Trump Calls for Iowa Do-Over

In a series of tweets, Donald Trump has accused Sen. Ted Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucus and wants a do-over.

"Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified," he tweeted to cap a series of messages attacking Cruz.

"Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!," he tweeted early Wednesday.

Cruz beat Trump by several percentage points after most polls put Trump slightly ahead. But the Iowa caucus has been tough to predict, with sometimes back-in-the-packers pulling out surprising wins—Rick Santorum in 2012 for example.

Trump fired off a series of tweets:

"During primetime of the Iowa Caucus, Cruz put out a release that @RealBenCarson was quitting the race, and to caucus (or vote) for Cruz."

Followed by:

"Many people voted for Cruz over Carson because of this Cruz fraud. Also, Cruz sent out a VOTER VIOLATION certificate to thousands of voters."

"And finally, Cruz strongly told thousands of caucus-goers (voters) that Trump was strongly in favor of ObamaCare and 'choice' - a total lie!"

CNN was reporting that Cruz had apologized for his staff telling caucus-goers that Ben Carson was planning to exit the race, saying it had been a mistake. Carson told CNN that whoever was responsible for that "blatant lie" should be fired.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.