Your example is apples to oranges.
Carson said he was taking a break from campaigning (not that he was “taking a vacation” from running for president). CNN reported that fact. The other campaigns passed that info along to their people.
Ben received the same number of votes as the polling indicated he would. No votes lost = no votes stolen = you are wrong.
"Ben received the same number of votes as the polling indicated he would."
A silly rationale. Here's why. The caucus is an real event with real consequences. Any tampering during that event is actionable whether it results in damages or not. A poll is a guess, a hypothetical, a possible outcome of that event. Using that "guess" to quantify damages, or a lack thereof, particularly when the history of such data is laughably inaccurate, is absurd.
Problem is Cruz apologized, which is acknowledging that possible damages did occur.
IMO Cruz was going to win. What's surprising is how slim the margin is.