Guests include, Mike Barnicle, Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, Steve Rattner, Jennifer Jacobs, Kasie Hunt, Donald Trump, Ann Selzer, Tom Brokaw, Steve Schmidt, Gov. Chris Christie, Chuck Todd, Nicolle Wallace, Chris Jansing, Sen. Joni Ernst, Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Hallie Jackson, Robert Costa, Kristen Welker, Fmr. Sen. Tom Harkin, Gov. Terry Branstad, Fmr. Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Rand Paul and in Taji, Japan, Boats struggled to gain control of pod. They have pushed the pod around the point and are now in front of the harbor. A small pod of Risso Dolphins now netted and being slaughtered in the cove. The Skiff leaves cove towing dead bodies 2016-01-02 12.35pm #dolphinproject #tweet4dolphins.
Iowa Caucus: Road to the White House Starts in Hawkeye State. The presidential nomination process officially gets underway Monday when Iowa holds its first-in-the-nation caucuses in the 99 counties across the state.
CNN/WMUR poll: Trump, Sanders still up in New Hampshire. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump maintain wide leads in their respective primary races in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
On the Republican side, Trump continues to hold more than double the support of his nearest competitor, while the race for second and third place remains muddled: Just 6 points separate the second place candidate from the one in fifth place.
Overall, 30% of likely Republican primary voters back Trump, and behind him, the field vying for second includes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 12%, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 11%, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 9%, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 8% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 6%.
Still, the sense of Trump's inevitability has grown, and two-thirds of likely GOP primary voters now say they expect the businessman to win the state's primary. No other candidate hits double-digits.
Republican primary voters in New Hampshire are less conservative than those in other early states. Just over half of New Hampshire GOP primary voters in 2012 and 2008 said they considered themselves conservative according to exit polls, well below the more than 8-in-10 who said so in Iowa and roughly 7-in-10 in South Carolina.
That larger group of moderate and liberal likely primary voters is less settled in its choices (35% say they've definitely decided, compared with 42% of conservatives), and less likely to back either of the two national front-runners - Trump and Cruz.
A majority of conservative likely voters say they support either Trump or Cruz, while the same two candidates combine for less than 30% of moderate or liberal primary voters. John Kasich lands in second place among the moderate or liberal group with 15%, Rubio has 11%, Christie 10% and Bush 9%.
Trump continues to top the list of candidates likely Republican primary voters say they would never support, 35% say so, including 47% of those moderate or liberal voters. Bush follows, with 12% saying they would never vote for the former Florida governor, including 19% of those on the conservative side.
In the Democratic race, Sanders continues to lead Hillary Clinton by a wide margin, 57% to 34% in the new poll. Those likely to vote in the Democratic primary are more apt than those on the GOP side to say they have made up their minds about whom to support (58% of likely Democratic voters say their choice is locked in vs. 39% of Republican likely voters).
Sanders holds an edge across nearly all demographic groups measured in the poll, though Clinton fares better among women than men, and she splits voters age 65 or older with Sanders about evenly, while trailing Sanders by a significant margin among younger voters.
And although a December CNN/WMUR poll found expectations then tilted Clinton's way, Sanders' streak of strong poll results appears to have changed that, with 54% of likely Democratic voters now saying they think Sanders will win the state's primary on Feb. 9, and just 31% now predicting a Clinton win.
The CNN/WMUR poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center by telephone from Jan. 27-30. The poll includes interviews with a random sample of 914 adult residents of New Hampshire, including 409 who say they plan to vote in the Republican presidential primary and 347 who say they plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. For results among the sample of likely Republican primary voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.8 percentage points, it is 5.3 for results among likely Democratic voters.
Franklin Pierce-Herald Poll: Rivals need Iowa win to catch Trump, Sanders in N.H.
Hillary Clinton Equates ‘Top Secret’ Email Controversy to Republicans Attacks Over Benghazi. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton compared the recent controversy over her emails deemed to contain "top secret" information by the State Department to Republican attacks over Benghazi.
The State Department on Friday refused to release 22 of the former Secretary of State’s emails, deeming they contained “top secret” information. It’s unclear what information was in those emails, but it was the first time the State Department acknowledged Clinton’s email correspondence contained “top secret” information, pushing the issue back into the spotlight just days before the first votes of the 2016 election are cast.
“This is very much like Benghazi,” Clinton said during an exclusive interview on ABC's “This Week with George Stephanopoulos." “Republicans are going to continue to use it, beat up on me. I understand that. That's the way they are.”
The House Select Committee on Benghazi investigated the 2012 attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans and questioned the former Secretary of State in October. Clinton referenced her testimony on Capitol Hill when asked about the controversy over her emails.
“After eleven hours of testimony, answering every single question in public, which I had requested for many months, I think it's pretty clear they're grasping at straws and this will turn out the same way,” she said.
The State Department's decision came as Clinton is in a tough race in Iowa against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The final poll released before Monday’s caucuses by the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics show the two candidates neck-and-neck with Clinton holding a three-point lead over Sanders within the margin of error.
