N.H. Tracking Poll: Trump In 1st, Rubio In 2nd; Candidate Confusion; A Sea Lion Goes Into A Restaurant; Donald Trump is not in New Hampshire to campaign; Trump still leads in the latest poll in New Hampshire; Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic poll in New Hampshire.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with new polling and late developments for the blizzard of candidates now blanketing New Hampshire whereas the one candidate who is blaming the snow storm for not being there, Donald Trump. There's the candidates and where they were today. The dotted line is for Trump who canceled his appearance today in London Derry. He is in South Carolina tonight. These are live pictures where he is enjoying a warmer temperatures. He's taking heat from rivals he left behind. Jeb Bush for one tweeting, @realDonaldTrump, my 90-year-old mother made it out to campaign. That's 5-year-old destiny on the left. And here is the former first lady doing pretty well out there in the snow at Mary Anne's diner in Derry, New Hampshire working the room with him. They also sat down today with CNN's Jamie Gangell. She talked about why he isn't doing better in the polls and taking a moment as well to weigh in on Donald Trump. And we will bring it to you at the top of the next hour. First, though, Donald Trump, late polling, the final push to the nation's first primary. CNN's Jim Acosta who joins us from South Carolina from the town of Florence. So you are at the Trump event. What were his main points to his voters today? Was he on the attack against specific candidates, or what?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Really, more on President Obama tonight, Anderson. A lot of foreign policy in this speech. Donald Trump slamming the Iran nuclear deal. He also vowed to go after ISIS. And then at one point he talked about a subject that is pretty popular for Republican candidates out on the campaign trail, and that is radical Islam. And it was during that portion of his speech that Donald Trump went after President Obama and mentioned the president's trip to a mosque in Baltimore earlier this week. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But there's an anger out there. When you look at Paris and you have these thugs walk in and kill 130 people with many, many people in hospitals that are so gravely injured, many more will die. When you look at California, a few weeks ago, with the radicalized couple, they say she radicalized him. Who cares? Where do these people come from? Where do they come from? Where do they come from? And then President Obama yesterday goes to a mosque and he apologizes. I mean, what's going on? We have to -- right? No, he goes there and he apologizes.</s>ACOSTA: Now, we should point out that President Obama did not apologize at that mosque. It was a speech about religious tolerance -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Jim, did he talk at all about not being in New Hampshire because he got some criticism, as I said, for it.</s>ACOSTA: Not really. He glossed over that subject here. He said that he has focused totally on New Hampshire right now which was an interesting thing to say when he missed his only event in New Hampshire because of the weather. We should point out that if folks don't know the back story, Donald Trump made the decision to go back to New York City last night to sleep at home instead of staying in New Hampshire overnight. And then his plane got stuck at the airport. He couldn't get out of LaGuardia to go back to New Hampshire and go out there on the campaign trail. And so, he was forced to really spend his only event of the day in South Carolina. But Anderson, you know, Donald Trump just does not like to spend the night overnight in hotel rooms out on the campaign trail. And this was one of those days where it really came back -- that decision really came back to haunt him. We should point out, though, the Trump campaign is saying that Donald Trump will be out on the campaign trail in New Hampshire for the next four days starting tomorrow all the way to the New Hampshire primary. And Donald Trump did try to make up for his absence in New Hampshire earlier today. He recorded a Facebook video, posted on his Facebook page. He was really hailing the official slogan of New Hampshire, live free or die. He said congratulations to New Hampshire. They did a wonderful job in picking out that slogan, Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right, Jim Acosta. Jim, thanks. Now, fresh numbers on how well the candidates are doing in New Hampshire. We just got new data from the ongoing CNN/WMUR tracking poll. Our Tom Foreman breaking down the numbers joins us with more on that. So let's talk about this poll. Trump still has a solid lead among the GOP candidates, right?</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson. We will see if this no-show hurts him. But right now, if you look at our latest daily tracking poll, he is still sitting up here at 28 percent. Iowa does not seem to have hurt him. Rubio is now solidly in second at 17 percent. Iowa does seem to have helped him. And now look at this. Ted Cruz and John Kasich tied down here at 13 percent. Since yesterday, Trump and Cruz have both moved down just a tiny bit and Kasich has moved up a tiny bit. Our sampling error here is close to six percent. But I want you to keep an eye on Kasich. And the reason you keep an eye on him is he has the lowest negative rating of all of those candidates. So he may have the most room to maneuver out here. And keep this in mind, too. Out of all the Republicans up there in New Hampshire, 30 percent say they are still deciding whom they are going to vote for. And 26 percent merely say they are leaning toward someone. Only 45 percent are definitely decided, Anderson. So that leaves a lot of wiggling room for all of these candidates to do something in the next couple of days.</s>COOPER: Yes. A lot of minds can change between now and the primary. What about the Democrats?</s>FOREMAN: Well, take a look at the Democrats here. It's really a whopping number here. The Democrats, 16 percent say they are still deciding, 20 percent leaning, but many, many more than the Republicans, 64 percent say they are committed to their candidate. That's really good news for Bernie Sanders and his followers because Bernie Sanders is still sitting on a 30-point lead here. He is holding steady at 61 percent. Hillary Clinton has come up one percent. We have a 5.5 percent margin of error here. One percent up. So even if you took that margin of error and moved it in her favor both ways, she is still way behind in the granite state. And not much room to make it up -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Tom, thanks very much. Let's head north now to Derry, New Hampshire, and CNN chief national correspondent John King also in Manchester, our chief political analyst Gloria Borger is there along with CNN political director David Chalian. So Gloria, how much did it hurt Trump to not be in New Hampshire today? Because obviously, the clock is ticking here.