When the Republican National Committee pushed the Iowa caucuses out a month to Feb. 1, it seemed like the good people of Iowa and New Hampshire might get to enjoy the holiday season and a short respite from presidential politics.

Goodbye to all that.


Donald Trump, who in a span of four days last week proposed banning Muslim immigration and executing all cop killers, has been driving the campaign news cycle for months — and he’s not about to let up now, not for the holiday season or anything else.

“We keep a very aggressive campaign schedule and that will continue to take place over the next several weeks,” said Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager. “With about 50 days to go in Iowa and under 60 in N.H., there is no break. We run our race, the race we want.”

Trump’s sustained success, not to mention the rising establishment fears that he is increasingly defining the Republican Party and well-positioned to actually capture its nomination, has rival campaigns and RNC officials headed into the holidays with a sense of rising panic.

But it’s not just Trump that explains why this is shaping up to be anything but a quiet Christmas season on the campaign trail. Ted Cruz’s success in Iowa, which only compounds the establishment’s headache, Chris Christie’s sudden ascent in New Hampshire and Marco Rubio’s steady accumulation of major donors are all certain to make the final three weeks of 2015 loud and ugly.

And it starts Tuesday, when the GOP contenders meet in Las Vegas for the fifth Republican debate.

“The next debate is really important,” said Doug Gross, a prominent Des Moines attorney who raised money for Mitt Romney in 2012 but is still struggling to find a 2016 candidate to support. “The mainstream Republicans are trying to make a determination if they can rally around one candidate and stop Cruz and Trump.”

Interviews with senior Republican operatives reveal a consensus that Trump’s proposed Muslim ban, an idea that has drawn scorn from GOP leaders and rival candidates, has “upped the ante” and “added urgency” to their quest to unify behind “one strong alternative to Trump.” Cruz thinks that’s him. The establishment disagrees. And Rubio, along with lower-polling rivals Jeb Bush and John Kasich, is racing toward year-end in the hope he can claim the anti-Trump mantle.

The upshot: There will be no break from early state television ads and campaign stops over the holidays, not even in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Though there is no evidence those efforts will do anything to damage Trump and recalibrate the race.

Following the debate Tuesday, Cruz will embark on a weeklong tour of 12 cities where he aims to lock down support ahead of the March 1 “SEC primary,” flying with staff and his family on a chartered plane and wrapping up two days before Christmas in Oklahoma City.

Rubio plans to campaign in Iowa and other early voting states in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. And Bush plans to hunker down in New Hampshire, where he will campaign four days in the week before Christmas and two days the following week before New Year’s.

“We won’t be taking a holiday break from the campaign this year. It’s going to be bang, bang, bang because we are in a different environment than ever before,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based consultant who has been one of Trump’s most vehement critics and is doing work on behalf of Rubio. “Because of the organic nature of Trump’s message, he can’t let it stop. He is great at the earned media game—but, like a shark, if he stops moving, he dies; and so everyone else has to keep moving, too. I think he’ll ruin Christmas for America.”

The final three weeks of the year will see Bush, Kasich and Christie ratcheting up the anti-Trump arguments, starting Tuesday night. But Cruz, with perhaps the most to gain in a Trump decline, has been downright deferential to the poll leader, willing to play the pilot fish to the billionaire’s Great White shark. And that’s one thing that likely won’t change as December trudges toward its end.

After The New York Times last week quoted Cruz as having questioned Trump’s “judgment” at a private fundraiser, the campaign went into overdrive to push back on the piece, sending out a news release that called it “misleading” and decrying the story on Twitter. (The Times later posted audio confirming the quotes.) Following several tweets from Trump Friday morning, in which the real estate mogul indicated he relished the potential fight with Cruz, the Texas senator tried to defuse the situation, tweeting that “@realDonaldTrump is terrific.”

The comments gave Trump just enough of an opening to begin sowing the seeds of an attack against Cruz. Suggesting the fight for Iowa is down to the two of them, Trump criticized Cruz over his opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard, a boon for the state’s corn growers, during a town hall in Des Moines Friday night, trying to bait Cruz into more direct engagement.

But Cruz has been far more willing to engage with Rubio, who still has a shot in Iowa as long as Trump continues to hold a swath of potential Cruz supporters. Cruz will spend the month trying to tie Rubio to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of his partner’s on the 2013 immigration reform package.

Rubio, meanwhile, has zeroed in on Cruz’s vote to rein in National Security Agency bulk metadata collection powers, using that decision to cast Cruz as insufficiently tough on terrorism. Rubio allies are hopeful that on the debate stage, Bush, Christie and others will help make Cruz look isolated on questions about the NSA, an issue they see as increasingly potent at a moment when public concerns about national security and terrorism are running high.

“The stakes are getting higher because we’re getting closer to Feb. 1 and there’s still no clear front-runner,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant in Washington. “Instead, there’s chaos and talk of brokered conventions. And as the stakes get higher, the gloves are coming off.”

