What will Trump do in Iowa? Downplay it or Go FTW?

[Likely Voter]

One thing we know is that Trump likes to portray himself as a winner, but things aren't looking too good for him in Iowa. In October he fell behind Carson but then Ben imploded and Trump regained but mostly because Ben fell. Now Cruz is surging. Like Carson, Cruz is a good fit for winning Iowa. Betting sites are also picking Cruz as the winner.

So Trump has a choice, go for the win in Iowa or dismiss it and focus on New Hampshire and other states.
- If he goes for the win he will have to go hard on attacking Cruz, spend more on his ground game and possibly do the one thing he has been avoiding, spending money on TV ads.
- On the other hand, he can do what McCain and others have done and downplay Iowa. Not totally ignore it but telegraph that he doesn't expect to win and set expectations low.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Iowa - every time they vote, they pick a loser!!! I care about winning the states that like winners

[Frodo]

Try to limit his loss there as much as possible, while focusing on New Hampshire. 

[The Mikado]

We've seen this before. Trump was losing to Carson, Trump flipped his s**t and went nuclear on Carson. Trump does not like losing. He'll try the same on Cruz, whether successful or not.

EDIT: Remember Cruz's Achilles Heel.

He opposes ethanol. In Iowa.

[Volrath50]

He'll emphasize how Iowa picked Santorum and Huckabee the past two times, saying how much Iowa loves picking losers. Decent chance he insults the intelligence of Iowans.

[Torie]

We've seen this before. Trump was losing to Carson, Trump flipped his s**t and went nuclear on Carson. Trump does not like losing. He'll try the same on Cruz, whether successful or not.

EDIT: Remember Cruz's Achilles Heel.

He opposes ethanol. In Iowa.

No, Cruz now sees the merits of ethanol actually.

[Likely Voter]

We've seen this before. Trump was losing to Carson, Trump flipped his s**t and went nuclear on Carson. Trump does not like losing. He'll try the same on Cruz, whether successful or not.

I agree that in the short run he will try to stop Cruz's surge in Iowa. However I dont think Cruz is going down like Carson did (and that really wasn't because of Trump's attacks anyway). So if Cruz is still looking like a winner a few weeks from now Trump will be faced with the choice of spending big money and going for the win or resetting expectations and saying Iowa is great but he doesn't expect to win because reasons. Look at how he prebutted today's Iowa DMR poll by setting expectations low. He will find some way to lower expectations before hand, otherwise he sets himself up to be seen as a loser, which is the worst thing in the world for him

[Likely Voter]

update, Trump is resetting expectations...

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[The Other Castro]

Focusing on New Hampshire and downplaying expectations in Iowa is the correct move for Trump. It would be tricky for him to bash Iowa without harming the Cruz bromance, and he knows that Cruz is not his competition in New Hampshire.

[pho]

I heard Trump say in an interview recently that he is planning to spend 2 million a week in TV ads starting very soon. Seems like he's going for the win.

[TJ in Oregon]

No matter what he does, I'd love to see someone heckle him by chanting "Loser" at every campaign event he does if he doesn't win Iowa.

It will be interesting to see how well his alpha male schtick works with downplaying expectations. That doesn't seem to be in the nature of what he's projected himself as.