But Trump, who has earned a reputation for upending pundits’ predictions, still has healthy backing, at 21%, 2 percentage points higher than in the last poll.
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While the poll was only the second to show Cruz leading in the Hawkeye State, it was conducted by respected pollster Ann Selzer, who is considered the gold standard in measuring the attitudes of the Iowa electorate. Ted Cruz has consistently refused to criticize the real estate mogul, calling him a “good friend” and refusing to “blast” him. And Trump, in turn, has spared Cruz from the missiles he’s aimed at almost every other rival.
“I think this is, this is really the fruits of work that we have been doing for eight months now, systematically doing the long slow steady work of building a grassroots army”, Cruz said in SC.
Trump has often derided the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper, as biased against him.
Cruz does have a fault, according to Trump: oil. Cruz’s father was a refugee from Cuba.
The coverage of his Friday night rally in Des Moines, Iowa has further exposed the uncomfortable truth that our mainstream media has a blind spot on race that blots out the sun. “Either win or finish in the top three”, Richard Schwarm, the former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party told ABC News. Independent groups there are beginning to spend money against Cruz for his position, which Trump told a questioner was “anti-Iowa”.
Carly Fiorina has also faded as the pre-primary battle hits the home stretch.
Ben Carson dropped to third place with 13%.
Rubio, a Florida U.S. senator who has framed himself as someone who can deliver “a new American century”, is in fourth place with 10%.
Outside the rally, about a dozen Iowans gathered to protest Trump’s appearance in Iowa while one man briefly disrupted the rally inside the fairgrounds’ building before he was removed by security officers while supporters shouted “Trump” and “USA”.
Like Carson then, Cruz just started to surge in Iowa, the influential first caucus state, though a pair of recent polls disagreed about whether Trump or Cruz was ahead there. “I mean, everything I say he agrees with me, no matter what I say”, Trump began. “It’s no surprise a candidate like this – who never went without health care – wants to repeal it and throw these people back into emergency rooms and clinics”, she said.
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And while the Texas governor was likely just exaggerating for the crowd, his comments should be a reminder that Trump isn’t the only one making bombastic statements about the Middle East and the global struggle against extremism. Trump reciprocated on Friday evening.
