Posted on 02/02/2016 5:31:18 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa -- Donald Trump's supporters showed up at the Sheraton Monday night fully expecting their man to win the Iowa caucuses. And why shouldn't they? Trump had held a lead of varying sizes in 13 of the last 13 polls listed in the RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls. How could that not win?
"Beats the hell out of me," said Michelle Tepley, a Trump fan from Waukee. "It doesn't make any sense."
"Sad," said Kimberly Hawn of West Des Moines.
"I don't know, I don't know," said Steve Brewer of Norwalk.
Months ago, before Trump took the lead in Iowa, a number of analysts argued that he wasn't a "good fit" for the state's Republican electorate, made up heavily of voters who describe themselves as born-again evangelical Christians. Then Trump took the lead and -- in the polls at least -- fought off challenges from Ben Carson and eventual winner Ted Cruz. So analysts thought Trump might not be so bad a fit after all.
But on caucus night, some of Trump's supporters returned to the old "bad fit" theory to explain Trump's surprise loss.
"It was the evangelicals," said Dick Stoffer of West Des Moines. "They've done it before -- they did it four years before with Santorum, they did it with Huckabee before that."
"The evangelicals," said Carol Anne Tracy of West Des Moines. "We've got a lot of evangelicals, and I just don't think they felt that [Trump] praised God enough."
"It's happened before -- the guy with the biggest Bible wins Iowa," said Ken Crow, a Tea Party activist from Winterset.
The caucus results -- Trump soundly beaten by Cruz, finishing barely ahead of Marco Rubio -- seemed to confirm another nagging suspicion about the Trump campaign: that it had not paid sufficient attention to turning out its voters.
Most of the people at the Trump event had attended caucuses earlier in the evening. At those caucuses, the presiding officer asked whether there was a representative from each campaign present to speak, and, if not, whether anyone attending would like to speak on a particular candidate's behalf. At the caucus I attended, in Pleasant Hill, a suburb just east of Des Moines, there was no one to speak for Trump -- no representative of the campaign -- and no voter willing to stand up and speak on his behalf. (The precinct ended in a Cruz landslide: 110 votes for the Texas senator, versus 36 for Trump and 34 for Rubio.)
At the Sheraton, some Trump supporters had similar stories.
"We were at a caucus and Trump didn't even have anyone there to speak for him," one man told me.
"That's insane," added a man nearby.
You need to read my posts. I will again repost it. This was stated by his national campaign director after the dust-up with Rubio over immigration.
These are not my words. They stand alone to explain Cruz’s views on immigration. Don’t post all that crap, it clutters things up.
As I write, there is an ad calling for “immigration reform” on the radio. It calls for pathway to citizenship.
from Washington Examiner, Bryon York, 12/16/15 (Byron York - Rubio battle makes GOP immigration muddle worse, not better):
“I’m here tonight, and I want to make this super clear to everybody, so put me on the record on this: Sen. Cruz unequivocally, unequivocally, does not support legalization,” national campaign chairman Chad Sweet told the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker after the debate. When Drucker asked what Cruz would do with the 11 or 12 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Sweet answered, “His plan is attrition through enforcement. He’s following the rule of law...If we enforce the law, ultimately there will be attrition through enforcement. And in the end, though, what the senator is trying to do, as well, is save and expand our legal immigration system.”
“His plan is attrition through enforcement. He’s following the rule of law...If we enforce the law, ultimately there will be attrition through enforcement. And in the end, though, what the senator is trying to do, as well, is save and expand our legal immigration system.”
Where have I heard that before...Oh that’s right Romney!
Like the trouble it caused Ronald Reagan & George W. Bush?
Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3%, Rubio 23.1%
So, Cruz being ahead by 3.3% is a "sound beating", while Trump beating Rubio by 1.2% is "barely ahead"?
What are you doing back? I thought you had enough of FR and ran off to your fellow ‘constipated conservatives’ over at the other site?
you’re utterly shameless.
One of the big stories out of Iowa was the turnout. We had a Yuge and record turnout. Cruz still won. Trump was supposed to win if the turnout was this big.
Yep. Trump managed his funds so well that he didn’t win.
How about that!
Someone should say, "You're fired!"
Looked up the numbers:
“Iowa voters showed up to their caucuses Monday night in record numbers, party officials said.
The Iowa Republican Party says they have officially broken previous turnout numbers, setting a new record tonight.
ABC News estimates that turnout for the Republican caucuses will be more than 180,000, compared to the previous record of 121,354, set in 2012.”......
He’d have been schlonged even worse.
You’re living in a dream land if you think it was all about the number of delegates won.
Second, it destroyed the theme that Cruz couldn’t win. That has been a constant refrain from his detractor. “Yes, he says all the right things, but what has he done? He hasn’t had any victories! He can’t beat Clinton in the general election.†That would have picked up steam if Trump had won Iowa. Cruz put that theme to rest last night.
Nobody said Cruz couldn’t win Iowa. After Santorum and Huckabee? That’s a laughable suggestion.
2/3 of those who went to the polls said Illegal Immigration mattered.. its the 1/3 of idiot establishment candidates that are the problem.
It wasn’t just that “Cruz couldn’t win Iowa” (which was claimed plenty here) it’s that “Cruz doesn’t win anything!”
The assertion being that Cruz is big on talk but not on results.
That theme was destroyed last night.
Anytime someone asks “What has Cruz done?” the answer can now be “He won Iowa when he was down in the polls.”
Ummmm, Iowa is about corn, and wheat, and soybeans.
Migrant workers work in vegetable and fruit fields.
Iowa farmers use combines and harvesters to bring in their crop. They don’t use immigrants.
Lack of grasp of Politics?
I stated from the outset that Trump winning Iowa would be a huge upset, and that I did not expect him to win there.
Iowa traditionally picks the most evangelical candidate, and that’s what they did yesterday... And Rubio pulled himself out of a funk by pretending he was the second coming for the past few weeks, and got enough of IA voters to believe it.
The Caucus format by definition supports the traditional/establishment candidates over the outside candidates.
The question is can Cruz turn IA into anything by the time NH votes in a week? I don’t think so, but time will tell. Rubio was the big winner last night, clearly he can now get the establishment money and machine to fully gather around him... Can he drastically change the calculus by NH? Don’t know....
I don’t think anything drastically changed last night, I still say Trump runs the rest of the table, now that the rest of the votes are traditional secret ballot box situations. But its politics so who knows... I don’t see Cruz’s win as a drastic shift... Rubio however clearly has the claim, I am the establishment candidate, the rest of you guys need to bow out and endorce me.
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