In a separate interview on "This Week," Sanders declined to attack Clinton over her email use, though he did say she was "getting slapped" by the controversy.
Clinton also asserted no emails with “classified marked information” were sent or received by her during her tenure as Secretary of State. When asked if she believed the release of her emails was political posturing by Republicans, as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. have suggested, Clinton deferred to their comments.
“I'm going to leave that to others who are quite experienced in the ways of Washington to comment on," she said. "I just have to point out that the timing and some of the leaks that have led up to it are concerning."
Clinton again said she wanted all of her emails to be released so people to make their own judgments.
“I just want this matter resolved,” Clinton said. “The best way to resolve is to do what I asked months ago -- release these, let the public see them, and let's move on.”
Blizzard will miss caucuses, still blanket Iowa Tuesday. A Blizzard Watch is in effect for Tuesday for those north and west of the metro. Moderate to heavy snow is expected at times and wind speeds will increase as well. Winds will be strong from the north-northeast at 15 to 25 mph, gusts to 35 mph. Amber Alexander/WHO-HD
UPDATE, 5 A.M. MONDAY: In Polk County, the National Weather Service upgraded a previous winter storm watch to a winter storm warning at about 4:30 a.m. Monday. The warning begins at midnight Tuesday and runs through 6 a.m. Wednesday.
The latest snowfall projections call for 6 to 10 inches in central Iowa, with a foot or more expected north and west of the metro area.
Much of the northwest quarter of Iowa is under a blizzard warning for the same time frame, with snowfall totals of a foot or more expected, in addition to consistent straight-line winds, blowing and snow and heavily reduced visibility.
Iowa caucusgoers should be fine, but Mother Nature just might hold presidential candidates and swarms of national media captive.
A blizzard is expected, but not until after Iowa’s politicking is completed.
That’s right, Iowa, you won’t be able to blame the weather if you shrug off your civic duty.
“Through about 9 p.m. (Monday) it doesn’t look bad or much snow in any location,” said Roger Vachalek, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. “I doubt there will be much of any accumulation by that time. Maybe less than half an inch or so in some areas.”
But come early Tuesday, all that is expected to change with a widespread dump of 6 to 12 inches of snow across much of the state.
And the hardest hit area will include Des Moines, the site of the state’s busiest airport.
By late Sunday, some media types had already changed some of their plans in anticipation of the blizzard. LA Times Reporter Seema Mehta noted that some coworkers had already rebooked from a Tuesday to a Wednesday flight in anticipation of the storm.
As for Mehta, she welcomes the snow. She’s been in Iowa since Jan. 11 and plans to return home following Monday’s events.
“I live in California, so I don’t get to see snow very often,” Mehta said. “I’m actually kind of excited to see the blizzard. I’ve mentioned this to people from D.C., who just had a blizzard, and they look at me like I have two heads.
“I love Des Moines. If I’m stranded here another day or two, that would be great.”
Trump builds Iowa ground game. But, he added, "it all doesn't matter if you don't caucus on Monday. The polls don't matter, nothing matters."
Trump also told crowd members to go to his campaign website if they were unsure of their caucus location -- and said he intended to visit "three or four" sites himself on the night.
Robinson believes Trump’s organization is ready for Monday night because it has been effective in empowering local organizers.
“The Trump campaign is unique in that it appeals to all these new people but they’ve also done a really good job of getting organizers and letting them organize their own communities,” Robinson said. “The average age is over 40, it’s not just young kids.”
There is near-unanimity that the best campaign infrastructure among all the GOP candidates belongs to Curz.
The Cruz campaign’s communications director, Rick Tyler, told The Hill that the campaign had named chairpeople to every one of Iowa’s 99 counties “quite a while back.” He added, “today, we have over 12,000 volunteers averaging 2,000 door-knocks a day, 20,000 calls per day.” The Cruz campaign has a designated precinct captain in “almost all” the 1681 precincts across the state, Tyler said.
There is no other Republican campaign that can compete with those metrics. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to comment on its ground-game for this story. The campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is third in most Iowa polls, has four field offices in the state, according to an aide.
Tyler also emphasized that the Cruz operation is making full use of data-driven techniques. He said technology was not only being utilized to identify Cruz supporters. It was also helping staff and volunteers learn how to most effectively make the argument to persuadable voters on the Texas senator’s behalf.
“Some people like ‘just the facts.’ Others prefer a more aspirational message,” he said.
Cruz also enjoys a more traditional advantage: Evangelicals and other conservative Christians form a bedrock of his support — and they are among the most reliable of all GOP caucus-goers.
Yepsen noted that Iowa’s Christian political networks have been honed over a generation.
“They’ve really been at it since 1988, when Pat Robertson ran so strongly,” he said, adding that Christian conservatives in essence won the caucuses for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) in 2012.
Huckabee and Santorum are both running this year but have struggled badly for traction. Huckabee scores less than three precent support in the current RCP average and Santorum does even worse. Their low ratings are a big plus for Cruz, who has avoided any serious splintering of the evangelical vote — aside, that is, from Trump’s one-of-a-kind candidacy.
