NASHUA, N.H.—The Latest on developments from the 2016 Republican race for president, just days out from the Iowa caucuses (all times local):
4:15 p.m.
Bernie Sanders feels like the hottest candidate in the Democratic race. Thousands flock to his rallies across Iowa, screaming his name.
The question is whether all that heat translates into bodies in a room on a cold night in Iowa come Monday.
Even Sanders admits he doesn’t know the answer. He said Friday that he isn’t predicting a win on caucus night, but “saying that we are right now in Iowa in a very, very close election.”
For decades, Iowa has been a key testing ground for insurgent Democratic candidates trying to wrest the nomination from the establishment pick.
Mitch Stewart directed field operations for Obama’s Iowa effort in 2008. He says the adage is “organize, organize, organize and get hot late.”
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3:50 p.m.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is demanding that the State Department release more than 20 emails sent from her private server that have been deemed heavily classified.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that seven email chains from Clinton’s correspondence as secretary of state are being withheld because they contain information deemed “top secret.”
Clinton’s campaign is questioning the secrecy of the messages, saying the emails originated and remained on the State Department’s unclassified system. They say at least one involved a public news article.
Says spokesman Brian Fallon: “This appears to be over-classification run amok.”
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3:05 p.m.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says political opponents need not paint each other as enemies.
Bush spoke to about 150 voters in the western Iowa town of Carroll on Friday and was asked how he would fix congressional gridlock.
He said people — particularly politicians — must stop seeing opponents as enemies. He says “they might just be people who disagree with me.”
Without naming names, Bush still worked in some criticism of his Republican rivals in the presidential race, mocking comments made by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in which he said he would “carpet bomb” Islamic State fighters.
Bush says “we have to have a real strategy.”
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2:40 p.m.
The New Hampshire primary is anyone’s race as several Republican presidential candidates vie for a top tier finish less than two weeks before voters head to the polls.
Uncertainties are mounting as candidates fail to sway the state’s many undecided voters one way or the other, despite months of courting by the various campaigns. And more than 40 percent are not registered with any political party, giving them the power to choose which party they’d like to vote with come Feb. 9.
With Trump maintaining a commanding lead in the state, the battle has intensified among the rest of the pack as they look to elbow each other out for a second-place finish.
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2:30 p.m.
One of the stars of the “Duck Dynasty” reality show will be joining Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in his final days of campaigning before the Iowa caucuses.
Phil Robertson plans to be with Cruz for stops throughout Iowa on Saturday and Sunday. The conservative political commentator also plans to campaign with Cruz leading up to Monday’s caucuses.
Cruz bagged Robertson’s endorsement after going hunting with him earlier this month.
Phil Robertson’s son, Willie, has endorsed Cruz’s Republican rival Donald Trump.
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2:20 p.m.
Not all the Republican candidates are sticking around Iowa for caucus night Monday.
While much of the large GOP 2016 field will host parties around the Des Moines area, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich will be in New Hampshire instead.
All three are performing better in New Hampshire polls and are getting a jump on the Feb. 9 primary.
Former Florida Gov. Bush is holding a town hall in Manchester. New Jersey Gov. Christie has one in Hopkinton. And Ohio Gov. Kasich will be hosting a town hall Loudon.
Bush and Christie have Iowa events through the weekend and early Monday. Aides say they’re working hard in the state. Kasich has events in New Hampshire all weekend.
Iowa’s Republican caucuses tend to be heavily influenced by Christian conservative voters, who favor other candidates, primarily businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
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1:50 p.m.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is telling Iowa voters he’s the only true conservative in the GOP presidential race who can be trusted to keep his word.
Cruz spoke Friday at a Ringsted, Iowa, restaurant and drew sharp contrasts with rivals Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Cruz defended his call to phase out a mandate that all fuel contain a certain percentage of ethanol, saying and says it would be “easy” to take Trump’s position that it ought to be expanded.
Ethanol made from corn is big business in Iowa, and pro-ethanol forces have railed against Cruz. Cruz says his tax plan includes removing all mandates and subsidies.
Cruz told voters the way not to “get burned” is to look for a candidate “who keeps his word when it’s difficult, when there’s a price to be paid.”
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1:30 p.m.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to make a personal connection in the final days before Monday’s Iowa caucuses, turning a meeting with voters at Iowa Wesleyan College into a forum on people’s daily problems.
Sanders is peppering his audience in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, with questions, asking for details about how they’re dealing with low wages, high prescription drug costs and large college debt loads.
The Democratic presidential candidate constantly asked voters for their first names as they shared stories as examples of why America needs to embrace his agenda.
He says the race in Iowa comes down to continuing with “establishment politics and economics,” or the nation having the “courage” to help working families.
Sanders says if he wins Iowa it will show the country “is ready for significant change.”
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1:10 p.m.
Texas congressman Louie Gohmert is telling voters the Iowa caucuses may be make-or-break for Sen. Ted Cruz.
Gohmert is campaigning with Cruz on Friday. He told voters in Ringsted, Iowa, that “so many are saying if Ted Cruz doesn’t win the Iowa caucuses, it’s a done deal.”
