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.
My reference to the “lack of grasp of politics” was in response to one of many statements that all Iowa did was give Cruz a single delegate more than Trump.
Clearly it did more than that, and anyone who has a grasp of politics, and is honest, would know that.
You are someone who has been around for years on Freerepublic and has always had a good grip on the state of an upcoming election. I don’t always agree with you, but then you don’t go around saying things like “Iowa means nothing”.
No one suggesting there are no evangelicals in NH or SC, they are in every state, but they aren’t in such numbers.. IA they are 60% of the electorate... so while Cruz got a lot of them, he didn’t get all of them.
The rest of the states don’t have that many, and if that’s where Cruz got the bulk of his Iowa support from, then he won’t do is well in other states, simply because there aren’t as many of them in other states.
I don’t hate anyone, but frankly what I do hate, is how ever 4 years this place turns into a nuthouse as folks go insane for this or that candidate.
Ideologically I like Cruz, but my analysis tells me he’s the weakest general election candidate of the lot. Trump will cross over and pull democrats and blue collar independents that Cruz has no shot at. Trump can break the EC firewall that the Dems have created in the upper midwest, mid atlantic and north east... Cruz and Rubio can not.
I congratulate Cruz on his win in IA, but I don’t think it changes much of the long game. I’ve said many times here, I fully expected Trmump to lose Iowa, the Caucus format itself favors the tranditional/establishment politician over an outsider.
IA also has a history of picking the most evangelical candidate, and history held true last night as well. A win in IA for Trump would have been a massive upset, and him scoring as well as he did in a caucus format, shows very solid support, regardless of what the pundits will say. Rubio tried to turn himself into the second coming and still could not take out the New Yorker who has never claimed to be an evangelical in his life.
Politically Rubio was the big winner last night as far as I see it, like it or not, he now has the ability to argue that he is the one and only establishment candidate, and that that is where the establishment money should go, and that the other yahoos should withdraw and endorce him.
Will it change the long game? I don’t think so. NH will be the bellweather on where this thing is going to go. Cruz or Rubio win NH, then there is a strong argument that Trump may be done... but if Trump performs as polls suggest in a state with standard balloting, then he runs the table.
Its politics, so anything can happen... Just a week to see if IA changed anything in the long game.
No big deal really, 2nd was expected and only 3-4 points behind the winner is actually quite good for no ground game and Cruz being the natural recipient of the 60% evangelical vote.
Iowa is meaningless for Republicans, especially in a crowded field. Has been for decades.
Admittedly I haven’t researched this at all, but I’d speculate that would be the biggest bump for Rubio.
take care
Trouble ahead, trouble behind, And you know that notion just crossed my mind.
Cruz has been going to Iowa sine 2013. He spent a lot of time there.
He was still a Canadian Citizen when he was traipsing around Iowa..
Western Canada is pretty much like the US.
It’s not like Ted was in Montreal or such...
Well, I guess its a matter of perspective, the problem with FR during primary season is far too many folks get too invested personally with a candidate and react emotionally to things they really shouldn’t.
I’ve said what I think IA means, I could be wrong, elections are not science because they revolve around people, and as the saying goes, man is a reasoning, not a reasonable creature.
Cruz won, that something, whether it turns into something big, has yet to be determined. Trump performed well given the nature of the Caucus format and he is an outsider candidate. Rubio, as I stated, I think is the big winner of the night, he outperformed his polling, and can now clearly make the argument to the establishment, I am the guy.... you need to give me your money, and get the rest of these also ran establishment guys to drop out and endorce me. That is the biggest win out of IA in my opinion.
I don’t think you are going to see some of the guys pull out before NH, but a few of them will and Rubio will likely be the biggest winner when they do. If Rubio scores well in NH as well, and Trump and Cruz both underperform there, then most of the other big establishment names will almost certainly pull out and Rubio will be the biggest gainer of that.
The way I see it, Trump and Cruz will gain little as the other dominoes fall. Carson’s backers may go Cruz/Trump over Rubio... Cristie supporters I would think would tend Trump but those are the only 2 I can think of in the race that are likely to swing toward them.
So Cruz and Trump have to stay over 50% combined to keep Rubio out, as their supporters will more likely than not go to the other over Rubio when one of them leaves the race.. However, the longer it takes for one of them to bow out, the more likey we are to wind up with Rubio with a plurality but not a majority.... Assuming they both stay competitive with each other in coming states.
Combined staying over 50, with Rubio in the hunt at 20-30s himself, and he winds up winning in a plurality even though its mathematically possible for him to never outright win a state. A doubtful scenario, but a scenario none the less.
The end game though is simple, if Trump or Cruz head into the convention without enough delegates for an outright nomination, then the party will almost certainly put the crown on Rubios head, and in doing so, disenfranchise about 1/2 to 2/3 of their.
I don’t think it will come to that point, but NH next week will tell a bit more about where this could be going next.
Republican Michele Bachmann (2012) and Democrat Chris Dodd (2008) spent a lot more time in Iowa than Cruz did for 2016. Showing up gets nothing.
He wasn’t Godly enough for the Democrat state of Iowa.
Loss?? It was within the margin of expected error. The real loss was that Cruz and Trump support went to Rubio instead, who did much better than expected.
Some of that movement came after Meygan Kelly campaigned for Rubio in the last debate.
FR THREAD: No, Ted Cruz Did NOT Support Amnesty, Concedes Megyn Kelly AFTER #GOPDebate
That may be, but it still stands that Rubio did much better than expected. That creates interests in him in the next election. He did well enough to pull ahead, as he certainly didn’t do so poorly as to be discounted out of the race.
Having an extra 50,000 people show up will prove helpful in the general election. I don’t like Trump at all but am happy he is bringing new people in to the party.
You are correct.
Bullcrap. This conservative is sick of electing the same old tired lawyer/political type that says what they need to say to get elected and then does jack squat in office. Ted Cruz is just the next of these types to step up to the plate and accomplish NOTHING.
These numbers do not lie.
Trump is a better manager of resources.
Big-spender ted will just continue the financial destruction of this country through his economic ineptitude.
Their job is to enforce laws, not to make them or remake society.
So people who promise to do all sorts of radical things once elected are either deceiving you or telling you they intend to overstep their constitutional bounds.
But even if presidents were dictators, it's unlikely that Donald Trump would be an effective one.
Few people are more about talk and less about action than Donald Trump.
He is a promoter, a hype man. Every time he has ventured outside of the New York City or outside of NYC real estate - in other words, outside of the skills of the team he inherited from his father - he has failed, and has had to be bailed out by a stronger partner or filed bankruptcy.
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