Candidates in final sprint to Iowa vote

DES MOINES

Months into their White House campaigns, US presidential candidates Sunday made a final frenzied push to persuade voters before Iowa kicks off the nomination process.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, fearful of a 2008 repeat when she was beaten to the punch in Iowa by an upstart Barack Obama, was leaving nothing to chance, stumping in the heartland this weekend as her main rival Senator Bernie Sanders did the same, seeking to deny her yet another shot at history.

Republican Donald Trump and his nearest rival Ted Cruz, meanwhile, made unmasked appeals to Iowa’s evangelical conservatives so important in the first-in-the-nation contest on Monday.

And long-shot hopefuls like Carly Fiorina made their pitch to voters too, reminding them that polls are notoriously unreliable in Iowa, where political upsets are commonplace.

The three Democrats and 12 Republicans aiming to be their party’s 2016 torchbearer are leaving it all on the field in Iowa, hosting several dozen events across this snow-swept heartland state as they gear up for Monday’s debut vote in the presidential marathon.

The state is small and relatively homogeneous, but it is immensely consequential for the top finishers who can claim momentum heading into the primary in New Hampshire.

On the Republican side, it is billionaire Trump at the fore, tearing up the traditional playbook and largely avoiding the retail politics that require candidates to put in days and weeks in Iowa.

IF WE WIN
But he made the requisite appeal to evangelicals, who comprised 57 per cent of caucus voters in 2012 and are expected to play a huge part in the February 1 vote.

Trump posted a short video on Facebook, showing him holding up a Bible given to him by his mother.

“I want to thank the evangelicals. I will never let you down,” he said.

At a Saturday rally in Dubuque, he expressed his usual confidence — “If we win Iowa, we can run the table!” — while knocking Cruz, repeating his concerns about the Texas senator being born in Canada and questioning his eligibility to be president.

Cruz is locked in a do-or-die battle with Trump in Iowa, and is counting on a strong evangelical turnout to help propel him to victory here.

“We need godly wisdom back in the White House,” supporter Pam Cobb said at a Cruz rally in Ida Grove, in northwest Iowa.

Hovering in third place among Republicans is Senator Marco Rubio, whose star is seen as rising perhaps just at the right time.

“You have a right to be angry,” Rubio told more than 300 people at a university hall in Ames, Iowa.