The story breaking while Cruz was at a SC campaign event.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points to the audience as he speaks during a campaign rally at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Fla., Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016.
The first Republican presidential debate of 2016 is set for tonight.
A bunch of factors have conspired to make the fighting particularly nasty in the home stretch before Iowa’s February 1 caucus – relative parity in the polls between the candidates, Donald Trump, a flood of super PAC money, widening ideological divisions within the party, Donald Trump again. Cruz had previously said that he and his wife liquidated “our entire net worth” to finance his underdog Senate bid. The ad also played footage of a Bush supporter who said Trump’s criticism of the disabled reporter had inspired him to get behind the former governor. “And others are cautious about expressing this, because God forbid you get into a Twitter war with a guy who has a lot of free time on his hands, I guess”.
Polls suggest that Trump’s attacks on Cruz are moving the needle in Iowa.
Trump offered a more measured response to rival Ted Cruz. They tell me those loans were all completely done appropriately.
In an interview on the Howie Carr Show Cruz on Tuesday said Trump “comes from NY and he embodies NY values”.
Though the two biggest anti-establishment candidates were surprisingly cordial to each other throughout 2015, with Cruz tactfully building momentum in Trump’s slipstream, the battle between the two stopped being friendly when Cruz began surging in Iowa at the beginning of the year, eating into Trump’s lead.
The Republican divide has given definition to a race that has been otherwise unwieldy and chaotic.
A Monmouth University poll released Monday in New Hampshire has Trump leading at 32%, followed by Cruz and Kasich at 14%, Rubio with 12%, Christie at 8% and Bush.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been among the few establishment Republicans jabbing Trump in recent weeks. In a likely preview of his debate tactics, Bush sharply criticized Trump on Wednesday for holding positions on taxes, guns and health care that he says are out of step with conservatives.
“He’s going to be running and people are going to be suing to say that he’s not allowed to run”, Trump said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday. “For a conservative party we need to elect a conservative”.
Bush’s vow to champion conservative principles to counter Trump’s rise came hours before President Barack Obama condemned “voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background”, in his final State of the Union address.
The main debate with seven candidates begins at 9 p.m. on the Fox Business Network. Right now, arguably, that’s happening among the four Republicans aiming to win the establishment lane – Chris Christie, R-N.J, Jeb Bush, R-Fla., Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and John Kasich, R-Ohio.
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Christie is enjoying a burst of momentum in New Hampshire, where he’s devoted significant time to courting the state’s quirky blend of moderate and libertarian voters.
