WAUKON, Iowa (AP) – On a collision course all week, Republican presidential front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz were giving Iowa voters a look at their contrasting campaign styles Saturday.
What was a delicate detente has become strained as Cruz has jumped ahead in polls in Iowa, which holds the leadoff caucuses Feb. 1, while Trump tops opinion surveys nationally and in early-voting New Hampshire.
On display is a contest between the grinding Iowa campaign of Cruz – whose five stops Saturday complete a six-day, 28-event bus tour – and the splashy mega-rallies that have become as much Trump’s brand as his gilded hotels. Both have attracted overflow crowds: Trump at large halls and stadiums; Cruz in countless coffee shops, convenience stores, churches and diners.
The Texas senator and the billionaire have been quietly circling one another as they work to win over voters in the final stretch leading to the caucuses.
Trump late last year began efforts to undermine Cruz, questioning the senator’s religion and accusing him at recent events of stealing his idea to build a wall along the Mexico border. The intensity escalated this past week when Trump questioned whether the Canadian-born Cruz was eligible to be president.