Founder and Editor of Caffeinated Thoughts Shane Vander Hart — dubbed by Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon as “an expert in all things Iowa” — joined the Breitbart News radio program to give listeners a rundown on the reality of the 2016 Republican Presidential race on the ground in Iowa.
Vander Hart joined the program from on location at a rally for Sen. Ted Cruz. “Most of [Cruz’s] rallies this past week have been standing room only,” he commented.
Vander Hart told the listening audience that he had “some problems with the methodology” in the latest Des Moines Register poll. “One, it’s basically predicting a huge, huge turnout, three times of what we saw at 2012 for Republicans so could that happen, possibly, but I highly doubt it.”
The new outlet’s last poll before the caucuses placed 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump in the lead of the Republican field with 28 percent. Cruz came in at 23 per cent. Rubio trailed Trump and Cruz with 15 and in fourth was Ben Carson with 10 percent. The last version of the same poll, released January 13, put Cruz ahead of Trump 25 percent to 22 percent.
“If you look at the amount of people they called compared to the sample of Republicans it’s about 19.9 per cent of the active voters in the state of Iowa which is 1.9 million people. So We’re looking about, north of 380,000 people,” Vander Hart told Breitbart News listeners. He called that number “definitely a fundamental mistake.”
Vander Hart predicted turnout for the highly watched Iowa caucuses to be between 135,000 and 150,000. He said he is seeing larger crowds and much greater enthusiasm now in 2016 than in prior presidential election years 2008 and 2012.
“Cruz had about roughly 2,000 people up in Sioux City come out to see him last night.” Vander Hart said even with the enthusiasm he said the turnout won’t be as high as pollsters have predicted.
Bannon recalled that Bloomberg’s Joshua Green who was adamant that there is no way that Rubio is surging as the Washington D.C. consultant class has predicted. Vander Hart said he sees Rubio coming in third, “I definitely think he’s gonna end up doing well, but ya know whether it will be well enough to really make a strong case in New Hampshire that to be seen.”
“I don’t think he’s going to win by any stretch of the imagination,” Vander Hart said. “But he could have a strong third place finish.”
“I still think Cruz has the best organization in the state. He’s had 12,000 volunteers in the state of Iowa, he’s got 1800 precinct captains, 99 county leaders so they’re really hard, and they really know who their voters are.” Vander Hart said it would be a good turnout and likely more veteran caucus goers.
Trump has an advantage with first time caucus goers according to Vander Hart. “But your veteran caucus goers, that’s where Cruz has an advantage so it just really kinda depends on turnout, who brings out their voters,” he said before closing with “I think Cruz has got the best organization.”
UPDATE:
@MichelleDiana re. @BreitbartNews article… I misspoke, I meant 100,000 nationally, not in Iowa. He has about 12,000 in Iowa. My bad.
— Shane Vander Hart (@shanevanderhart) February 1, 2016
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