Trump Regains Lead in Iowa as Clinton, Sanders are Statistically Tied

DES MOINES, Iowa — With campaign events all across Iowa on Saturday overflowing with voters, the Republican and Democratic contests have been reduced to the same question: Can the muscle of traditional and methodical organizing overcome the energy and enthusiasm of a pair of unconventional candidates in this unconventional race?

Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton praised her campaign staff and said that rival Sen.

Clinton’s support is up 3 percentage points from earlier this month, and Sanders’ is 2 percentage points higher.

Voters begin caucusing all over Iowa at 7 p.m. Central Time. The most important unknown in the final hours was how many Iowans will turn out Monday evening.

Clinton took the stage at Iowa State University in Ames with her daughter Chelsea, and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a gun violence victim who has helped raise concerns about the issue.

This kind of bluster isn’t likely to win over women or independents, the voters who ultimately will decide the election in November.

“They say the more people that get out, the better I do”.

‘The size of the turnout tonight will likely be the key factor, especially on the Democratic side, ‘ said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac institute.

More than 70 percent of Trump’s supporters say their mind is made up on backing Trump.

“You don’t make progress unless you have the courage to look reality in the eye”, Sanders said at a rally in Waterloo.

The criticism comes despite Cruz’s overwhelmingly positive ratings from conservative groups, such as the American Conservative Union, which gives him a 100 percent rating over his first two years in the Senate.

As far as the rest of the active candidates?

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio each have 10 percent of support, followed by Ohio Governor John Kasich who takes only 8 percent.

“No, I don’t have to win it”, Trump said in an interview taped in New Hampshire on Thursday.

Nine months after launching their campaigns, Clinton and Sanders face Iowa voters in equally precarious positions.

“I feel like right now this is what we need. The momentum is with us”, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said.

Iowa was so central to Barack Obama’s path to the presidency that his 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe once summed up his whole strategy as “win Iowa, or else”. “I think that’s dumb”. So I think theyll come to caucus as well, absolutely.”But advisers to both of the leading Democrats privately agreed that Clinton was narrowly ahead.

On the Republican side, Ted Cruz directed much of his final advertising against the Florida senator in the frenzied weekend prelude, feeding a Republican feud that turned increasingly bitter in the final days.

Beside him, Linda Kautz, a music assistant from Estherville, said she is definitely caucusing for the former first lady.

Ann Grove, 56, who specializes in refugee support for a community action agency in Waterloo, said that she thought long about whether to support Clinton or Sanders and recently made a decision to caucus for Sanders. Clintons team is the very model of what a modern field operation should be in identifying traditional caucus-goers. “It’s scary, because he knows what he’s doing”, Kautz said of Sanders. “They do work, but the social pressure stuff has got to be subtle”.

WATCH: Ahead of tomorrow’s Iowa Caucuses, Senator Ted Cruz appeared on “Meet the Press”. Its a caucus system.

Matt Schultz, the campaign’s Iowa state chairman, reiterated to The New York Times that the use of mailers isn’t uncommon to try and increase voter turnout. They had 30 people on the ground in April….

These five, and many more in the mix, submit themselves to Monday to the judgment of voters in Iowa, the farm state that gets everything trudging in the grinding process to pick the next president.

Pelosi doesn’t expect the Democrats to make gains in the House of Representatives in 2016. Campaigns worked aggressively to set those expectations in their favor (meaning, lower them) for Iowa, next-up New Hampshire and beyond.