Cruz Could Beat Trump In Iowa Caucuses If Poll Turnout Remains The Same As 2012

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has trailed fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in the polls, both nationally and in Iowa, ahead of the Iowa caucus, but it's likely that Cruz could come out on top Monday night. Political anaylsts say that Cruz will win Iowa if Trump isn't able to mobilize new caucusgoers and the turnout hovers around the numbers of the last presidential election, reported Politico.

In 2012, the Iowa caucuses saw a record 122,000 Republicans participate, but if Trump brings new caucusgoers to the polls, he could win the Republican Iowa caucus, according to political analysts. Trump would need somewhere between 135,000 and 10,000 GOP Iowans to show up to the polls Monday.

The latest poll from the Des Moines Register-Bloomberg News, published Saturday, put Cruz at 23 percent of support from likely GOP Iowa caucusgoers, with Trump ahead with 28 percent of support.

“If that number goes well above that, Donald Trump has a shot,” Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has campaigned for Cruz, told Politico. “If that number is that or below that, Ted Cruz is in control.

Trump appears to have realized how critical it is for him to bring the waves of supporters who show up to his rallies to the Monday polls.

“You’ve got to go out and caucus," Trump said Saturday at Dubuque airport in Iowa. "You’ve got to get out there. I don’t care what happens. If your wife leaves you for another man, if you leave your wife because you don’t like her, I don’t care what it is. If you’re sick, you’ve got to get out.”

Cruz made some of his final appeals this weekend to win Iowans' support. “This is your time,” Cruz told a crowd at a hotel ballroom. "This is the time for the men and women of Iowa to make a decision. We are inches away.”