Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican winner of Iowa’s presidential caucuses, drew a larger share of the vote from rural counties than billionaire Donald Trump or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, reports the Daily Yonder. Cruz ran up a 3,320-vote lead over second-place Trump in rural counties, and bested the New York businessman by 2,766 votes in urban counties.
The rural tilt toward Cruz is apparent in another comparison: the Texan got 45 percent of his votes from rural counties, which accounted for 41 percent of the total Republican vote. Trump got 44 percent of his support from rural counties and Rubio got 34 percent.
Rubio did the best among the three candidates in cities but trailed badly in rural counties. Trump out-polled Rubio by more than 5,000 votes in rural areas to take second place in the state, according to the Daily Yonder’s allocation of votes as urban or rural based on the federal definition of metropolitan statistical areas.
Corn and ethanol groups, worried by Cruz’s support of a five-year phase-out of federal mandates to use biofuels, tried to steer voters to other candidates. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley told reporters that the effort was not a mistake nor was it unfair. “We have a responsibility to defend jobs in our state. That’s what the governor was trying to do,” he said, referring to Gov. Terry Branstad’s urging Republicans to defeat Cruz.
While Cruz won the caucuses with a plurality of 28 percent, “other people supporting ethanol got 72 percent, if you add them up,” said Grassley, a bulldog supporter of ethanol and wind power.
The head of the pro-ethanol Renewable Fuels Association said the caucuses were not a referendum on biofuels. “The narrative coming out after last night’s Iowa caucus that the domestic ethanol industry is somehow on the ropes is false,” said RFA’s Bob Dinneen.