Donald Trump: Ted Cruz stole Iowa caucuses through ‘fraud’

Donald Trump said he’s proud of his second-place finish in the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa but skipping the Fox News debate and his inexperience with mobilizing voters on the ground hurt his campaign.

In the new poll, the share who say they expect Trump to win the primary on February 9 has declined a bit since before the Iowa caucuses, dropping from 66% in the pre-caucus survey to 61% now, though he’s still the odds-on favorite among likely voters in New Hampshire. Mr. Cruz said. “I don’t think people are interested in a temper tantrum, or you can call it a ‘Trumper tantrum'”. “What he did was unthinkable”.

The candidate then fired off a barrage of tweets in which he – among things – lashed out at the Cruz campaign for sending out a press release on caucus night saying that fellow candidate Ben Carson was taking time off the campaign and to not caucus for him.

In a series of tweets, Trump alleged that the Voter Violation certificate gave poor marks to the unsuspecting voter(grade of F) and told them to clear it up by voting for Cruz.

A spokesman for Carson, who is still in the race, had called the Cruz campaign’s actions on caucus night “dirty tricks”.

The survey, conducted in the two days after the Iowa caucuses, also shows dimming prospects for the three current and former governors in the race – candidates who have also put the most effort and resources into the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Cruz also used #Trumpertantrum on social media, where the term was the third leading national trend on Twitter Wednesday evening.

Cruz won Iowa with 28 percent of the vote with Trump finishing second at 24 percent. That strategy backfired. Most observers think he would have done better had he appeared at the debate. “Bad!”, Trump said. There was no immediate mresponse from Cruz. Speaking to reporters at the Trestle restaurant, Cruz said Trump is proving himself unfit to be President.

“We finished second, and I want to tell you something”, he said late Monday in Des Moines.

Cruz questioned Trump’s fitness to serve as president in the face of his lastest Twitter blasts, accusing the New Yorker of throwing a “tantrum”. “We did really well”, Trump assured his supporters.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it“, Trump tweeted. On CNN Newsroom Wednesday, Baldwin said “when Senator Cruz, with all due respect, tries to throw my network and CNN under the bus, let me stand up for my colleagues and journalists here…we reported it accurately”, she said on air. Democrats, Trump contends, would be quick to sue to challenge Cruz’s place on the ballot.