Candidates make final pitches before the caucuses begin in Iowa
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz completed the "full Grassley," hitting all 99 counties in Iowa, with a stop in Jefferson, Iowa Monday afternoon. At the Greene County Community Center, he counted the hours down until caucus time, at that moment five hours away, and he exhorted voters to come out and support him.
"Stand up and speak for us. If we stand together united we will win," Cruz promised the crowd. "And I got to tell you right now, this race right now is neck-and-neck. It's all about turnout. This race is a statistical tie between me and Donald Trump. It all comes down to turnout -- who shows up tonight at 7 p.m."
In Cedar Rapids GOP front-runner Donald Trump rallied Iowans and claimed that putting him in the White House would mean a lot of winning, an oft-repeated riff at his rallies.
"We're going to win so much -- you're going to get so tired of winning. It's true," he told them. "You're going to say, 'Please, Mr. President, we're winning too much.'"
Trump was on the lookout for those less enamored of the wins he promised. His security detail, he said, had warned him that there might be a protester waiting with tomatoes to throw at him.
"So, if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Just knock the hell -- I promise you -- I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise," he said.
In an interview with CBS News' Nancy Cordes, Bernie Sanders vowed that no matter what, he'll be in the race until the convention, but he's still counting on winning Iowa.
"We have the resources, we have the energy to continue the struggle and I think at the end of the day we're going to surprise a lot of people. I think we're gonna win this thing," he predicted Monday afternoon.
This caucus day Hillary Clinton talked with "CBS This Morning" about the attacks she's weathered over the course of the campaign, over issues like her use of a private email server, her relationship with Wall Street.
"I'm a little bit scarred up, but I'm still standing and I think that kind of experience will really do me well in this campaign. And I believe that I'm the Democrat who can make sure we keep the White House in the right hands going forward," she said.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul showed a surprising amount of optimism for a candidate who was in fifth place among the Republican field and polling at 5 percent in the last Des Moines Register poll before the caucus.
"I think there is a chance we can win," he told volunteers at his Iowa headquarters, explaining that turnout would be key, especially on college campuses.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie set slightly lower expectations for the day, saying on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he'd like to be the number one governor coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire. In particular, he said, he wants to beat Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and the other former governors in the field, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee (former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore is still in the race but Christie didn't name him specifically).
The man who is looking at a potential third-place finish, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, took one last swipe at his fellow senators (Cruz and Paul) in an interview with "Good Morning America."
"Ted voted for a budget -- Rand Paul's budget that brags about cutting defense spending," he said. "If I'm president, we're going to rebuild the military because I believe the world is a better place when America's the strongest military in the world."
CBS News' Alexander Romano, Rebecca Kaplan, Katiana Krawchenko, Sean Gallitz and Alan He contributed to this report.