Presidential Candidates Make A Last Campaign Push Ahead Of Iowa Caucus

By aaroncynic in News on Feb 1, 2016 8:22PM

Though it’s been in full swing for what seems like forever, the presidential primary kicks into high gear tonight as the nation turns its eyes to the Iowa caucus, the first opportunity for candidates to see how well their talking points transform into votes.

Campaign volunteers and candidates have been crisscrossing the state pushing for last minute votes. In Waterloo, Iowa, potential Republican frontrunner and carnival barker Donald Trump, who lead the pack of candidates with 28 percent in the last Des Moines Register poll, took shots at his closest rival, Ted Cruz. “He will destroy your ethanol business 100 percent,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “One hundred percent. He’s financed by oil people and the oil people don’t want ethanol, it’s very simple. Your ethanol business, if Ted Cruz gets in, will be wiped out within six months to a year.”

Though Cruz only trails Trump by 5 percent of the overall vote, which becomes much closer as demographics are drilled down, the Texas wenator hasn’t had the easiest time at speaking events in the last couple days. A heckler at a Des Moines event on Sunday was escorted out after shouting that Cruz “looks so weird, and his 7-year old daughter rebuffed a kiss from her dad in a very awkward moment caught on video. Monday, one man rowed his way through a speech Cruz gave at a community center in Jefferson.

Rowing dude don't care about the Iowa caucuses pic.twitter.com/dlCLalpTcr

— Jon Ward (@jonward11) February 1, 2016

Meanwhile, the race for a clear Democratic frontrunner couldn’t be tighter. The Des Moines Iowa Register poll over the weekend put Clinton ahead of the Vermont Senator, but only slightly, with 45 percent saying they’d back Clinton and 42 saying they’d back Sanders. Former Maryland Governor only polls at three percent, but that three percent could make a huge difference. Democrats use a “viability threshold,” meaning that if O’Malley doesn’t make the threshold, his supporters can re-caucus on behalf of either Sanders or Clinton.

“I'm a little bit scarred up, but I'm still standing and I think that kind of experience will really do me well in this campaign,” Clinton told CBS.

Sanders said that even if he gets edged out by Clinton Monday night in Iowa, the Iowa caucus is just one small part in a very long campaign for a candidate to take the White House. "If she ends up with two delegates more — there are many, many hundreds of delegates — you tell me why that is the end of the world?" Sanders, who said he has spoken to 70,000 people at more than 100 town hall meetings in Iowa, told the New York Times. "I think she would say exactly the same thing."