Turnout Is Name of the Game in Monday's Iowa Caucuses

Here's the question of the day: which candidates will prove to have the superior ground operations on Monday?

Here AP, posted at ABC News (via Memeorandum):

In a final frenzy to inspire supporters to turn out for Monday's Iowa caucuses, the presidential contenders scrambled to close the deal with the first voters to have a say in the 2016 race for the White House.

The result Sunday was a blur of sometimes conflicting messages. Even as the candidates begged backers to caucus, many hopefuls also tried to lower expectations and look ahead to the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 and later contests.

Republican Donald Trump, who has a slight edge over Ted Cruz in Iowa, predicted that "many" senators "soon" would endorse him rather than their Texas colleague. Trump didn't name any such senators, and none immediately emerged.

Democratic Hillary Clinton, in a tight race with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, suggested that political point-scoring helped explain the hubbub over the State Department's announcement Friday that it was withholding some emails on the home server she used while secretary of state.

The Sanders campaign, meanwhile, sought to claim financial momentum, saying it has raised $20 million in January, suggesting he will continue to match Clinton's resources.

One development — the weather — was beyond the candidates' control. A snowfall forecast to start Monday night appeared more likely to hinder the hopefuls in their rush out of Iowa than the voters. Republican John Kasich already has decamped to New Hampshire.

Iowa offers only a small contingent of the delegates who will determine the nominees, but the game of expectations counts for far more than the electoral math in the state. Campaigns worked aggressively to set those expectations in their favor (read: lower them) for Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.

Meantime, on the final full day before the caucus, a pastor at a church outside Des Moines urged politicians to treat their opponents with love and not attack ads.... The candidates' agreed on one thing: It's all about turnout now.

"If people come out to vote, I think you're going to look at one of the biggest political upsets in the modern history of our country," Sanders told CNN's "State of the Union."