mark: andy mcguire, jeff kaufman, thank you. we go on the ground with two campaigns.rco rubio campaign and the ted cruz campaign. ♪ john: that was a marco rubio event last night. that was broken down afterwards in a matter of minutes. griffin hammon followed the teams of both marco rubio and ted cruz. he documented the ground operation. here is what they look like. ♪ >> 151 hours. that is how long remains until the iowa caucuses. >> six days from right now, you should be arriving at your caucus place. don't be late. [laughter] >> the future and destiny of america could be decided monday night in iowa. it is either donald trump or ted cruz. >> i don't believe iowa can be one from a manhattan tv studio. >> several of the things we considered going through with trump, they were always big events. they were never in the small coffee shops. whereas ted cruz is more grassroots than donald trump is. >> i told him we would be praying for him. this is our first time to really be involved in the caucus. [applause] >> i will be here until all of you are gone. i will stay here fo

jeff kaufman, chair of the iowa republican party, said it will vastly improve the reporting process. sot jeff kauffman: "it's the latest technology and it's going to allow us to report the results in a more transparent way, and so the media is going to love this, everyday iowans are going to love this, the nation that's waiting to hear our opinions out here in this state are going to like this because of the transparency. it's going to be a more accurate way of reporting and, hopefully, barring an extremely close race, it's going to allow us to announce a winner that night of the iowa caucuses." now even though both parties anticipate the accuracy and expediency across all 16-81 iowa voting precincts, kaufman said if the race is close on caucus night the official results will be delayed until after mail-in tallies are verified two days later. of course, in this electronic age, there are also concerns about security of the app and keeping hackers out of the system. we got a sneak peek from microsoft today and they showed us three levels of verification for each precinct. first, users -

hope to each have more time to lay out their plans and we talk to the iowa republican party chair jeff kaufman about why it is so important for iowa voters. >> the best advice i can give for fellow iowans, is listen, analyze, do what iowans do best, that is make their independent judgments and don't forget to caucuses because when it's all power. they are the grass roots. they're the ones that's going to tell the party leaders and the candidates who they want to be world. cynthia: and as you can see on the monitors here, the undercard debate is starting right now with carle fiorina, mike the question is whether candidates will go without trump being here tonight or if they will attack each other or gang up on ted cruz or ted cruz and marco rubio who are running second and third in the polls. we will have more reaction and later on in this newscast and more tonight at 10. cynthia. all the republican candidates will participate except for donald trump. steve: trump pulled out because megyn kelly will be moderating. he's holding his own event at drake university. vanessa peng is live outside the

the chair jeff kaufman says he can't see acenario where rereblicans don't surpasas the 120,000 rson mark the benchmark for both parties. exception for 2007 when a record turnout of f 240,000 helped send barack obama to the white house. his folks will be prered. >> we probably have the most talented group of individuals working for ushat we ever have. they are cutting edge themselves they are hard-workrkg. >> cause cuss 2016 has a new voter participation a online the new system went online new year's day. the system is meant to compliment the other options that are already available to people in iowa w who want to participate in the system. some have criticized that new online system because it requires a driver's license number, or identification issued from the department of transportation. iowa is one of only a few states with online registration that don't remember require the voter to also send in a hard copy form to complete that online process. >>> a progrgramming ne that next week's sho will serve as a preview to caucus night. that is february 1. among our guests already booked is

barack obama wants to change cynthia: now, with me right now is jeff kaufman, the chair of the iowa republican party. jeff, everyone was wondering if this would be a different debate tonight. was it a different debate without donald trump here? >> i think more of the candidates had more air time. there were some fireworks. not quite as much as you might expect. there were probably a few less lighter moments but overall, i'm real pleased with the candidates in the debate tonight. they put up every round of questions taking a shot at donald trump. they didn't do that. they posed some very solid initiatives, i think. you take what happened tonight and juxtapose that with the very few debates the democrats have had and having it on a saturday night, you look at what we just presented for the republican party, all out there, letting people know what they believe. i mean, i'm just proud of every one of these. i think every one of these individuals could be president we're not under draw back for a lady under investigation by the fbi and not electing a cynthia: do you think they're already looking to

