“Ted Cruz will always tell the truth and do what he says he will do.” ~ Rafael Cruz
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas jumped to first place in the latest Iowa poll. Cruz sailed by both Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the latest Monmouth University poll released Monday, December 7, 2015.
Cruz took 24 percent of the votes from a survey of 425 Iowa voters likely to attend the Republican presidential caucuses in February.
This marks the first time that Cruz has held a lead in any of the crucial early primary states.
“As Ben Carson’s stock has fallen, Cruz has been able to corral most of those voters,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, located in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
A weakness in the Trump campaign is that he does not have a strong grassroots organization in Iowa. In order for Trump to regain the lead, the pollster predicted, it would require a “huge organizational effort to get independent voters to show up in a contest where they have historically participated in small numbers.”
The Greenville County Republican Party conducted two straw polls at their Christmas party Monday evening. Cruz won both.
A poll of precinct presidents and executive committeemen gave Cruz 16 votes and the othercandidates in the single digits.
Jeb Bush had 6, while Rubio and Trump had 5. A poll of a mixed crowd of event attendees presumed to be Republicans produced a similar result. Cruz received 32 votes, while Bush got 15. Carlie Fiorina followed close behind Bush with 13 votes.
Cruz had an advantage in the Greenville polls. He made two appearances in Greenville earlier in the day. In the morning he perticipated in a town hall meeting with Senator Tim Scott and Rep. Trey Goudy at Furman University. In the afternoon he addressed about a hundred people at his Greenville headquarters. Rafael Cruz, the Senator’s father, has spent several days in the Upstate talking about his presidential candidate son.