Gohmert urged those gathered not to support Cruz’s chief rival Donald Trump.
Gohmert is being joined by conservative Iowa congressman Steve King, Cruz’s wife Heidi and wounded veteran Jack Zimmerman on the campaign trail as Monday’s caucuses near.
Zimmerman lost both his legs after stepping on an explosive device when serving in the U.S. Army Afghanistan in 2011.
Cruz, King and Zimmerman all went hunting together in Iowa in October.
Cruz is hitting small, rural Iowa towns as he finishes visits to all 99 counties before the caucuses.
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12:35 p.m.
Ramsay and Shawna Trix love politics so much, they drove more than five hours from Fargo, North Dakota, to catch a Ted Cruz campaign stop in northern Iowa.
Ramsay Trix says he’d seen the Texas senator three times before the Friday stop in Ringsted, Iowa, but he’s still not sure whether he will vote for him or Donald Trump. Trix plans to see Trump on Sunday.
But Trix likes Cruz well enough to have bought a T-shirt he wore Friday that says, “Cruz: Blacklisted and Loving It.”
Trix doesn’t want to see the campaign season in Iowa conclude with Monday’s caucuses. He calls it “sort of sad, bittersweet that it’s ending.”
Gary Erickson, of Thor, Iowa, says Cruz is his first choice and he’s glad Cruz took the time to visit a “two horse town” like Ringsted.
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12:10 p.m.
Several Donald Trump supporters who had to be turned away from a crowded New Hampshire rally for the GOP front-runner say Trump’s decision to skip this week’s debate did not hurt his standing.
Paul St. Louis says he loves Trump because he’s “not politically correct.” The 57-year-old says he’s voting for Trump in New Hampshire’s Feb. 9 primary and, if he wins the nomination, in November.
Trump is spending Friday in New Hampshire before returning to Iowa ahead of Monday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Inside the morning rally in Nashua, Trump implored voters to turn out for him on primary day. He promised to improve the country and bring back jobs, but said “it all doesn’t matter if you don’t go and vote.”
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11:45 a.m.
New Jersey’s Chris Christie is making his final pitch to Iowa voters with just three days to go before voting begins.
The Republican contender is barely registering in polls in the first-to-vote state, where Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are dominating.
But Christie said at a Friday rally that low expectations leave room for surprise.
He tells supporters that on Monday “you are going to show, as am I, that real leadership matters, that strong leadership matters and that the people of Iowa know how to pick a strong leader.”
Christie is pitching himself as having the best chance to beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the general election if she’s her party’s nominee.
Christie is polling far better in more moderate New Hampshire, where he’s spent more of his time. But he’s hoping a stronger-than-expected Iowa showing will help build momentum as attention turns to that state.
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11:15 a.m.
Donald Trump is touting the beauty of Twitter, which has become his favorite platform for attacking his rivals and commenting on the race.
He says he likes Twitter because, “if somebody hits me, I hit them back.”
He says such immediate responses weren’t possible in the “old days” before the social media platform came along. Trump has used Twitter to great effect to generate news for his campaign by trashing the other candidates and media organizations.
He jokes that having 12 million followers between Twitter and Facebook makes him more powerful than the largest media organizations.
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10:40 a.m.
Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign began the year with about $19 million in available cash, likely giving him a financial edge over most of his Republican rivals.
His campaign has previously said he’d raised almost $47 million in all of last year, and this month he has continued to collect contributions at a healthy clip. All candidates must report their year-end fundraising and spending activities to federal regulators by Sunday night.
Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe announced the cash-on-hand figure during a Friday morning media breakfast hosted by Bloomberg Politics.
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10:30 a.m.
Donald Trump is leading the pack of Republican president candidates in money spent on Iowa media, advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG shows.
In the four weeks beginning Jan. 5, Trump’s campaign has spent $3.4 million, a million more than his next closest spending competitor, Rubio.
The last-minute Iowa television advertisements tell the story of the race as the candidates see it in the final days before voters go to caucuses on Monday.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders has a new ad blasting Goldman Sachs — and by extension his rival Hillary Clinton, who collected speaking fees from the giant Wall Street bank.
And Ted Cruz began targeting Marco Rubio in an ad Thursday, a sign the Texan sees his fellow senator as a strong competitor in Iowa.
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10:22 a.m.
Republican Donald Trump is continuing his unconventional campaign by traveling to New Hampshire as his rivals scramble to make closing arguments in the days before the Iowa caucuses.
Hundreds of voters are awaiting Trump’s arrival in Nashua, New Hampshire Friday, for a rally scheduled less than 12 hours after the Fox News debate he opted to skip, claiming he was treated unfairly by the network at their August debate.
Trump maintains a commanding lead in New Hampshire polls despite his decision not to follow the traditional rules of campaigning in the first primary state. He holds large rallies rather than intimate town halls where voters can ask pointed questions and grab a photograph or handshake.
First to vote Iowa will caucus on Feb. 1 and the New Hampshire votes Feb. 9.