Steve Deace, an influential conservative radio host in the state, endorsed Cruz in August. He asserted that the Texan had the strongest ground game of any Republican candidate in Iowa “since at least George W. Bush.”
Deace is also firmly in the skeptics camp when it comes to Trump. Asked whether the business mogul’s supporters will show up on Monday, he said, “That’s the great mystery. If Trump wins in Iowa, it will be with the most anemic organization I have ever seen.”
The wild card on Monday might be Rubio.
Buzz built Saturday that the Florida senator’s campaign is the one with the momentum.
He’s been a much more frequent visitor over the last month than he was during the earlier phase of his bid, and a campaign aide noted that, by caucus night, he will have been in Iowa for eight straight days.
Rubio is attracting growing crowds, and the more moderate, establishment-friendly GOP vote could finally be coalescing around him.
“We’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm,” a campaign aide said. “I think that our momentum is growing at the right time.”
Whatever else changes, one factor remains huge when it comes to turnout: the weather.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Monday forecast for Des Moines projects a cloudy, mild day.
This Is How Ted Cruz Plans to Win in Iowa. The candidate has said his ground game is "unprecedented". It’s little more than 24 hours before the pivotal Iowa caucuses begin, and the presidential campaigns are still going strong. Especially for Ted Cruz, who TIME reporter Alex Altman says digs deep to his religious roots to connect with his conservative voters on the trail.
“Ted, the voice of sanity, in this time of calamity!” a voter exclaims at a campaign stop in a public library in northwest Iowa.
Cruz has been touring several towns in Iowa, and is one of the few candidates who planned to stop in all of the state’s 99 counties.
“This is part of Cruz’s strategy to win it the old fashioned way,” Altman said, “which is to go hand-to-hand in small towns, visit people, and tell them why he wants their vote.”
Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers Are More Fraudulent Than Everyone Thinks. d Cruz’s Presidential campaign prides itself on being data-centric and on integrating insights from political science into its tactics. In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized. The mailer that had the biggest impact included information about the two previous elections and whether the recipient and his or her neighbors participated or not. “We intend to mail an updated chart,” the mailer warned. “You and your neighbors will all know who voted and who did not.”
Insights from the Yale study have since been adopted by several campaigns, including MoveOn, which also faced criticism when it used the tactic to turn out voters for Barack Obama’s reëlection, in 2012. Given its obsession with political science, it’s no surprise that the Cruz campaign decided to adopt the “social pressure” techniques to turn out voters in Iowa for Monday night’s caucuses. On Saturday, Twitter came alive with pictures from voters in the state who received mailers from the Cruz campaign. At the top of the mailers, in a bold red box, are the words “VOTING VIOLATION.” Below that warning is an explanation:
You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record. Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.
Below that, a chart appears with the names of the recipient of the mailing as well as his neighbors and their voting “grade” and “score.”
A further explanation appears below the chart:
Voter registration and voter history records are public records distributed by the Iowa Secretary of State and/or county election clerks. This data is not available for use for commercial purposes – use is limited by law. Scores reflect participation in recent elections. [Emphasis added.]
After seeing the mailers, Iowa’s secretary of state, Paul Pate, issued a statement condemning Cruz’s tactic:
“Today I was shown a piece of literature from the Cruz for President campaign that misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law. Accusing citizens of Iowa of a “voting violation” based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.
Additionally, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office never “grades” voters. Nor does the Secretary of State maintain records related to Iowa Caucus participation. Caucuses are organized and directed by the state political parties, not the Secretary of State, nor local elections officials. Also, the Iowa Secretary of State does not “distribute” voter records. They are available for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”
On Saturday night, Cruz responded. “I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote,” he told reporters during a campaign stop in Sioux City.
The secretary of state was mostly concerned that Cruz’s campaign mailers appeared partially disguised to look like an official communication from the state government. Direct mailers always push these boundaries, and Iowans are bombarded with mail, and one way to get them to open something is to make it look more official. And, in Cruz’s defense, the mailer does clearly indicate that it’s “Paid for by Cruz for President.”
After looking at several mailers posted online, I was more curious about how the Cruz campaign came up with its scores. On all the mailers I saw, every voter listed had only one of three possible scores: fifty-five per cent, sixty-five per cent, or seventy-five per cent, which translate to F, D, and C grades, respectively. Iowans take voting pretty seriously. Why was it that nobody had a higher grade?
In Iowa, although voter-registration information is free and available to the public, voter history is not. That information is maintained by the secretary of state, who licenses it to campaigns, super PACs, polling firms, and any other entity that might want it. So was the Cruz campaign accurately portraying the voter histories of Iowans? Or did it simply make up the numbers?
It seems to have made them up. Dave Peterson, a political scientist at Iowa State University who is well-acquainted with the research on “social pressure” turnout techniques, received a mailer last week. The Cruz campaign pegged his voting percentage at fifty-five per cent, which seems to be the most common score that the campaign gives out. (All of the neighbors listed on Peterson’s mailer also received a score of fifty-five per cent.)
