New polls show Trump, Cruz in battle

A new Iowa poll by Monmouth University shows Cruz with 24 percent of GOP support, while Trump is at 19 percent.

Here are six takeaways from the two surveys.

“Our goal is to unite conservatives around Ted Cruz”, Vander Plaats said Thursday in the rotunda of the Iowa state capitol. “And (Trump) probably espouses that better than anybody else”. Rubio was next at 16 percent, followed by Carson at 15 percent.

But still, Trump’s lead holds even among only those voters who express the most interest in attending the caucus or the most regular past participation in presidential caucuses.

Cruz is also leading among voters who identify as “tea party supporters”, 36 percent, and male voters, 29 percent. Trump’s support overall has remained constant, with him seeing a one percent rise since October.Marco Rubio, the fresh-faced senator from Florida, is seen by many as the favorite of the party establishment given the lackluster showing on the campaign trail so far of his state’s former governor Jeb Bush.

And in Des Moines last Saturday, Cruz announced the “Cruz Crew Strike Force” and opening of “Camp Cruz”, rented apartments to lodge hundreds of volunteers from across the country coming to campaign for Cruz in Iowa.

In some corners, the prospect of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee is downright scary – to Republicans.

Cruz’s support in both polls is significant higher than it was earlier, whether he is in first or second place. Trump, jiu-jitsu master, is likely to flip that around and charge that Cruz is the candidate who is fatally flawed.

Ted Cruz, as of today, has the most direct route to the Republican presidential nomination – assuming the past history of Republican nomination fights works as a broad predictor of where this race is headed.

Real-estate magnate Donald Trump tweeted a challenge to Sen. “Every one of us who is running is being assessed by the voters under that metric, and that is exactly why we have a democratic election to make that determination”.

Iowa allows participants in the caucuses to register at any time before the caucus, including on-site just before it begins. Graham criticized Cruz for not outright condemning Trump’s comments, merely saying Trump’s policy was not his own. She sits at more than 56 percent, putting her 25 points ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Likewise, Iowa’s likely caucusgoers are more likely to think that Sanders would do the most to help the middle class (50%) than to say Clinton would (43%), a question that split national Democrats nearly evenly (47% Clinton to 44% Sanders).

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The telephone survey of 425 likely participants in the Iowa caucuses has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 per cent.