“Vote for anyone but Cruz,” declared the much-vaunted Iowa establishment governor, Terry Branstad. Between Trump, the establishment, and Fox News, they threw everything they had at him in the months preceding the 2016 Iowa Caucus.We heard it all: birtherism, ethanol, Goldman Sachs loans, the Palin endorsement, Cruz supposedly losing every debate, the Santorum/Huckabee sniping, the entire establishment ganging up to defeat him. Then we were told that even if Cruz wins Iowa, a victory would only occur in the event of low turnout. After all, the newbies will all be for Trump. Well, Cruz won with a record turnout, projected to be near 180,000. It also appears that Cruz will break Mike Huckabee’s previous record of the most total votes received by the caucus winner. And he did it in an eleven-person race.
Nobody is really suprised that he won. I honestly figured he would do better than he did in Iowa. Winning only 8 delegates to Trump’s 7 and Rubio’s 7 is not a decisive victory. he invested a lot into Iowa and Iowa is a state tailor made for him and he still only managed to walk away with one more delgate than Cruz or Rubio. I think a lot of people are making more out of that win than there is. In the grands scheme of things, it meant very little.
Lest we forget, he did it the night of the caucus with flat out lies about his opponents.