Grassley not willing to bet on Trump

CEDAR RAPIDS - It's too early for Sen. Chuck Grassley to predict the winner of Iowa's first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, but the never-been-beaten state and federal lawmaker for nearly 60 years knows what it will take to win.

'I don't know how you know when you have 15 candidates and no one is getting more than 10 percent,” Grassley said Wednesday.

Grassley, who has said he doesn't plan to endorse a candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination, was asked about a prediction by his House colleague, 4th District Rep. Steve King, that if the caucuses were held now Donald Trump would be the winner.

A Quinnipiac University Poll earlier this month found Trump tied at 10 percent with Ben Carson for second place among likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker led the field with 18 percent support.

King might be right that Trump would win today, but Grassley predicted the winners in February will be 'the ones that work the hardest and have the best organization.”

'I don't know if Trump falls into that category, if he will have the grass-roots organization to get his people out on what could be a very cold night or snowy night in February,” Grassley said.

Trump has an Iowa campaign director who knows a thing or two about grass-roots organization and getting supporters to their caucus locations. Chuck Laudner, a former state GOP leader who headed up former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's victory in the 2012 caucuses, is overseeing Trump's Iowa campaign.