Cruz’s appearance in SC – which doesn’t hold its primary for another three weeks – instead of New Hampshire, which votes next Tuesday, is for a reason: the Cruz gameplan relies on him besting Donald Trump here.
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The emergence of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who finished a close third, however, keeps the hopes of conventional Republicans alive – that they could stop the nomination of Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump, both considered insurgents and out of tune with the party’s traditional base.
“I think he’s done pretty well from the start”, said Eli Johnson, 33, from nearby Brookline, New Hampshire.
“What the American people have said…is we can no longer continue to have a corrupt campaign finance system!”
“And finally, Cruz strongly told thousands of caucus-goers (voters) that Trump was strongly in favor of ObamaCare and “choice” – a total lie”, Trump wrote, before concluding the rant with an extraordinary demand.
Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, he said his campaign “didn’t have much of a ground game because I didn’t think I was going to be winning”. Donald Trump spent half a million on hats (far more than he did on voter data or outreach).
A few minutes after the Associated Press called the race for Cruz, Rubio took the stage in Iowa.
Iowa caucusgoers at multiple precincts told the Register that Cruz representatives who gave speeches announced Carson was suspending his campaign.
Cruz has celebrated the results as an affirmation of his turnout operation and his contention that the GOP electorate wants a “true conservative” as its nominee. That was about a fifth of Monday’s caucus crowd; Rubio attracted 44 percent of them to Trump’s 24 percent and Cruz’s 22 percent.
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It was four hours after the event-around 3:40 A.M. Tuesday morning- that the Iowa Democratic Party and NBC News declared Clinton the apparent victor of the caucuses. But 58 percent of those between 45 and 64 and 69 percent of those 65 and older came out to support Clinton. They accounted for just 1 in 10 caucus attendees, and white voters also dominate New Hampshire. His 23 percent of the vote Monday was a stunning 7 points higher than precaucus polling.