Peterson, who is actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, moved to Iowa in 2009. He told me that he has voted in three out of the last three general elections and in two out of the last three primaries.
“There are other people listed on my mailer who live in my neighborhood that are all different ages, but everyone on this sheet has the same score of fifty-five per cent,” he said. “Some are significantly younger and would have not been eligible to vote in these elections, and others are older and have voted consistently, going back years. There is no way to get to us all having the same score.” (Peterson also spoke with Mother Jones.)
If the Cruz campaign based its score on local elections, Peterson said, the number also wouldn’t make sense, based on his participation in those elections as well. A source with access to the Iowa voter file told me that he checked several other names on Cruz mailers and that the voting histories of those individuals did not match the scores that the Cruz campaign assigned them in the mailer.
A mailer template used by the Rubio campaign also seeks to mobilize voters via “social pressure.”
I e-mailed Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for the Cruz campaign, and asked her what the campaign’s methodology was for arriving at its voting scores and whether the scores were fraudulent. “This was a mailer designed from public information and modeled on past successful mailers used by the Iowa GOP to turn out voters, so that we can have as high of a turnout as possible on caucus day,” she said. “I’ll leave it at that.” She did not explain the methodology used, nor did she answer my question about whether the numbers were made up.
The political scientist Lynn Vavreck, the co-author of “The Gamble,” a book the Cruz campaign has publicly stated it has studied for its strategic insights, said there was a major difference between the 2008 study in Michigan and what Cruz is doing in Iowa. “In the political-science work published in the American Political Science Review,” she said, “the mailing listed the elections (three of them) in which voters’ histories were being observed—and listed whether the secretary of state recorded that the voter participated that year. So it was more transparent than the Cruz mailer, which implied that it used public records but delivered voters letter grades, which are not part of the official file.”
It’s unclear how many Iowans received the Cruz mailers. Ideally, the mailers would go to potential caucus-goers who are leaning toward the Texas senator and just need some additional incentive to participate. In at least one case, that backfired. Independent Journal Review reported that one Iowan who received the Cruz mailer will now caucus for Marco Rubio.
Rubio’s campaign also sent out a mailer that employs social pressure to induce participation in the caucuses, but, notably, the Rubio campaign did not mention the names of the target voter’s neighbors.
The Cruz mailers have been widely condemned by Iowans. “I just wonder how many of these went out to people who might seriously believe they committed a violation or were embarrassed that their neighbors might know about their alleged voting record,” Braddock Massey, a Rubio supporter who lives in West Des Moines and received one of the mailers, said.
Donna Holstein, who was listed on one of them, was upset to learn that she had been given a failing grade and that her neighbors might be told whether she participates in the caucus. She told me that she has voted consistently but that she can’t this time because of a disability.
“I’m crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”
Marco Rubio Echoes Ted Cruz’s Tactic, but Without Controversy. Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign sent select Iowa voters a mailer designed to pressure them to attend Monday’s caucuses — a tactic employed controversially by the Ted Cruz campaign — but without sharing information on their neighbors or with official-sounding language.
The mailer, shared with TIME, is branded as an “Iowa Caucus Report Card” listing the name and address of the recipient, as well as their voting history in prior caucuses, adding, “Improve your score by caucusing on Monday, February 1st.”
The tactic is part of a political science-inspired effort to boost turnout that has gained prevalence in recent years.
But the tone of the Rubio message is sharply different from that of the Cruz effort, which appeared designed to mimic a government mailer and accused voters of a “voting violation.” It also included information on voters’ neighbors, drawing privacy concerns. The Cruz message drew condemnation from Iowa’s secretary of state, but the candidate defended the tactic Saturday.
“I will apologize to nobody for using every tool we can to encourage Iowans to come out and vote,” Cruz told reporters.
Donald Trump is being interviewed on the show right now and he says that he will show up in person to caucus live with everyone in Iowa. That, to me, will and should help with regard to his turn out tonight. People may just want to come out and show up just to be able to see him and to be near him. Its a brilliant play.
Iowa Caucus: Road to the White House Starts in Hawkeye State. The presidential nomination process officially gets underway Monday when Iowa holds its first-in-the-nation caucuses in the 99 counties across the state.
The basics
- When they vote: The caucuses start at 8 p.m. ET. at 1,681 precincts around Iowa
- Delegates up for grabs: 30 bound GOP delegates, awarded proportionally (though the actual delegates are selected at later conventions); 44 delegates up for grabs in the Democratic race plus an additional 8 super-delegates. How they are selected vary greatly by party.
- The polls: The latest NBC News polling has Donald Trump leading the Republican race, and Hillary Clinton narrowly ahead of Bernie Sanders on the Democrats side.
- Full coverage: Every angle on the races can be found at Decision 2016.
On the Republican side, Trump continues to hold more than double the support of his nearest competitor, while the race for second and third place remains muddled: Just 6 points separate the second place candidate from the one in fifth place.