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it doesn't help him at all. You know, just anecdotally, I was at an event talking to some people who were choosing between Trump and Cruz. And the fact that Trump isn't here today doesn't really fit well. You know, people here take their politics seriously. They enjoy it, and they want you to take it as seriously as they do. And deciding to fly home to New York rather than just stick around one more night in New Hampshire, knowing that snow was coming, leaves some voters here sort of scratching their heads, particularly when you have so many undecided, you know. This doesn't help.</s>COOPER: Yes. John, you have been traveling around the state. What's the sense you are getting about how these different lanes are shaping up heading into the weekend?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, I'll tell you this. Donald Trump called it a big snowstorm. In New Hampshire they call this February. It happens quite a bit. And all the other candidates got about their business today. A lot of people were talking about, why didn't he come? Why didn't he make it? It's not that far from New York. I will tell you this. Marco Rubio is just finishing up behind me here. He has been waiting patiently for a little more than an hour signing autographs and taking to people after this event. I talked to about 20, 25 people just quickly during and after this event. Five of them told me they were Trump supporters last week who are Rubio supporters tonight. Now, that's not scientific. It's just an anecdotal thing here. And three others told me they were torn between Trump and Rubio and they wanted to come to this event. So there's no question, there is a lot of fluidity here. There is also no question that Rubio campaign believes it has momentum. Enough momentum to win? Well, they tend to get a little more standoffish about that. But they believe that they continue to grow which, Anderson, raises the stakes dramatically, not only for Marco Rubio but Donald Trump and for the Bush/Kasich and Christie crowd who are trying to stop Marco Rubio. Tomorrow's debate is going to change the dynamic here.</s>COOPER: David, I mean, it is interesting. The Trump/Cruz feud is quiet a down a bit, what we are seeing Bush and Christie ratchet things up against Marco Rubio. Certainly make sense when you consider they have more or less bet everything on New Hampshire.</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No doubt about it. I was out on the campaign trail with both Governor Christie and Governor Bush. Part of their closing argument to the New Hampshire voters is that Marco Rubio just is too inexperienced and hasn't run anything. Has no proven record of running anything. That was the focus of their closing message. They know that this is sort of do or die for them. They have got to show something here. This is where that battle for that establishment lane has long been set to take place. With Marco Rubio believing he's got some momentum now. You know, still getting endorsements, still getting some bounce in the polls. That spell trouble for the Kasichs, the Bushs and the Christies to really make Tuesday a place where they show something.</s>COOPER: Gloria, on the Democratic side, I mean, you have these polls showing Hillary Clinton down by 2-1 margins. The CNN/WMUR tracking poll does that again tonight. It does helps lower expectations which is something the Clinton campaign has actually been trying to do. And I guess if she closes the gap, can he significant decrease as frankly she did against Barack Obama in 2008, the campaign, I guess, could try to spin that as momentum.</s>BORGER: Sure. OK. If we lose by anything less than, say, 20 points, that's actually a win, I guess is the way you can spin it. They can't lower expectations any more than the polls have really for Hillary Clinton. But the thing to remember here is that this state is not exactly inhospitable to her. This is a state she came back and won in 2008. It was by a small two to three-point margin, but she did win it. The problem for her is, and I was at a Sanders rally today, the problem for her is the passion gap right now here in New Hampshire. And the passion seems to be with Bernie Sanders. And she's working hard. She's doing everything she needs to do. She's a much better candidate than she was when she started, but Bernie Sanders just has that appeal here that she can't quite match.</s>COOPER: John, I mean, would it benefit Sanders at some point to say look, I have got this huge lead in New Hampshire. I have to go to South Carolina and Nevada where, you know, I face some tough obstacles from Clinton?</s>KING: You could think that argument, sure. But then you have to think about the state of New Hampshire and the state of the Sanders campaign. Number one, Anderson, people here don't like to be taken for granted. So if he left now, he might pay a price. Number two, our poll has a 30-point lead. The NBC/Marist poll has a 20-point lead. There is a "Boston Globe" poll out tonight that has Sanders up by only nine points. So there's fluctuation in the polls. And again, New Hampshire changes a lot in the final days. So if you are Bernie Sanders, number one, you have to protect this. This is your best state, strongest state. You need to protect it and win it, one. And number two, when it comes to South Carolina where he is going to have to make relationships with Latinos, with African- Americans, his best asset is a huge win here. If he can win big here he shows Hillary Clinton might be weak, maybe he gets people to reconsider and take another look at him. So the biggest priority for the Bernie Sanders campaign right now is to run it up here as big as they can.</s>COOPER: And David, certainly they went after each other pretty hard at the debate last night. If that doesn't help her cut into his lead in New Hampshire, what would?</s>CHALIAN: Yes, it's not clear other than her ground game here, although I think the Sanders operation here is pretty robust. She clearly believes that she had to show her supporters that she knows the line of attack that is coming her way and that she's not going to take it lying down. She wanted to demonstrate last night that she's going to fight for every vote and fight to push back on this notion that she is somehow completely tied to Wall Street and that somehow she makes policy decisions based that. She pushed back hard on that. And yes, she is hoping that's dense Sanders a little bit at least allows her to dig into his lead a little bit. But I also think the Clinton campaign is looking beyond to the more demographically advantageous state in Nevada and South Carolina.</s>COOPER: All right. David Chalian, Gloria Borger, John King. All, thank you. Just a reminder, John King is working on a special edition of "INSIDE POLITICS" live from New Hampshire. You can catch it Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN. Up next tonight, more on the Democrats. Cold weather or not, the campaign gloves are coming off. Later, more of my conversation with Donald Trump and his claim that if elected, he will project a very different tone than we have seen so far.