Iowa Caucuses: Last Day of Campaign Stops, Rallies

DES MOINES, IA — A day after the latest poll of likely participants gave slim leads to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the run-up to Monday’s Iowa caucuses, both presidential candidates held campaign events in Council Bluffs.

The Des Moines Register’s final poll before the Iowa Caucuses was released Saturday and showed former Secretary of State Clinton with a narrow lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, while businessman and reality star Trump held a slight lead over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Clinton held a 3 percent lead over Sanders, 45 percent to 42 percent, for the Democratic nomination.

In Des Moines and across the state Monday, campaign workers and volunteers are calling voters to ask for support and even offering rides to caucus sites if voters need one.

The typically cocky Trump called in to “Good Morning America” to admit, “You have to be a little bit nervous.” The mogul noted it’s his first election night.

Marco Rubio was at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in West Des Moines Monday morning going table to table asking for support, while Ted Cruz told supporters at the state fairgrounds that the strength of his volunteers is the key to victory.

Sanders said at a late-night Sunday rally, “We need tens of millions of people to say loudly and clearly, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Clinton told a TV network she is a bit “scarred” by the campaign thus far, but it has prepared her for the job ahead.

Both Clinton and Trump, says Politico, departed from their normal stump speech style in some of their Sunday appearances.

Clinton sounded much like Democratic challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as she denounced a corrupt tax code and futile Wall Street regulations – even borrowing a Sanders’ phrase.

“People need to feel the game is not rigged against them,” Clinton said.

Clinton will hold a caucus night party starting at 8:30 p.m.at the Olmsted Center on the Drake University campus in Des Moines. Special guests will include President Bill Clinton and the couple’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton.

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Trump: “We’re Going to Win”

In western Iowa, a bedrock of religious conservatives, Trump attended church Sunday with his family before a rally where Jerry Falwell Jr. introduced the New York billionaire. Falwell, the president of Liberty University, says he backs the thrice-married real estate mogul because he can get things done, whether they share the same values.

“We’re going to win, we’re going to win,” Trump told the crowd, reported USA Today. “We’re leading everywhere.”

For the first time, he said Sunday that if he is president he would appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn gay marriage, saying that is an issue each state should decide.

Monday, Trump has campaign rallies planned in Waterloo and then Cedar Rapids.

On the GOP side, Trump continues to hold the lead with 28 percent support, followed by Cruz at 23 percent. The rest of the field shows Rubio at 15 percent, Dr. Ben Carson at 10 percent, Sen. Rand Paul at 5 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3 percent.

Sanders: Send a Message

The senator began his day in Waterloo, a blue-collar city that has suffered waves of union job losses in recent decades. Sanders sounded the familiar theme as he urged supporters to send a message to those who back establishment politics and economics.

He says Monday night could be a “very historic night for this country. We can make history.”

On Monday, Sanders will wrap up with a celebration at the Holiday Inn Airport Convention Center in Des Moines.

Cruz: The Full Grassley

The Texas senator, whose Iowa TV commercials have been full of references to God and faith, made a stop Sunday in liberal Iowa City. Joining him on the campaign trail were conservative “Duck Dynasty” reality TV star Phil Robertson, commentator Glenn Beck and Iowa Rep. Steve King.

Robertson told the crowd – in the city that calls the University of Iowa home -- that the country is mired in depravity and perversion, but Cruz can turn it around because he trusts God and the Constitution. Robertson says, “That trumps Trump,” the Associated Press reported.

Monday Cruz will make campaign stops in Jefferson at the Greene County Community Center, at Grace Baptist Church in Marion, and then end with a caucus-watch party at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

His stops today means he will complete what is known in the state as a Full Grassley, a nod to senior senator Chuck Grassley, who visits all 99 Iowa counties every year.

All of the candidates will then try to beat a snowstorm aimed at Iowa and make it out of Des Moines en route to New Hampshire, where the nation’s first primary will be held Feb. 9.