MANCHESTER, Iowa—In a final frenzy to inspire supporters to turn out for Monday’s Iowa caucuses, the presidential contenders scrambled to close the deal with the first voters to have a say in the 2016 race for the White House.
The result Sunday was a blur of sometimes conflicting messages. Even as the candidates begged backers to caucus, many hopefuls also tried to lower expectations and look ahead to the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 and later contests.
Republican Donald Trump, who has a slight edge over Ted Cruz in Iowa, predicted that “many” senators “soon” would endorse him rather than their Texas colleague. Trump didn’t name any such senators, and none immediately emerged.
Democratic Hillary Clinton, in a tight race with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, suggested that political point-scoring helped explain the hubbub over the State Department’s announcement Friday that it was withholding some emails on the home server she used while secretary of state.
Too late: The candidates were all over the airwaves Sunday, talking about each other in distinctly unloving ways. Trump, for example, called Cruz a liar at least three times on ABC’s “This Week” for having said in a Des Moines Register ad that Trump supports President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. Trump says he wants people’s health care “taken care of” but not with the current program. He did not say how he'd pay for such coverage.
The candidates’ agreed on one thing: It’s all about turnout now.
“People are really enthusiastic, and if people come out to vote, I think you’re going to look at one of the biggest political upsets in the modern history of our country,” Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Clinton said she had been subjected to “years of scrutiny, and I’m still standing.” On ABC’s “This Week,” she said, “I feel vetted. I feel ready. I feel strong, and I think I’m the best person to be the nominee and to defeat whoever they nominate in November.”
Trump said “I don’t have to win” in Iowa, before adding that he believes he has “a good chance” of a caucus victory.
In the last major preference poll before the caucuses, Trump had the support of 28 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, with Cruz at 23 percent and Rubio at 15 percent. The Iowa Poll, published by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg, also found Clinton with 45 percent support to Sanders’ 42 percent in the Democratic race. The poll was taken from Tuesday to Friday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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