Sen. Rand Paul will drop out of the race for president, Politico reports.
“Paul had become an increasingly marginal figure in the still-sprawling GOP field. He finished fifth in Iowa, with less than 5 percent of the vote, but is projected to do much worse in next week’s New Hampshire primary, with recent polls showing him in ninth place.”
Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric after his loss in the Iowa caucuses, accusing Ted Cruz of “illegally” stealing the election, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong — why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
Trump added that “a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders told the Today Show that his campaign feels “fantastic” after losing by fractions of a percentage point to Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses.
Said Sanders: “To tell you the truth, the Iowa caucus is so complicated, it’s not 100 percent sure that we didn’t win it. But we feel fantastic. We came a long, long way in Iowa, and now we’re in New Hampshire, and we have a lot of momentum.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders had his biggest single day yet for donations — raising $3 million in 24 hours — following his narrow loss in the Iowa caucuses, the Washington Post reports.
Most interesting: 40% of those donors had not given to Sanders previously.
Rick Klein: “There may be no more fertile ground for dumping Trump than in the Granite State, where famously independent-minded primary voters like to zag after Iowa’s zig and reward those who have sweated out the New England winter. Yet, as often occurred in Iowa, sniping lower down the ballot – particularly among the two leading senators and three governors still in the race – could frustrate efforts to have New Hampshire send an anti-Trump message.”
“Republicans look to the New Hampshire primary to winnow the field. But it’s the de facto winnowing that may or may not take place before Tuesday that could deliver the strongest message so far as it impacts Trump.”
Downplaying his defeat in Iowa, Donald Trump told the Today Show that he’s “not a professional politician,” and he still “beat a lot of senators, a lot of governors.”
He also reminded viewers that he’s “been winning” all his life, and that he’s looking forward to New Hampshire.
A new University of Massachusetts-Lowell/7 News survey in New Hampshire finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 38%, followed by Ted Cruz at 14%, Marco Rubio at 12%, Jeb Bush at 9% and John Kasich at 7%.
Sen. Marco Rubio “landed here at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, bleary but beaming from a surprisingly strong showing in Iowa, and confronted growing expectations from his party’s establishment that he may be the best equipped to unite Republicans,” the New York Times reports.
“His campaign appears to be leaving little to chance, aware that a lackluster result here would greatly diminish him… On the fund-raising front, his team has begun a concerted and continuous push to persuade donors who are either undecided or backing candidates like former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida that it is time to climb aboard the Rubio train.”
A Rubio staffer tells Mike Allen the campaign has already raised $2 million since Iowa.
“Hillary Clinton is dispatching at least 150 people from her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn Heights to New Hampshire for an all-hands-on-deck effort here in advance of the Democratic primary on Tuesday,” BuzzFeed reports.
Politico: “The feeling at Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters these days isn’t about pulling off an upset — it’s about closing the gap, and halting Sanders’ momentum by denying him an easy win in a state that should be a cakewalk. In some respects New Hampshire is the only state where Team Clinton can flip the inevitability script — with Sanders positioned as the favorite with lots to lose.”
Public Policy Polling: “Started a national poll tonight that we’ll release Thursday but already clear — Trump’s standing significantly diminished.”
“Sanders campaign aides told the Des Moines Register they’ve found some discrepancies between tallies at the precinct level and numbers that were reported to the state party. The Iowa Democratic Party determines its winner based not on a head count, like in the Republican caucuses, but on state delegate equivalents, tied to a math formula. And there was enough confusion, and untrained volunteers on Monday night, that errors may have been made.”
Concord Monitor: “If the Iowa entrance surveys are any indication, Trump could face trouble in the Granite State.”
“While the Republican businessman cleaned up with Iowa voters who made up their minds more than a month ago, first-place finisher Cruz and third-place finisher Marco Rubio beat him among caucus-goers who made up their mind within a week of the election.”
Frank Bruni: “A rally of hers that I attended in Iowa last week actually began with a highlights reel of Clinton through time, including plenty of footage from the 1990s. I understand why. The retrospective underscored her extraordinary experience. But nothing in her subsequent speech looked forward as stirringly as those images looked backward. She’s forever stressing what she’s put up with, what she’s survived … with more to prove than to savor.”
Los Angeles Times: “Trump’s second-place finish in Iowa exposed an array of weaknesses in his campaign: His flashiness has started to grate on supporters like Goacher. He’s proved vulnerable to attacks on his ideological purity. And he failed to put together an effective ground operation.”
“All this raises questions about the novice candidate’s wherewithal to command the kind of sprawling and complex enterprise required to win the presidency. The skills that enabled Trump to build his business empire are not entirely the same as the ones he needs to win the world’s most powerful job.”
Wall Street Journal: New risks to Trump after Iowa loss
Speaker Paul Ryan “is meeting with House Freedom Caucus members late Tuesday night as an uprising simmers in the conservative rank-and-file over government spending levels and increased deficits,” Politico reports.
“The late-night ‘budget and beer’ get-together, which is being hosted by Ryan in his Capitol office, is intended to discuss House Republican spending plans. Just before that meeting, the Freedom Caucus will privately meet without Ryan, according to several sources with knowledge of the gathering.”
Nate Cohn: “Mr. Trump was at 31 percent in the final polls, but finished with just 24 percent. In our data set of early primary polls from New Hampshire and Iowa since 2004, no candidate underperformed the final surveys by as much as Mr. Trump. Mrs. Clinton, for instance, mainly beat Mr. Obama by outperforming her polling, not because Mr. Obama fell short.”
“It’s always hard to figure out why polls are wrong, but this time the stakes are higher. Republican strategists have hoped for months that Mr. Trump’s lead was an illusion. The results in Iowa at least raise the possibility that they’re right — which would call into question Mr. Trump’s advantage elsewhere.”
“This time there is evidence to support one of two possibilities for why polls overestimated Mr. Trump: Voters broke strongly against Mr. Trump in the final days or the electorate was more conservative and more religious than polls anticipated.”
Wall Street Journal: “Iowa caucus-goers were treated to a new Donald Trump on Monday night. The celebrity billionaire, after finishing second in the GOP caucus, gave a gracious speech, congratulating his rivals and looking ahead to next week’s primary in New Hampshire.”
“By Tuesday morning, the old Donald was back. Mr. Trump unleashed a five-tweet rant, criticizing the media for not accurately covering his second-place finish and blaming voters for not properly appreciating how much money he has poured into his campaign.”
New York Times: “No candidate in either party appears to have an easy path to capture consecutive victories in the next two contests, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. No one left Iowa with a convincing, rival-crushing win.”
“And for the first time in recent history, insurgent candidates on both the left and the right are emerging from the caucuses with enough money to finance a strong offensive in the weeks ahead, across electoral terrain that will vary from famously flinty New Hampshire to conservative, middle-class upstate South Carolina to the post-recession suburbs of Las Vegas.”
“What remains for the surviving contenders — particularly on the Republican side — are convoluted and extended paths to their parties’ nominations. As of the end of December, the candidates and their allied “super PACs” had more than $288 million in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission reports filed through Sunday evening.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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