Overall, 30% of likely Republican primary voters back Trump, and behind him, the field vying for second includes Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 12%, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 11%, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 9%, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 8% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 6%.
Still, the sense of Trump's inevitability has grown, and two-thirds of likely GOP primary voters now say they expect the businessman to win the state's primary. No other candidate hits double-digits.
Republican primary voters in New Hampshire are less conservative than those in other early states. Just over half of New Hampshire GOP primary voters in 2012 and 2008 said they considered themselves conservative according to exit polls, well below the more than 8-in-10 who said so in Iowa and roughly 7-in-10 in South Carolina.
That larger group of moderate and liberal likely primary voters is less settled in its choices (35% say they've definitely decided, compared with 42% of conservatives), and less likely to back either of the two national front-runners - Trump and Cruz.
A majority of conservative likely voters say they support either Trump or Cruz, while the same two candidates combine for less than 30% of moderate or liberal primary voters. John Kasich lands in second place among the moderate or liberal group with 15%, Rubio has 11%, Christie 10% and Bush 9%.
Trump continues to top the list of candidates likely Republican primary voters say they would never support, 35% say so, including 47% of those moderate or liberal voters. Bush follows, with 12% saying they would never vote for the former Florida governor, including 19% of those on the conservative side.
In the Democratic race, Sanders continues to lead Hillary Clinton by a wide margin, 57% to 34% in the new poll. Those likely to vote in the Democratic primary are more apt than those on the GOP side to say they have made up their minds about whom to support (58% of likely Democratic voters say their choice is locked in vs. 39% of Republican likely voters).
Sanders holds an edge across nearly all demographic groups measured in the poll, though Clinton fares better among women than men, and she splits voters age 65 or older with Sanders about evenly, while trailing Sanders by a significant margin among younger voters.
And although a December CNN/WMUR poll found expectations then tilted Clinton's way, Sanders' streak of strong poll results appears to have changed that, with 54% of likely Democratic voters now saying they think Sanders will win the state's primary on Feb. 9, and just 31% now predicting a Clinton win.
The CNN/WMUR poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center by telephone from Jan. 27-30. The poll includes interviews with a random sample of 914 adult residents of New Hampshire, including 409 who say they plan to vote in the Republican presidential primary and 347 who say they plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. For results among the sample of likely Republican primary voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.8 percentage points, it is 5.3 for results among likely Democratic voters.
Franklin Pierce-Herald Poll: Rivals need Iowa win to catch Trump, Sanders in N.H.
GOP presidential challengers Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Democrat Hillary Clinton desperately need breakthroughs in Iowa tomorrow to overcome expanding leads held by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, a new Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll reveals.
Trump has a massive 25-point advantage over his nearest rival Cruz while Sanders has grown his lead over Clinton to a 57-37 percent margin , according to the poll of likely Granite State primary voters conducted Jan. 26-30.
Poll results:
- Summary: Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll of Democratic voters
- Tables: Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll of Democratic voters
- Summary: Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll of Republican voters
- Tables: Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll of Republican voters
A surprise in the Iowa caucuses tomorrow could still shake things up in New Hampshire’s Feb. 9 primary, especially on the GOP side, where 44 percent of voters say they could still change their minds. One-third of Trump supporters say they haven’t made a firm decision.
But a dramatic shift in the Democratic race appears less likely, with 78 percent of likely primary voters reporting they won’t change their minds. That makes Clinton’s hopes for another comeback an even bigger climb, even if she beats the upstart Vermont senator in Iowa.
Trump now gets 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire — up from 33 percent a week ago — while Cruz has stalled at 13 percent, according to the poll of 439 likely GOP primary voters.
Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are getting 10 percent, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich has dropped to fifth place at 8 percent, according to the poll. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, businesswoman Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are winning just 5 percent support, the poll shows.
Trump’s popularity has remained steady in the Granite State, with 56 percent of GOP voters saying they hold a favorable view of the billionaire business mogul.
The poll also reveals that the much-publicized endorsement of Trump by former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been no help. Six in 10 voters say Palin’s backing has had no effect on their decision, while 24 percent report it’s made them less likely to support Trump. Just 14 percent of voters say the endorsement made them more likely to back Trump.
The new Franklin Pierce-Herald poll shows Clinton has been unable to stop her stunning slide in New Hampshire despite her newly aggressive stance against Sanders. The Vermont senator’s 20-point lead is four points higher than the last Franklin Pierce-Herald poll conducted Jan. 20-24.
Just 72 percent of Granite State Democratic voters have a favorable view of Clinton, down 11 points since December, while 89 percent view Sanders favorably.
Despite Sanders’ popularity, 54 percent of likely Democratic voters in the new Franklin Pierce-Herald poll say they expect Clinton to be the nominee — though it’s down from a high of 74 percent in December.
With just 10 days left before New Hampshire voters go to the polls, a Clinton loss in Iowa could seal her fate in New Hampshire and hand her back-to-back losses in the crucial opening contests. In the last 40 years only one presidential candidate — Bill Clinton — has won the White House without winning Iowa or New Hampshire.
