Campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination took a nasty turn on Wednesday with billionaire businessman Donald Trump accusing rival Ted Cruz of fraud as the field of candidates narrowed ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary.
Rand Paul, a US senator from Kentucky with a libertarian philosophy, pulled out of the Republican race. Conservative Rick Santorum also exited the race on Wednesday and endorsed US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Both Paul and Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, did poorly in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, which were won by Cruz, with Trump and Rubio finishing second and third. The caucuses were the first of the state-by-state nominating contests ahead of the November 8 election to replace Democratic President Barack Obama.
Trump, a real estate mogul and former reality TV star, went on Twitter on Wednesday to accuse the conservative US senator from Texas of stealing his victory in Iowa. Cruz’s team hit back by telling Trump to seek help for addiction to the social media site.
The two men are going head-to-head for voters in New Hampshire, where Cruz’s evangelical Christian credentials will not likely be as helpful as they were in Iowa. Opinion polls show Trump with a roughly 20-point lead in New Hampshire before next Tuesday’s primary.
As the New Hampshire race heats up, the Democratic presidential contenders will face off later on Wednesday in a town hall-style event hosted by CNN. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Bernie Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, in Iowa.
Trump called for the nullification of Cruz’s Iowa victory or a new vote in the state.
“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump said in a series of tweets. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
Trump referred to an email that Cruz’s campaign sent on Monday that implied another Republican candidate, Ben Carson, was about to drop out of the race and that his Iowa backers should be urged to vote for the Texan instead. Cruz later apologised for the email.
‘Twitter addiction’
Trump also accused Cruz’s team of sending out a mailer designed to look like an official electoral document to scare Iowa voters into turning out at the caucuses.
The accusations were the latest aggressive tactic from Trump, who has courted controversy with attacks on other candidates and by urging a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and branding Mexican immigrants as criminals.
The Cruz campaign said Trump’s complaint was a cry for attention after the senator came from behind in the polls to win on Monday. A Cruz spokesman suggested he seek help for “Twitter addiction.”
Cruz won support in Iowa from much of the same conservative Christian constituency that helped Santorum to victory in the Iowa caucuses during the 2012 presidential campaign.