DES MOINES, IOWA— Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz laid out his plan to defeat Donald Trump in the Iowa caucus.
Speaking at a breakfast organized by Bloomberg Politics, Cruz’s campaign manager Jeff Roe explained how Cruz will win on Monday. From The Washington Post:
The operation of the senator from Texas thinks that it has come down to fighting over exactly 9,131 voters who are trying to decide between Cruz and Trump: 3,185 who are torn between him and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; and a smaller group — 2,807, to be precise — who have not yet made their choice between him and Rubio. Cruz also must try to peel off supporters of other religious conservatives in the race, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
Roe also predicted that turnout will exceed the record for a Republican caucus day, which is 122,000 in Iowa. What he doesn’t know, Roe said, is by how much. He conceded that the higher it goes, the better it will bode for Trump, who is counting on a surge of voters who have not traditionally made the effort to attend the caucuses, an exercise that requires devoting most of a frigid weeknight.
On the financial side, the campaign will officially announce Sunday that it had more than $19 million in its campaign coffers as of Dec. 31, which Roe said will be $10 million more than any other GOP presidential candidate can claim. Trump is in a different category, as he is funding a good portion of his campaign with his personal fortune.
Read it all here.