--- title: Election 2016: Ted Cruz's Iowa Caucus Ground Game on Video description: The Texas senator planned to visit all 99 counties in the Hawkeye State canonical: https://time.com/4201536/ted-cruz-iowa-ground-game/ author: Francesca Trianni article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-31T18:19:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:58.295Z article:section: Politics og:title: This is how Ted Cruz plans to win in Iowa og:description: The Texas senator planned to visit all 99 counties in the Hawkeye State og:url: https://time.com/4201536/ted-cruz-iowa-ground-game/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce6ffd228d1315cc/69887b7df887dcd437e94655/cruziowa.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: CruzIowa og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This is how Ted Cruz plans to win in Iowa twitter:description: The Texas senator planned to visit all 99 counties in the Hawkeye State twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce6ffd228d1315cc/69887b7df887dcd437e94655/cruziowa.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is How Ted Cruz Plans to Win in Iowa > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=721917d4-aa35-4403-95fb-8cfba3b80864&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Ted Cruz Campaign Gets To The Point In Iowa [Watch (HLS stream): Ted Cruz Campaign Gets To The Point In Iowa](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YLGM6LDG.m3u8) (0:59)  _Published 2016-01-31_ by [Francesca Trianni](https://time.com/author/francesca-trianni/) and [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/) Jan 31, 2016 6:19 PM UTC by [Francesca Trianni](https://time.com/author/francesca-trianni/) and [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/) Jan 31, 2016 6:19 PM UTC It’s little more than 24 hours before the pivotal Iowa caucuses begin, and the presidential campaigns are still going strong. Especially for Ted Cruz, who TIME reporter Alex Altman says digs deep to his religious roots to connect with his conservative voters on the trail. “Ted, the voice of sanity, in this time of calamity!” a voter exclaims at a campaign stop in a public library in northwest Iowa. Cruz has been touring several towns in Iowa, and is one of the few candidates who planned to stop in all of the state’s 99 counties. “This is part of Cruz’s strategy to win it the old fashioned way,” Altman said, “which is to go hand-to-hand in small towns, visit people, and tell them why he wants their vote.” ## Transcript We are here today standing on the promises of second chronicles 7: 14 >> At every stop here in rural northwest Iowa what Cruz is telling crowds is that he wants to commit. He wants to win their vote. He wants them to bring nine friends, and he wants everyone to spend a minute a day praying. Cruz is the most on message of any Republican candidate, and that's a pretty tall order in a field that also includes people like Marco Rubio. Most people generally try to present a case that's gonna be the most broadly appealing to the widest variety of people. But Cruz believes in a race like Iowa what's most important is driving true believers to the polls. And so what he's trying to do is speak the language of religious conservatives to motivate social conservatives by presenting himself as sort of the one Republican who has fought time and again against the establishment, even when it didn't [ UNKNOWN ] to his benefit. We can bring back That shining city on a hill that is this nation we love so. 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