The Franklin Pierce-Herald poll also shows former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s trial balloon of an independent candidacy hasn’t exactly resonated in New Hampshire. Nearly half of all likely Democratic voters say they wouldn’t vote for him in November, while 51 percent haven’t heard of him or have no opinion.
The State Department on Friday refused to release 22 of the former Secretary of State’s emails, deeming they contained “top secret” information. It’s unclear what information was in those emails, but it was the first time the State Department acknowledged Clinton’s email correspondence contained “top secret” information, pushing the issue back into the spotlight just days before the first votes of the 2016 election are cast.
“This is very much like Benghazi,” Clinton said during an exclusive interview on ABC's “This Week with George Stephanopoulos." “Republicans are going to continue to use it, beat up on me. I understand that. That's the way they are.”
The House Select Committee on Benghazi investigated the 2012 attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans and questioned the former Secretary of State in October. Clinton referenced her testimony on Capitol Hill when asked about the controversy over her emails.
“After eleven hours of testimony, answering every single question in public, which I had requested for many months, I think it's pretty clear they're grasping at straws and this will turn out the same way,” she said.
The State Department's decision came as Clinton is in a tough race in Iowa against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The final poll released before Monday’s caucuses by the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics show the two candidates neck-and-neck with Clinton holding a three-point lead over Sanders within the margin of error.
In a separate interview on "This Week," Sanders declined to attack Clinton over her email use, though he did say she was "getting slapped" by the controversy.
Clinton also asserted no emails with “classified marked information” were sent or received by her during her tenure as Secretary of State. When asked if she believed the release of her emails was political posturing by Republicans, as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. have suggested, Clinton deferred to their comments.
“I'm going to leave that to others who are quite experienced in the ways of Washington to comment on," she said. "I just have to point out that the timing and some of the leaks that have led up to it are concerning."
Clinton again said she wanted all of her emails to be released so people to make their own judgments.
“I just want this matter resolved,” Clinton said. “The best way to resolve is to do what I asked months ago -- release these, let the public see them, and let's move on.”
Blizzard will miss caucuses, still blanket Iowa Tuesday. A Blizzard Watch is in effect for Tuesday for those north and west of the metro. Moderate to heavy snow is expected at times and wind speeds will increase as well. Winds will be strong from the north-northeast at 15 to 25 mph, gusts to 35 mph. Amber Alexander/WHO-HD
UPDATE, 5 A.M. MONDAY: In Polk County, the National Weather Service upgraded a previous winter storm watch to a winter storm warning at about 4:30 a.m. Monday. The warning begins at midnight Tuesday and runs through 6 a.m. Wednesday.
The latest snowfall projections call for 6 to 10 inches in central Iowa, with a foot or more expected north and west of the metro area.
Much of the northwest quarter of Iowa is under a blizzard warning for the same time frame, with snowfall totals of a foot or more expected, in addition to consistent straight-line winds, blowing and snow and heavily reduced visibility.
Iowa caucusgoers should be fine, but Mother Nature just might hold presidential candidates and swarms of national media captive.
A blizzard is expected, but not until after Iowa’s politicking is completed.
That’s right, Iowa, you won’t be able to blame the weather if you shrug off your civic duty.
“Through about 9 p.m. (Monday) it doesn’t look bad or much snow in any location,” said Roger Vachalek, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. “I doubt there will be much of any accumulation by that time. Maybe less than half an inch or so in some areas.”
And the hardest hit area will include Des Moines, the site of the state’s busiest airport.
By late Sunday, some media types had already changed some of their plans in anticipation of the blizzard. LA Times Reporter Seema Mehta noted that some coworkers had already rebooked from a Tuesday to a Wednesday flight in anticipation of the storm.
As for Mehta, she welcomes the snow. She’s been in Iowa since Jan. 11 and plans to return home following Monday’s events.
“I live in California, so I don’t get to see snow very often,” Mehta said. “I’m actually kind of excited to see the blizzard. I’ve mentioned this to people from D.C., who just had a blizzard, and they look at me like I have two heads.
“I love Des Moines. If I’m stranded here another day or two, that would be great.”
Trump builds Iowa ground game. But, he added, "it all doesn't matter if you don't caucus on Monday. The polls don't matter, nothing matters."
Trump also told crowd members to go to his campaign website if they were unsure of their caucus location -- and said he intended to visit "three or four" sites himself on the night.
Robinson believes Trump’s organization is ready for Monday night because it has been effective in empowering local organizers.
“The Trump campaign is unique in that it appeals to all these new people but they’ve also done a really good job of getting organizers and letting them organize their own communities,” Robinson said. “The average age is over 40, it’s not just young kids.”
There is near-unanimity that the best campaign infrastructure among all the GOP candidates belongs to Curz.
