A couple of weeks ago on the VPOD roundtable, I mentioned how Donald Trump should start lowering expectation in Iowa.
It took a few days, but Trump is now hinting that he might not win in Iowa:
At a campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Trump ran through a list of polls showing him leading the Republican race nationally and also in the Hawkeye State, which holds caucuses on Feb. 1. But he also noted that a handful of polls have shown him “very close” in the state, presumably trailing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has begun a steady surge there.
“If I come in second by 2 points, they’ll say ‘Ooh, this is a terrible defeat,'” he said, referring to media and pundit pronouncements. “It’s not terrible.”
It seemed like a classic case of expectations-setting common to presidential campaigns, but rarely seen from Trump, who has consistently led both in national and early-state polls. He heaped praise on Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and warned of political plots to bump Iowa “to the back of the pack” in future primary seasons. He said that if he wins, he’d ensure that Iowa remains the first state to hold a nominating contest.
He’s also going to be pending a lot of money in the early primary contests…because he has no choice.
But here in [Iowa] with the first nominating contest, about six weeks away, Mr. Trump has fallen behind in the nuts and bolts of organizing. A loss in Iowa for Mr. Trump, where he has devoted the most resources of his campaign, could imperil his leads in the next two nominating states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where his get-out-the-vote organizations are even less robust.
A successful ground game is crucial in Iowa because of the state’s complicated method of caucus voting, but the Trump campaign has lagged in reaching some of its own benchmarks.
Lagged to the point of “malpractice”:
The Trump campaign hopes to attract a surge of independents and disaffected Democrats on caucus night, but the latest data from the Iowa secretary of state show no significant growth in Republican registrations.
Interviews in Iowa with Mr. Trump’s campaign workers, his volunteers and dozens of attendees at his rallies over two months, as well as observations of voter outreach, conference calls and confidential training sessions, indicate that Mr. Trump’s support in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses may fall short of his poll numbers in the state. He is now trading the lead position with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Mr. Trump’s greatest organizing asset is a database of thousands of email addresses of Iowans who have attended packed rallies. Yet it appears that organizers have only recently begun tapping that database, which a Democratic strategist in Iowa called “malpractice.”
The “magic number” of voters the Trump campaign has revealed it wants to turn out — 48,000 — is highly optimistic in the view of other Republican campaigns and independent experts.
“It’s easy for someone to sit on a phone when they get a polling call and say, ‘I like candidate X,’ ” said Steve Grubbs, the Iowa state director for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, referring to Mr. Trump’s strength in Iowa polls. “It’s far different to get that person out of a La-Z-Boy to hop in a car and avoid the black ice and head to their local firehouse.”
Yes, the other campaigns are talking smack. That’s what they get paid to do.
Nevertheless, Iowa will be an acid test for Trump’s brand of campaigning. He’s doing the smart thing by bringing down, even slightly, expectations he will win.
He creates much more upside in case of a victory, and cushions the downside if he falls short.
And yes, all of this churns, colors, and guides the latest dust-up here in Virginia.
