welcome to the republican rorschach primary. i m michael smerconish in philadelphia. people are reading into the results so far whatever they re wishing for. first there are the never tr trumpers. they say he is essentially running as an incumbent, and still 49% of the voters in iowa, they didn t want him. speaking of iowa, the turnout was abysmal. a little over 110,000 participated, accounting for just under 15% of the state s 752,000 registered republicans. do you know that trump only received a little over 56,000 votes? iowa, iowa is lily white. it is unrepresentative of the country at large. we are a diverse nation of over 335 million, a small number of iowa voters should not determine our destiny. besides, the iowa field, it was still too crowded. when nikki haley finally got him one-on-one in new hampshire she was able to keep it close and received about 43% of the vote. worse for trump, the independents in new hampshire supported haley in huge numbers, showing that tru
registered republicans. do you know that trump only received a little over 56,000 votes? and iowa, iowa is lily white. it s unrepresentative of the country at large. we re a diverse nation of over 335 million, a small number of iowa voters should not determine our destiny. and besides, the iowa field was still too crowded. when nikki haley finally got him one-on-one in new hampshire, she was able to keep it close and received about 43% of the vote. and worse for trump the independents in new hampshire supported haley in huge numbers showing that trump could never win a general election, so why should haley drop out? candidates only drop out when they run out of money and nikki has the money. she s raised 2.6 million since the new hampshire primary, and the super pac backing haley raised 50.1 million in the last signature months, that s about 5 million more than the pac backing trump. and don t forget. he s four times indicted, anything can happen. after all, just yesterday a
caucus. if you do better than expected you re off to the races, however, if you do worse than expected, it could be the end of the race. i m thinking back at a time in 1968 when lyndon johnson actually won the new hampshire primary, but barely so. a fella named eugene mccarthy had almost taken the state outright and changed everything. not too long after that, lyndon johnson, the president of the united states, who was expected to run for reelection, did not and all because he won a state by far less than most thought. that was then, hard to say what happens now. all right, it s all about the perception, isn t it? welcome back to cavuto live, we re in new hampshire where we re three days out and voters will get their say finally and not prompter readers, in the first of the nation primary. a lot of the republican candidates certainly, this is the last minute rush, if you will, before the big day. now, you heard from ron desantis a short time ago and we ll be talking to nikki
they say texas kept the feds from helping a woman and two children who died crossing the rio grande. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments. we begin with donald trump getting a warm embrace from frigid iowa. nbc s garrett haake is just north of des moines. garrett, what is the former president saying in his closing pitch? reporter: good afternoon, from what will surely be a donald trump jr. event here today in ankeny as the trump team tries to lock in the results of what we have seen in poll after poll over the last couple of weeks. a dominant lead here in the hawk eye state. at his last major rally yesterday, donald trump basically tried to welcome in all the disparate elements of his movement here in this state, be they first time cause of action caucus goers, evangelicals, and warned primarily against their biggest enemy which he views as complacency. listen to what he told a call in indianola yesterday. a victory over all the liars, che