The Cruz campaign’s communications director, Rick Tyler, told The Hill that the campaign had named chairpeople to every one of Iowa’s 99 counties “quite a while back.” He added, “today, we have over 12,000 volunteers averaging 2,000 door-knocks a day, 20,000 calls per day.” The Cruz campaign has a designated precinct captain in “almost all” the 1681 precincts across the state, Tyler said.
There is no other Republican campaign that can compete with those metrics. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to comment on its ground-game for this story. The campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is third in most Iowa polls, has four field offices in the state, according to an aide.
Tyler also emphasized that the Cruz operation is making full use of data-driven techniques. He said technology was not only being utilized to identify Cruz supporters. It was also helping staff and volunteers learn how to most effectively make the argument to persuadable voters on the Texas senator’s behalf.
“Some people like ‘just the facts.’ Others prefer a more aspirational message,” he said.
Cruz also enjoys a more traditional advantage: Evangelicals and other conservative Christians form a bedrock of his support — and they are among the most reliable of all GOP caucus-goers.
Yepsen noted that Iowa’s Christian political networks have been honed over a generation.
“They’ve really been at it since 1988, when Pat Robertson ran so strongly,” he said, adding that Christian conservatives in essence won the caucuses for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) in 2012.
Huckabee and Santorum are both running this year but have struggled badly for traction. Huckabee scores less than three precent support in the current RCP average and Santorum does even worse. Their low ratings are a big plus for Cruz, who has avoided any serious splintering of the evangelical vote — aside, that is, from Trump’s one-of-a-kind candidacy.
Steve Deace, an influential conservative radio host in the state, endorsed Cruz in August. He asserted that the Texan had the strongest ground game of any Republican candidate in Iowa “since at least George W. Bush.”
Deace is also firmly in the skeptics camp when it comes to Trump. Asked whether the business mogul’s supporters will show up on Monday, he said, “That’s the great mystery. If Trump wins in Iowa, it will be with the most anemic organization I have ever seen.”
The wild card on Monday might be Rubio.
Buzz built Saturday that the Florida senator’s campaign is the one with the momentum.
He’s been a much more frequent visitor over the last month than he was during the earlier phase of his bid, and a campaign aide noted that, by caucus night, he will have been in Iowa for eight straight days.
Rubio is attracting growing crowds, and the more moderate, establishment-friendly GOP vote could finally be coalescing around him.
“We’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm,” a campaign aide said. “I think that our momentum is growing at the right time.”
Whatever else changes, one factor remains huge when it comes to turnout: the weather.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Monday forecast for Des Moines projects a cloudy, mild day.
This Is How Ted Cruz Plans to Win in Iowa. The candidate has said his ground game is "unprecedented". It’s little more than 24 hours before the pivotal Iowa caucuses begin, and the presidential campaigns are still going strong. Especially for Ted Cruz, who TIME reporter Alex Altman says digs deep to his religious roots to connect with his conservative voters on the trail.
“Ted, the voice of sanity, in this time of calamity!” a voter exclaims at a campaign stop in a public library in northwest Iowa.
Cruz has been touring several towns in Iowa, and is one of the few candidates who planned to stop in all of the state’s 99 counties.
“This is part of Cruz’s strategy to win it the old fashioned way,” Altman said, “which is to go hand-to-hand in small towns, visit people, and tell them why he wants their vote.”
Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers Are More Fraudulent Than Everyone Thinks. d Cruz’s Presidential campaign prides itself on being data-centric and on integrating insights from political science into its tactics. In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized. The mailer that had the biggest impact included information about the two previous elections and whether the recipient and his or her neighbors participated or not. “We intend to mail an updated chart,” the mailer warned. “You and your neighbors will all know who voted and who did not.”
Insights from the Yale study have since been adopted by several campaigns, including MoveOn, which also faced criticism when it used the tactic to turn out voters for Barack Obama’s reëlection, in 2012. Given its obsession with political science, it’s no surprise that the Cruz campaign decided to adopt the “social pressure” techniques to turn out voters in Iowa for Monday night’s caucuses. On Saturday, Twitter came alive with pictures from voters in the state who received mailers from the Cruz campaign. At the top of the mailers, in a bold red box, are the words “VOTING VIOLATION.” Below that warning is an explanation:
You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record. Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.
Below that, a chart appears with the names of the recipient of the mailing as well as his neighbors and their voting “grade” and “score.”
A further explanation appears below the chart:
Voter registration and voter history records are public records distributed by the Iowa Secretary of State and/or county election clerks. This data is not available for use for commercial purposes – use is limited by law. Scores reflect participation in recent elections. [Emphasis added.]
After seeing the mailers, Iowa’s secretary of state, Paul Pate, issued a statement condemning Cruz’s tactic:
“Today I was shown a piece of literature from the Cruz for President campaign that misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law. Accusing citizens of Iowa of a “voting violation” based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.
Additionally, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office never “grades” voters. Nor does the Secretary of State maintain records related to Iowa Caucus participation. Caucuses are organized and directed by the state political parties, not the Secretary of State, nor local elections officials. Also, the Iowa Secretary of State does not “distribute” voter records. They are available for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”
On Saturday night, Cruz responded. “I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote,” he told reporters during a campaign stop in Sioux City.
