I’ve got to think this over. But Ted Cruz’s rise nationwide and now his jump into a big lead in Iowa looks like a perfect storm of awful for the GOP. Especially on the GOP side, folks who win the Iowa caucuses have a pretty poor record of winning the nomination. But with Trump far ahead nationwide and in the lead in virtually every other state this looks more and more like Cruz will end up as the alternative to Trump. At least, he looks likely to prevent someone else from emerging with enough primary support to take him on. To put it in the appropriate firearms argot, you’ve got Trump making off with the Crown Jewels while Cruz stays at the door laying down a line of fire to prevent any normal Republican from chasing after him. And I actually think it’s possible that Cruz could do worse in a general election than Trump.
Help them Rubi-Wan. You’re their only hope.
A significant change in the complexion of the Iowa GOP caucus — and the broader presidential race — with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) now holding a commanding lead over Donald Trump, according to a new poll released Saturday evening by the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics.
Cruz is at 31 percent, Trump at 21 percent, and Carson has fallen all the way back to 13 percent .
This is the second straight poll that gives Cruz a lead in Iowa. A Monmouth poll last week showed him ahead of Trump 24-19, the first time Cruz had led in any poll of the Iowa GOP caucus. Within hours of the Monmouth poll coming out, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
What new Trump primal scream might we hear this time?
This may be the quote of the year in politics. First, here’s the quick backstory.
Kansas state Rep. Steve Brunk (R) is entertaining a job offer from the policy arm of Focus on the Family. (They say they’ve already hired him, but he says he won’t make a decision until January, which seems fishy in its own right.) But Brunk has no plans to step down from his legislative seat when (ahem … if) he takes the new job with the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage outfit. In fact he says why wouldn’t you want to hire the guy who chairs the committee where the group’s most pressing legislative items are decided?
Via the very capable Bryan Lowry at the Wichita Eagle, here’s Brunk’s epic quote:
Donald Trump dares Ted Cruz to criticize him in public.
Meanwhile, Ben Carson is threatening to leave the party if GOP ‘elites’ don’t stop meddling with the convention.
Trump says he’ll mandate that all cop-killers will be executed by executive order.
Who do you think will win the GOP nomination? Well, I’ll tell you what you think. Or at least what our latest poll of TPM Readers says. We asked 1024 qualified respondents in our latest Insight poll: “Regardless of who you support, who do you believe will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016?”
Answers after the jump.
Top Trump aide says that when it comes to Hispanics it’s only those who “aren’t even here legally” who don’t like Donald Trump. So not a problem.
Photos showing Citadel military academy students wearing white hoods surface online.
These are still allegations from unnamed law enforcement officials. So keep that in mind. But several major news organizations this morning are reporting that the man who bought the two assault weapons for Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a friend and relative by marriage named Enrique Marquez, says that he and Farook had planned but eventually called off another attack in 2012. That sounds like a pretty big deal to me – in terms of how far back Farouk’s radicalization went and that he had at least one other person in his circle with whom he felt comfortable discussing and plotting a terror attack.