Donald Trump admits he didn't understand how this whole 'campaign' thing worked

After Donald Trump’s humiliating second-place showing in Iowa, lots of people started making tsk-tsk sounds about the Republican candidate’s lack of a “ground game” in Iowa. Put simply, other people made an effort to get their supporters to the eccentric Iowa caucuses, and Trump sort of didn’t.

Speaking to the Associated Press on Saturday, Trump acknowledged that he had some learning to do. He claimed that he had just assumed he had to show up at a rally and then his work would be done:

“Look, I’ve never done this before. I’ve been a politician for seven months. I’m against governors and senators. They’ve done it their whole lives,” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. “It would seem to me that people would just go out and vote.”

Trump said he “never realized” the need to encourage supporters to actually take part in the caucuses. “Now, I think we’re going to have an OK ground game.”

As with everything Donald Trump says, this assertion is somewhat contradicted by things he has said in the past. Take this December report from the Des Moines Register in which Trump crowed, “We’ve got such an incredible ground game.” That turned out to be…not true.