The highly regarded Des Moines Register poll showed Ted Cruz trailing front-runner Donald Trump in Iowa by 5 percentage points, but the Texas senator can take solace from five nuggets within the survey.

Those underlying facts could help Cruz pull out a victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses:

  • Cruz is better liked. Among caucus participants, Cruz has a 65 percent favorability rating — equal to the state’s longtime and popular governor, Terry Branstad. That tops the New York billionaire, who is at 50 percent. Trump also draws the second-highest negative rating in the field at 47 percent, compared with Cruz’s rating of 28 percent. In addition, 56 percent say they would be very or fairly enthusiastic if Cruz is the nominee, compared with 44 percent who say that about Trump.
  • Cruz would win a head-to-head matchup. Of course, Cruz will never get a one-on-one matchup with Trump in Iowa. But if it were head to head, the poll suggests Cruz would win it by a margin of 53 percent to 35 percent. That could help Cruz if supporters of lower-polling candidates decide at the last minute that a vote for their first choice would be wasted.[lz_ndn video= 30277020]
  • Cruz has stronger support among evangelical voters. Cruz wins the support of 33 percent of evangelicals, followed by Trump at 19 percent. Traditionally, the evangelical vote has dominated the Republican side of the caucuses. If turnout among that group is higher than usual, Cruz could overcome weaknesses elsewhere.
  • Cruz does better with regular caucus participants. The senator has a 3-point advantage over Trump among experienced caucusgoers. Trump leads by 16 points among people who say they are going to participate for the first time. The central premise of Trump’s candidacy is his unique ability to expand the universe of voters, so he needs to ensure they turn out.
  • Almost half of Republican voters have not made up their minds. Some 45 percent said they either are undecided or might still change their minds on Monday. Trump’s voters are more committed — 71 percent of them say their minds are made up, compared with 61 percent supporting Cruz. But Cruz has plenty of voters to poach from other candidates whose support is softer.
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For his part, Cruz expressed confidence Sunday during appearances on several news shows. He said he would have been overjoyed months ago to find out that he was in a “statistical dead heat” for first place on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

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“I’m thrilled to be where we are,” he said on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace. “If conservatives come out, we will win. What we are seeing is the old Reagan coalition come together.”

Trump said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that he is counting on first-time voters to put him over the top.

“And they say the more people that get out the better I do,” he said. “And I think we’re going to have a big crowd … But they think record attendance will happen tonight. And if that happens, I’m supposedly, according to the pollsters, in very good shape.”