Cruz Crushes Trump And Rubio In Iowa

Through a campaign that combined cutting edge get-out-the-vote technology and effective television ads with unafraid advocacy of limited government constitutional conservative principles Senator Ted Cruz overcame the doubters and the haters to win last night’s Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. 

The final tally* showed Ted Cruz with 28% of the caucus vote. Donald Trump was second with 24% of the vote and Marco Rubio was third with 23% of the vote. 

Ted CruzAnd this was no photo finish as the ratings-hungry TV talking heads were trying to make it out as the votes came in. 

Ted Cruz led throughout the night. And when the votes were finally tallied Ted Cruz won 57 counties, more than half of the counties in the state, Trump won 36, while Rubio won just five.* (one appears tied) 

In booking some 51,649 caucus votes Cruz’s margin of victory over second place finisher Donald Trump was 6,233 votes – or a thousand votes more than Jeb Bush’s entire tally of 5,235 votes. And Cruz’s margin of 8,517 votes over Marco Rubio was more than Rand Paul’s entire tally. 

And in historical terms Senator Cruz’s victory was even more impressive. 

In 2008 Mike Huckabee set the record for the most Republican votes tallied in the Iowa Caucuses with 40,841 votes; this year Ted Cruz beat that record by almost 11,000 votes. This time around Governor Huckabee booked only 3,344 votes and has suspended his campaign. 

Ted Cruz’s victory is even more astonishing when you put it in the context of the negative ad spending against him and the attacks on him by establishment politicians. 

Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush, raised more than $100 million before the campaign got underway and paid for a bombardment of ads in an attempt to jump-start his sputtering candidacy. Cruz had less than half of Jeb Bush’s money, but he spent it a lot smarter and more effectively. 

According to Mark Bryant, a vice president at Ace Metrix, a company that measures ad effectiveness, the firm had shown each presidential campaign ad released this year to focus groups of 500 voters from different parties and demographic groups. 

Among Republicans, Cruz seems to be getting the most bang for his bucks; three of his ads were the highest-scoring among GOP voters, Bryant said. 

And the result was that after at least $60 million in spending, Bush came in sixth in Iowa and booked just a little over 10 percent of Ted Cruz’s total vote in the Caucuses. 

“Vote for anyone but Cruz,” urged Iowa’s ethanol-loving Governor-for-life, Terry Branstad, while former Republican presidential nominee and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said “I might oversleep that day,” rather than vote for Ted Cruz. 

Indeed establishment Republican animosity toward Ted Cruz’s truth-telling about their lack of commitment to govern according to conservative principles may have buoyed Donald Trump’s campaign in the lead-up to the voting in Iowa. 

*Final unofficial tally reported by CNN and other media outlets.

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