Inevitability???

Trump basks in growing sense of inevitability 

The real estate mogul is reveling in a flurry of polls that show him only getting stronger heading into the Iowa caucuses.

By Nick Gass

A sense of inevitability is growing around Donald Trump, with just six days to go before the Iowa caucuses, as new polls show the billionaire businessman extending his lead and perceived electability.

An ABC News/Washington Post national poll out Tuesday laid out a stunning shift in conventional wisdom: 67 percent of Republicans and leaners now say they expect Trump to win the GOP nomination, marking a 25 percentage-point increase since November. And 56 percent see Trump as the most "electable" nominee in a general-election matchup with Democrats.

Trump is also making gains with evangelicals, after assiduously courting Christians in recent weeks, including at a stop at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The latest NBC News/Survey Monkey weekly online tracking poll released Tuesday shows Trump grabbing the support of 37 percent of white evangelical Republican voters, while Cruz earned 20 percent. Just a week earlier, Cruz was nine points higher.

The good news for Trump didn’t stop there. He reached a new high in the CNN national poll (earning 41 percent, followed by Cruz with 19 percent), and bested Cruz in the latest Quinnipiac University survey of Iowa Republicans (31 percent, to Cruz’s 29).

"These standings reflect, above all, two factors: the strength of leaned Republicans’ interest in a candidate from outside the political establishment, and the power of anti-immigrant views in the party," pollster Gary Langer wrote about the ABC/Washington Post survey. "Statistical analysis finds that these two are the single strongest independent predictors of supporting Trump vs. any of his opponents."

The flurry of polls brings together an alarming picture for establishment Republicans who have failed to slow the real estate mogul’s momentum heading into the first caucuses and primaries.

And it’s not for a lack of trying. Over the past couple weeks, new anti-Trump efforts have emerged, including a last-minute ad assault from a newly formed super PAC set up by Katie Packer, who served as Mitt Romney’s deputy campaign manager in the 2012 election. Her group — Our Principles PAC — is poised to air a TV ad in Iowa that calls into question his devotion to conservative positions, and asks Iowans, “How much do we really know about Donald Trump?”

While Packer declined to divulge how much the group was spending for the ad blitz, a source familiar with the TV buy said it was in the “seven-figure” range.

Some parts of the conservative media have also risen up. The National Review last week released a dedicated “Against Trump” issue, featuring 22 notable conservative figures delivering blistering takedowns of the real estate mogul. Conservative radio host Glenn Beck, meanwhile, is hitting the campaign trail to support Cruz and bash Trump, telling voters over the weekend that Trump’s “kind of hubris is beyond imagination.”

Cruz himself is also issuing warnings of a glide path for Trump. "If Donald wins Iowa, he right now has a substantial lead in New Hampshire, if he went on to win New Hampshire as well, there is a very good chance he could be unstoppable and be our nominee,” Cruz told a gathering of Iowa pastors on Monday.

All of this is just seeming to add to Trump’s glee.

He took a victory lap, of sorts, on the morning show circuit on Tuesday, crowing about his dominant poll position, especially among evangelicals. "I'm a religious person. I've been going to Sunday school for a long time like you did, Joe, and you know, I am a religious person,” Trump told co-host Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe.” “And frankly, you know, I'm a believer and they understand that. Some of the polls came out, and was interesting, CNN said I'd be the best leader, I'll be best with ISIS, I'll be best on the border by far, I'll be best on a lot of things, and the evangelicals want that.”

He also kept up his verbal assault on Cruz. Trump has been hammering away at the Texas senator ever since he eclipsed Trump in the Iowa polls in mid-December, questioning Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency (he was born in Canada to a U.S.-born mother), his temperament (Cruz has few friends in the Senate), and his track record on immigration (Cruz has been haunted by his amendment to the Gang of Eight reform push).

"Well he does have a problem there. There's no question about it. Nobody knows if he can even run,” Trump said about Cruz on “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. “He has to solve that problem, get a declaratory judgment from the courts. I mean, he could be running and end up being thrown out of the race in the middle of it. … if he got a nomination, there'd be a lawsuit day one" from Democrats.

There’s just one risky patch for Trump ahead of the Iowa caucuses, and that’s Thursday night’s Fox debate. His rivals are sure to have the knives out for him, and Fox has not always been the most friendly to the Republican poll leader.

Sensing the danger, Trump has gone on offense, attacking moderator Megyn Kelly as biased and unfair. The two have a notable recent past: Kelly aggressively questioned whether Trump has waged a “war on women” due to his previous insults of certain women as “pigs” and “slobs.” Trump counterpunched, hard, and is not letting up ahead of the Des Moines debate.

While he has threatened in recent days to boycott the primetime event, he let up on the language on Tuesday. Appearing on “Good Morning America,” Trump said he would “probably” attend.

“Well, I’m making a decision," the Republican candidate told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in a telephone interview, in which he continued to bash his long-running media adversary. "I think she’s not a professional. I don’t think she’s a very talented person. I don’t think she is a good reporter. I think they could do a lot better than that. I love doing the debates. You know, I just do think they should get competent reporters. They shouldn’t use somebody like her. She’s not very good. She’s not very good at what she does, I will tell you that.”

Pressed again on whether he would participate in the debate on Thursday, Trump responded, “Well you could probably make that assumption, but I’m thinking about it."

And while he’s got a lot to boast about heading into the Iowa caucuses, Trump is playing the expectations game. On Tuesday morning he said he’s “leading by a lot” in every other state, but that Iowa is less of a lock.

"Well, I don't know. I assume it's close in Iowa,” Trump said on “Morning Joe.” “That's the one place where it's close and it could very well be close. I think we're going to do great in Iowa, but you never know.”