After looking at several mailers posted online, I was more curious about how the Cruz campaign came up with its scores. On all the mailers I saw, every voter listed had only one of three possible scores: fifty-five per cent, sixty-five per cent, or seventy-five per cent, which translate to F, D, and C grades, respectively. Iowans take voting pretty seriously. Why was it that nobody had a higher grade?
In Iowa, although voter-registration information is free and available to the public, voter history is not. That information is maintained by the secretary of state, who licenses it to campaigns, super PACs, polling firms, and any other entity that might want it. So was the Cruz campaign accurately portraying the voter histories of Iowans? Or did it simply make up the numbers?
It seems to have made them up. Dave Peterson, a political scientist at Iowa State University who is well-acquainted with the research on “social pressure” turnout techniques, received a mailer last week. The Cruz campaign pegged his voting percentage at fifty-five per cent, which seems to be the most common score that the campaign gives out. (All of the neighbors listed on Peterson’s mailer also received a score of fifty-five per cent.)
Peterson, who is actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, moved to Iowa in 2009. He told me that he has voted in three out of the last three general elections and in two out of the last three primaries.
“There are other people listed on my mailer who live in my neighborhood that are all different ages, but everyone on this sheet has the same score of fifty-five per cent,” he said. “Some are significantly younger and would have not been eligible to vote in these elections, and others are older and have voted consistently, going back years. There is no way to get to us all having the same score.” (Peterson also spoke with Mother Jones.)
If the Cruz campaign based its score on local elections, Peterson said, the number also wouldn’t make sense, based on his participation in those elections as well. A source with access to the Iowa voter file told me that he checked several other names on Cruz mailers and that the voting histories of those individuals did not match the scores that the Cruz campaign assigned them in the mailer.
I e-mailed Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for the Cruz campaign, and asked her what the campaign’s methodology was for arriving at its voting scores and whether the scores were fraudulent. “This was a mailer designed from public information and modeled on past successful mailers used by the Iowa GOP to turn out voters, so that we can have as high of a turnout as possible on caucus day,” she said. “I’ll leave it at that.” She did not explain the methodology used, nor did she answer my question about whether the numbers were made up.
The political scientist Lynn Vavreck, the co-author of “The Gamble,” a book the Cruz campaign has publicly stated it has studied for its strategic insights, said there was a major difference between the 2008 study in Michigan and what Cruz is doing in Iowa. “In the political-science work published in the American Political Science Review,” she said, “the mailing listed the elections (three of them) in which voters’ histories were being observed—and listed whether the secretary of state recorded that the voter participated that year. So it was more transparent than the Cruz mailer, which implied that it used public records but delivered voters letter grades, which are not part of the official file.”
It’s unclear how many Iowans received the Cruz mailers. Ideally, the mailers would go to potential caucus-goers who are leaning toward the Texas senator and just need some additional incentive to participate. In at least one case, that backfired. Independent Journal Review reported that one Iowan who received the Cruz mailer will now caucus for Marco Rubio.
Rubio’s campaign also sent out a mailer that employs social pressure to induce participation in the caucuses, but, notably, the Rubio campaign did not mention the names of the target voter’s neighbors.
The Cruz mailers have been widely condemned by Iowans. “I just wonder how many of these went out to people who might seriously believe they committed a violation or were embarrassed that their neighbors might know about their alleged voting record,” Braddock Massey, a Rubio supporter who lives in West Des Moines and received one of the mailers, said.
Donna Holstein, who was listed on one of them, was upset to learn that she had been given a failing grade and that her neighbors might be told whether she participates in the caucus. She told me that she has voted consistently but that she can’t this time because of a disability.
“I’m crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”
Marco Rubio Echoes Ted Cruz’s Tactic, but Without Controversy. Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign sent select Iowa voters a mailer designed to pressure them to attend Monday’s caucuses — a tactic employed controversially by the Ted Cruz campaign — but without sharing information on their neighbors or with official-sounding language.
The mailer, shared with TIME, is branded as an “Iowa Caucus Report Card” listing the name and address of the recipient, as well as their voting history in prior caucuses, adding, “Improve your score by caucusing on Monday, February 1st.”
The tactic is part of a political science-inspired effort to boost turnout that has gained prevalence in recent years.
But the tone of the Rubio message is sharply different from that of the Cruz effort, which appeared designed to mimic a government mailer and accused voters of a “voting violation.” It also included information on voters’ neighbors, drawing privacy concerns. The Cruz message drew condemnation from Iowa’s secretary of state, but the candidate defended the tactic Saturday.
“I will apologize to nobody for using every tool we can to encourage Iowans to come out and vote,” Cruz told reporters.
Joe Scarborough Plays Live in Iowa. Morning Joe Music @ Java Joes with:Joe Scarborough at Java Joes Coffee House, 214 4th St in Des Moines, IA - https://www.javajoescoffeehouse.com/
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