jeff kaufman is chairman of the republican party of iowa.hank you for being here. >> absolutely. >> what are you hearing on the ground about who's got momentuo? >> we have the big event at the top between trump and cruz. that's there. some some ways it's a self-propelling momentum, but i think i'm sensing ben carson and people realizing that the ground game that he has, that there's some real potential there. >> that's right? >> i'm sensing that. marco rubio is here, fully, his ground game has improved dramatically. there's a lot of interest in some of the candidates that have been towards the end of the poll. tomorrow, john kasich is going to be in eastern iowa. huckabee is still running a very strong cming everybody. come on, we want to know what you're seeing, a surge at the last minute? >> i think those that have the strongest on the ground games -- >> getting poem from their homes to the caucuses. >> absolutely. there are people at the bottom of these polls. >> that's the question about donald trump, he's had so many iowans show up at t

joining meis the iowa state republican chair, jeff kaufman, good morning, jeff. >> pleasure to be here. let's talk about the waythe candidates are campaigning. >> donald trump is holding the big rally and everyone else is going to the smaller events. doyou think that'll work for donald trump? >> i think if you got unique power and star power, he's made use of orthodox technique. >> george w bush did not do a lot of retail politics out here. >> the importance of iowa is that it goes to all 99 counties and making sure that you can do it all is always an option. i think that's important. >> reporter: let's talk quickly about this saying some caucus goers are in violation and it appears that it is an official mailing from the secretary of state when it is not. >> our secretary of state battle it out. i know the mayors were not like- -i am going to let that fight between the campaign and our election officials. >> reporter: you don't think it is inappropriate? >> i think on february 1st the people will determine what's appropriate or what is not. >> >> reporter: thank you very much, the cha

. >>> jeff kaufman is the iowa republican party chair. thank you so much for coming in. you've been hearing this back and forth. you heard ted cruz saying this is a nonissue. do you agree or do you think this is a legitimate question? >> look, the iowa caucuses are close to the people. there's going to be a lot of questions asked. let's face it, anybody who follows politics knows that this is a full contact sport. a lot of issues are going to come up. ultimately it's going to be iowa to decide which are those issues that are important or staying power through february 1st. >> are voters really talking about this? that's what donald trump says, raising questions about the eligibility to become president. >> i'll be honest, i've had but a handful talk to me about this particular issue. i have not heard a lot of talk or questions about the citizenship and senator cruz. >> so does this bid into the not a legitimate issue to bring up on the trail? >> well, i don't know if there are laj mate or nonlegitimate issues on the trail. look, the reason that iowa is a caucus state and

on top of that, you have the head of the republican party, jeff kaufman says expectations in my opinionerson getting first place. is rubio right? is the game different this time? >> it could be. for one thing, the two guys who are expected to finish ahead of him, cruz and trump, both have a lot of establishment opposition. and if after new hampshire the other kind of more centrist establishment candidate like jeb bush and john kasich and chris christie fall by the wayside, it's possible that a lot of people rally around marco rubio because they're so concerned about the electoral consequences of nominating either trump or cruz. and that will probably get rubio more money than he has. he's already well-funded. you can imagine that sense of desperation might fuel rubio's candidacy even if he finishes third in south carolina after finishing third in new hampshire and iowa. >> how problematic is it for ted cruz if he doesn't take iowa? >> i think it's difficult for him because iowa is a stronger state for him than new hampshire. if he loses -- if donald trump wins both iowa and new hampshir

