Second-place Iowa caucus finisher and perpetual attention machine Donald Trump is arguing that Ted Cruz “stole” a victory in Monday’s caucuses by giving out erroneous information that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race:
What Trump is describing as a “release” was an email that the Cruz campaign sent to Iowa precinct captains mischaracterizing a CNN report that Carson was going home to Florida “for some R&R.”
(As Gawker points out, it’s especially unclear where the “big announcement” part of that seems to have been sourced from.)
Cruz supporter Steve King, an Iowa congressman and big-time right-wing figure, sort of repeated the incorrect information in a tweet:
Is it possible that Trump is right about the effect of the misinformation? It doesn’t seem like it given that Carson actually overperformed his polls in caucus results. The only major candidate who actually underperformed was Trump.
RealClearPolitics
How does Trump, whose tweet-rant also mentioned a shady “voter violation” mailer that the Cruz campaign sent out, suggest we remedy all this? Ah, just to redo the entire caucus:
Incidentally, Slate’s headline about Trump’s concession speech was “Trump Loses Iowa, Weirdly Doesn’t Whine or Shout About It in Concession Speech.” We might have to put an update on that one.
