By THOMAS BEAUMONT and HANNAH FINGERHUT
CORALVILLE, Iowa — Donald Trump was uncharacteristically serious when he implored an audience in eastern Iowa to carry him to a blowout in next month’s Republican caucuses.
“The margin of victory is very important, it’s just very important,” Trump told about 1,000 people attending a Wednesday rally aimed at organizing campaign volunteers. “It’s time for the Republican Party to unite, to come together and focus our energy and resources on beating Crooked Joe Biden and taking back our country. Very simple.”
For the blustery former president, it was both caution against complacency and a sign that he and his team believe the first contest on Jan. 15 can be not just the start of the nominating campaign, but the beginning of the end.
Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win Iowa, one month away from the caucuses. A myriad of well-qualified GOP challengers and anti-Trump groups haven’t changed that dynamic after crisscrossing the state over the last year and spending more than $70 million in Iowa on advertising, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. And unlike his first time in the caucuses, which he narrowly lost in 2016, Trump’s campaign is now run by Iowa veterans who are not just locking in caucus commitments but building a formidable organization to try to lock in his lead.
Among rival campaigns, most question not whether Trump will win, but by how much — and whether a second-place finisher can claim momentum for the rest of the race.
“For me, it looked like for a long time there was a narrow lane, but there was a lane, for a not-Trump candidate,” said Gentry Collins, a veteran Republican strategist and former state GOP executive director who ran Mitt Romney’s 2008 GOP caucus campaign. “But there isn’t really a single alternative people can rally around.”
Trump was the first choice of 51% of likely Iowa caucus participants in a Des Moines Register-NBC News-Mediacom Iowa Poll…
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