Did a Dirty Trick Help Ted Cruz Win in Iowa?
Earlier today Ben Carson claimed Ted Cruz's campaign used a dirty trick that cost Carson votes in the Iowa Caucuses. Carson claimed Cruz surrogates put out the story that Carson was dropping out of the primary race. Cruz surrogates then put out messages telling Cruz supporters to inform Carson supporters that Carson was dropping out and that all Carson supporters should vote for Cruz. The Cruz campaign admitted to telling grassroots Republicans, in an email, that Carson was dropping out of the race and not emailing them again when it became clear that Carson was actually staying in the race. The Cruz team offered an apology to the Carson campaign. The Carson campaign accepted.
Ted Cruz won the Iowa Caucuses by less then 7,000 votes. That is a big enough margin to claim the email did not affect the outcome of the caucuses. However, someone could also claim maybe, just maybe 7,000+ Carson supporters believed Carson was dropping out of the race and voted for Ted Cruz as a second option. That could explain why Cruz won when the last polls seemed to show Donald Trump winning in Iowa.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carson-cruz-iowa_us_56b0bdabe4b0fbfdd615319e
"It's just false. We simply as a campaign repeated what Ben Carson had said in his own words," Tyler said. "He said after Iowa he was going to go back to Florida for a couple of days and then he was going to go to D.C. to the prayer breakfast. And what that told us was he was not going to New Hampshire. That's not a ‘dirty trick.’ That was really surprising by a campaign who was once leading in Iowa saying he's not going to come to New Hampshire. That's a news item."
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UPDATE: 8:27 p.m. -- Cruz apologized on Tuesday afternoon, admitting his campaign had sent an email to grassroots leaders implying that Carson was preparing to drop out and should have sent a follow-up email to correct the error.
"This was a mistake from our end, and for that I apologize to Dr. Carson," Cruz wrote in an email.
http://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/02/carson-accuses-cruz-dirty-tricks-caucus-night/
"Last night when our political team saw the CNN post saying that Dr. Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story," Cruz said in a statement to CNN. "That's fair game. What the team then should have done was send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out."
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“CNN is reporting that Ben Carson will stop campaigning after Iowa,” the alert read. “Make sure to tell all of your peers at the caucus supporting Carson that they should coalesce around the true conservative who will be in the race for the long haul: TED CRUZ!”
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U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a national co-chair of Cruz's campaign, then sent a tweet at 7:20 p.m. while caucusing was ongoing that further inflamed tensions.
“Carson looks like he is out,” King wrote, linking to the news. “Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz I hope.”
Though Carson's campaign publicly refuted the suggestion that Carson was dropping out of the race, Cruz supporters at various caucuses responded to those mobile alerts by announcing before voting began that Carson would be dropping out, according to various reports from caucus-goers.
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