The State of The Campaigns

~To preface this post I need to say that the information I will be providing will be prior to the events and results of the Iowa Caucus on February 1, 2016 ~

By the end of January any candidate who dreams of taking over the White House by the end of the year has been constantly campaigning in the first two states of the election process for the past few weeks or even months. These are the states of Iowa which will be where the first votes of 2016 will be cast when they caucus on February 1st and New Hampshire which votes in the first primary on February 9th, just eight days after Iowa.

According to the CNN/ORC poll focusing on the Iowa Caucus on the Republican side the top five candidates are businessman Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Senator Ron Paul with Trump leading Cruz by 11 points. On the Democratic side Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the pack by 8 points over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Governor Martin O'Malley based on the same poll. With only a few days to go before the Iowa Caucus it will be interesting to see which candidates move up in the polls and which candidates loose momentum before the first test that there campaign faces.

Even before the new year started there have been many candidates who ended their bid before the contest truly started including Democrat Senator Jim Webb and Governor Lincoln Chafee and Republican Governor Scott Walker, Governor Rick Perry, Governor Bobby Jindal, and Senator Lindsey Graham. For the rest of the campaigns that are still in the running they have been gearing up by putting out more ads that focus on both what their campaigns offer and how they are the better option to become president than their opponents would be. Candidates in the lead such as Trump, Cruz, Clinton, and Sanders have been, and will continue to hold rallies, meet with their constituents and provide Iowans with the necessary information on how to get people to caucus in support of their candidacy.

Endorsements have also been growing for candidates from fellow politicians such as Sarah Palin who endorsed Donald Trump the other day and Evangelical Leaders who have been focusing their attention and resources towards the Rubio campaign. Yet as both the Iowa Caucus draws nearer with the New Hampshire primaries following shortly after, it will be interesting to see how candidates interact with each other, their constituents, and maybe even which candidates will drop out of the race.