Staunch Conservative Christian Ted Cruz has opened up an impressive 10-point lead in Saturday's poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers
Donald Trump's surprise success may have a shelf life after all, according to a new Iowa poll that puts Ted Cruz in a formidable lead.
The conservative Christian from Texas is now crushing the reality TV billionaire by 10 points in the state, according to The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll.
Cruz, a Tea Party darling known for being an agitator within the U.S. Senate, leaped to the head of the pack with a record-breaking 21-point gain since the previous poll.
Per the influential poll, 31 percent of Iowans who are likely to attend the Republican caucuses said they back Cruz.
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Support for Trump remained stagnant at 21 percent, according to the poll.
The poll of 2,635 randomly selected active Iowa voters was conducted Dec. 7-10.
While the Cruz campaign had not responded to the news early Sunday, Trump followed his form and issued a barrage of Twitter posts bashing Cruz and patting himself on the back Sunday morning.
Even before the poll results were released, Trump was lashing out at Cruz's Cuban background.
"I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba," he told a town hall at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. "Not a lot come out."
Trump also told attendees that Cruz's stance against subsidies for ethanol--subsidies that are widely popular in the agricultural Hawkeye State--were "anti-Iowa."
"With the ethanol, really, he's got to come a long way, 'cause right now he's for the oil," Trump said. "But I understand it, oil pays him a lot of money. He's got to be for oil, right?"
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