donald Trump, now 10 points below Cruz, was in a pique about not being front-runner even before the Iowa Poll results were announced Saturday evening.
Carson fares worst in this poll, having dropped 15 points from the October poll.
Support for the junior senator from Texas has soared to 31 percent among those likely to attend the February caucuses that kick off the Republican presidential nomination process.
Asked about published reports indicating Republican Party leaders have discussed how to manage the Republican National Convention next summer if delegates will be called upon to choose the party’s presidential nominee in a brokered convention, Trump said he expected to know in a month or two if the GOP establishment plans to treat him fairly in the nominating process.
“New CNN Iowa poll — Trump 33, Cruz 20”.
The Trump campaign insists it will still ultimately have the highest turnout of support on caucus night, rendering the polls ineffective.
Cruz has spent 13 days been in Iowa since the beginning of October and had over 40 events. Cruz hits 51% support when first- and second-choice interest is combined, again leading the field. In a four-way head-to-head match-up with Cruz, Carson and Marco Rubio, half of likely caucusgoers believe Trump would be best at managing the economy and think he’d do the most to solve the illegal immigration problem. He said not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba, where Cruz’s father was born. Among Cruz supporters, just 43 percent said they are committed to supporting him, while 55 percent said they could still be persuaded to support another candidate. The 2008 race was somewhere between those two. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
The poll, which was conducted from December 7 to 10, surveyed 400 likely Republican caucus participants. Vander Plaats’ support of Cruz was hailed as the third crucial endorsement for the Texas senator, with news outlets trumpeting that Cruz had won the “trifecta” of sure conservative voices which could help sway voters to support his candidacy.
Advertisement
Compared to some of Trump’s typical barrages against his opponents, which often include long-winded and humorous asides, his comments about Cruz on Friday were restrained and concrete. At the very least, Cruz will need to handle the additional attention that he’ll get (and has already been getting from Rubio).