question five, iowa's republican chair jeff kaufman surprise me think he would probably pass passes record 120,000 office night this time i figured you would do a lot higher than that is tension in the field of 12 and includes donald trump. how that all brings us to the race. 120,000 would still only be about half what the obama clinton and edwards in and the rest turned off the democrats back in 2008. you would think they would be able to do better than that. finally, governor branstad wants the future potential penny sales tax earning so that some of the money go instead to water quality. from almost everybody i talked to, that idea is drowning in skepticism that lawmakers would actually go for this this next legislative session that begins tomorrow. things are being with us on the it a busy week ahead in the will political gravity and every prediction of his imminent collapse. >> and who's going pay for the wall? >> and he now says he's in this race for long run. >> i'm not leaving. >> going straight to the white house? >> going all the way. >> and he's ready to use bill clinton's perso

i've always believed in and i'm very proud that, you know, under the present leadership we have, jeff kaufman, the party has really worked well, and we've got our financial house in order, and of 're doing a great job supporting candidates and also hosting the debate and the caucuses. alex: governor, what you just aid, does that mean you would support ted cruz if he's the republican nominee? gov. branstad: of course. i will support the republican numbny and enthusiastically nominee for whoever the is but i want the iowa voters to be well informed and know who really supports the iowa industry and jobs and iowa agriculture and we know that renewable energy, be it ethanol, bio diesel, wind or solar, very we rtant to our state, and see great opportunities for growth in those areas in the future. we ant to keep the momentum have going for us. susan: governor in the 30 seconds we have left, we were sitting in these seats this time last year. jeb bush was the presumptive man your party by most conventional wisdom. hat happened to this campaign that he's in these low digits in the polls around the c

here to talk the republican race in iowa is jeff kaufman, chairman of the iowa republican party. dt stat has come out against ted cruz. >> as for governor branstead, it's interesting, that's an example of the establishment getting behind donald trump or the washington cartel getting behind donald trump. >> let's talk about what it means for the governor to get behind a candidate or just an anti-endorsement for that matter in the state of iowa. this is pretty unusual. >> it is. and you know, there's not a whole lot of difference between a public figure endorsing. we had a congressperson, steve king, that endorsed senator cruz and we had a governor that i think raised some concerns over an issue. in this state, we're used to expressing our opinions. i think it's perfectly appropriate to express your opinion for a candidate like congressman king has. i think it's perfectly appropriate to stand up for an issue. i don't believe the governor advocated for a specific candidate. he advocated for an issue. here's the beauty of iowa, any of these candidates can take it directly to the peop

jeff: i do not know if i will sleep. it depends on how long you folks leave us alone. mark: we will not let you sleep very long. kaufmanjeff thank you. we go on the ground with two campaigns. the marco rubio campaign and the ted cruz campaign. ♪ john: that was a marco rubio event last night. griffin hammon followed the teams of both marco rubio and ted cruz. here is what they look like. >> 151 hours. that is how long remains until the iowa caucuses. >> six days from right now, you should be arriving at your caucus. but don't be late. >> the future and destiny of america could be decided monday night in iowa. it is either donald trump or ted cruz. things we of the considered going through with trump, they were always big events. they were never in the small coffee shops. ted cruz is more grassroots. i told him we would be praying for him. this is our first time to really be involved in the caucus. >> i will be here until all of your -- all of you are gone. ina lot of undecided voters iowa. we will get marco around the state this weekend. caucusing for senator rubio on monday? >> i committed to marco rubio tonight. i lik

you sound like a second baseman for the cubs, and republican chair jeff kaufman.retary of state of iowa say the mailings coming out for the cruz campaign on election eve are false representations of an official act. your view as the party chair. referee this baby. >> our secretary of state has been elected three times. he's our official election official in this state. i'm going to let he and the cruz campaign work this thing out. >> so you're not going to decide who is right or wrong? >> no, i'm not the election official. i provide hopefully a fair -- >> what's the party chairman's job if it isn't to be the important person deciding these things? >> not to decide policy. not to determine what -- >> like debbie wasserman schultz when i ask her the difference between a democrat and a socialist. not talking. let me ask you about this race. i am surprised at your party, the democratic party, is so the open in expressing its ideology to the left. i know your state has always amazed me. tom harkin re-elected over and over and over again. a hubert humphrey democrat, dem