A huge victory for Ted Cruz in Iowa

Ted Cruz’s Huge Victory

This is a major coup for Cruz. After months and months of hearing about Donald Trump every single day, Cruz beat Trump when it counts. Importantly, Cruz’s victory pops the balloon of seeming invincibility that Trump had coming into the first nomination event. After Trump’s constant talk about “winning” when he’s president, he didn’t win when the first votes were cast.

If the spotlight on Cruz wasn’t already hot enough, it’s only going to get hotter. Trump may ramp up his attacks on Cruz’s eligibility. The other candidates may also attack some of his more extreme positions and start digging deeper into his past. Several Republican establishment figures had already said they’d vote for anyone but Cruz — expect those calls to multiply.

Rubio’s Surge?

In the end, the Marco Rubio surge was too little, too late. After Rick Santorum surged in the final week of the 2012 Iowa campaign and won the caucus despite never leading a caucus poll, some thought Rubio might duplicate that surge after gaining six points in the final week before Iowa. To bolster their case, Trump and Cruz dropped five and four points in the final week.

Rubio did outperform the 17 percent polls predicted he would get, but didn’t quite earn enough votes to make it seem like he was competing for victory. At the same time, Rubio did get a big win Monday in securing the endorsement of United States Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. Scott, like Rubio, can appeal to both the establishment and conservative wings of the party. But one wonders if the endorsement, announced before Iowa vote counts started rolling in, will get lost in the news cycle of Cruz’s victory. Why not announce the endorsement Tuesday morning?

Polling Accuracy

Unless the final votes change the percentage breakdown drastically, the polls in Iowa were off by a notable, but not disastrous, amount. Cruz had been projected to finish second, with 24 percent of the vote. He won with 28 percent. Trump had been projected to win, with about 29 percent. He got second, with 24 percent. Rubio got 23 after polling said he’d get 17 percent. At one point, polls did predict a Cruz victory. Cruz led the polls over Trump from Dec. 12 to Jan. 13.

In four years, when people get excited about very early Iowa polls, remember that Ben Carson led the polls from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6 and finished a distant fourth, with 9 percent of the vote. Scott Walker led Iowa polls from mid-February to early August, but dropped out in September. Compare that to the Iowa caucuses in 2012 and 2008. In 2012, Santorum never led a single caucus poll, but surged nine points in the final week and won the caucus. In 2008, Huckabee didn’t lead Iowa polls until one month before the caucus. Even then, his once-big lead fell into a dead heat with Romney in the polls in the final days.

Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.