‘No one is unbeatable,’ Rubio says

The caucuses should also help winnow out the crowded opposition Republican Party field and provide momentum heading into the February 9 New Hampshire primary.

“If you had told me a year ago that two days out from the Iowa caucuses we would be neck and neck, effectively tied for first place in the state of Iowa, I would have been thrilled”, Cruz said. Bill Clinton skipped the state entirely in 1992 because of the candidacy of native son Senator Tom Harkin.

“I don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver”, Clinton said yesterday in a subtle swipe at Sanders.

He added, “I think that’s where the discussion tips very favorably to Hillary because of a whole history of actually knowing how to get something done for a progressive cause”. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pauses with a sign with his autograph on it while greeting his supporters at a rally Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The Clinton and Sanders campaigns reached agreement to hold a debate in New Hampshire this coming week and three more in the spring, supplementing a light debate schedule that has favored weekend slots when fewer people watch TV. Cruz is conceding nothing.

But on NBC’s “Today” show, Rubio admitted that he’s not the front-runner, and he doesn’t think Donald Trump is either.

“We’ve come so far”, the email reads.

The state is tailor-made for Ted Cruz, with lots of conservative evangelical voters. “But we have a long way to go”, Trump said, saying the U.S. Supreme Court should have let states decide the issue for themselves.

What’s more, Trump appears to have very little room for growth. READ: READ: How good are the Iowa caucuses at picking presidents?

One ad said of Rubio: “Tax hikes. Amnesty. The Republican Obama”.

Though Lee acknowledges he’s not intimately familiar with his congregation’s political views, he said his “unofficial sense” is that they are divided among several candidates, especially Rubio, Santorum, Carson and Cruz. “It has been a pleasure and an honor to campaign in this great state, so thank you all very much for that”. Around 5% were still undecided when they turned up at the caucus, so there will still be a smattering of voters open to persuasion from the candidates’ campaigns.

“There’s no question we are feeling some wind at our back”, he told The Associated Press. “He has a strong Iowa game so he’s the front-runner…but we’re fighting and working hard and growing in the support we have”.

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 Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, released Saturday evening, found Clinton holding a narrow lead over Sanders, 45% to 42%.

Both polls were taken between January 27 and January 30.

Cruz’s campaign was challenged by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate over a mailer sent to potential voters that seemed created to look like an official notice warning recipients about “low expected voter turnout in your area”. He hammered the senator for a recent mailer that suggests to recipients that they have committed a “Voting Violation” by not being reliable caucus participants in the past. “Someone they can trust to be a fiscal conservative, a social conservative, a national security conservative”, Cruz said.

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.

Cruz brushed off the fuss.

Linda Imsland, of Hubbard, said she supports Cruz, during his stop in her town 25 miles north of Ames.