jeff? that s an electability ad. who s the one candidate who can stop them. not bernie sanders, hillary clinton. that means that s a concession they ve lost the passion. right. when you hire an announcer that talks like this, it means you really want to scare people. they want to scare people about is if you don t pick hillary clinton, one of these can win. those poll numbers, even though we know the primary poll numbers can be tenuous in a place like iowa. they enjoy changing their minds. but here s the question if she loses iowa and new hampshire, and the assumption is, well what s plan b ? the democrats i have thought for a while may have been building a trap for themselves where there s no alternative if this obvious front-runner presumptive nominee looks weak. what s plan b. and robert just this week another e-mail surfaces that then suddenly wonders where
there s question of what she was talking about. did she order a staff member make classified information on a declassified system but they have an explanation, but it s a reminder oh, by the way, that sits out here. for many democrats that seems to be a general election issue. when you look at iowa and new hampshire, sanders has engaged activists on his side. they want to see the post-obama democratic party move to the left. but other states, south carolina, more regular democratic states, they re still with clinton to sanders has to prove he had the network even if he has a few victories early on. however, helene, if iowa and new hampshire both go sanders this idea, i ve heard from democrats, what happens in iowa and new hampshire stays in iowa and new hampshire why are we so sure that wasn t the case for barack obama? no but this is different. you have so many other primaries to come after that. i think it s hard for me to
trump has ended up on the cover of the new york times today and the washington post but has produced few tangible results. with iowa just three weeks away, the establishment is terrified of either trump, maybe more so by ted cruz at the top of the ticket. i m joined by alex castellanos, who has worked on campaigns for the biggest names in the gop including the bushes, jeb and george w. mitt romney, here s ben ginsburg, former counsel to the bush campaigns and the scott walker campaign. the panel is here but let me start with you, alex. the week began with alex castellanos, famed republican consultant is briefing donors looking for people to start to buy into your anti-trump ad campaign and yet you found no takers. no takers. it s too confusing this year for the establishment. it s getting late in the game. if you disqualify trump, you could help ted cruz. the establishment doesn t want that. if you disqualify cruz, you could help trump. so a lot of the establishment is just sit
sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. welcome back, lots to discuss with the panel, jeff greenfield, helene cooper, jennifer jacobs and robert costa is here. i m going to start with you, jennifer. it s a big difference in our iowa poll than what you showed a couple weeks ago. we have bernie sanders within three points of hillary clinton in iowa. we always knew sanders home state neighbor in new hampshire. do these numbers surprise you? it s amazing. think of where he was at in iowa in january a year ago. nobody knew we asked what do you think about bernie sanders? no one knew who he was. so yeah, but don t forget, there s still really strong passion for hillary clinton in iowa. just yesterday they had 500 volunteers turn out at 9:00 in the morning, frigid weather, lousy conditions to knock on doors and make phone calls for her so there is passion for her as well.
technocrats, they re not ideological warriors, they re technocrats who we thought at a minimum were the competent guy. we did. but this is so big. when you start talking about water, this is so basic, that s so basic and that really feeds this distrust people have. it s like this is from this is not a third world country. it s emblematic of somewhat so many people think is wrong with america right now. before i let you go, jennifer, we had another part of our poll that will if you assume an expanded electorate in iowa, donald trump actually leads cruz 28-26. very narrow. we measured two different electorates, traditional caucus electorate or the what if he brings more people. what s your sense in the trump there is a new slice of electorate out there. do you think they re committed? we know a lot of iowans are intimidated by the caucus process. they think of it as the realm of only the super hard core activists. but i ve seen the way the iowa team for trump trains those in co