Newt Gingrich: 'Iowa Is Going to Be a Challenge'

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images(IOWA CITY, Iowa) -- As Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry ride across the long stretches of corn-filled highways on their bus tours this weekend, Newt Gingrich is leaving the state of Iowa and going to Washington, D.C., just a couple of weeks before the state’s caucus.

Gingrich is currently polling as the winner in Iowa and defended his weekend of no campaigning Wednesday in Iowa City, Iowa.

“We’re here now and tomorrow,” Gingrich said.  “We’ll be back again early next week and we’ll be here starting the 27th.  We’ll have our very own bus to match their buses.”

Gingrich has one ad running in the state and the campaign is planning more, but Gingrich’s financial resources still do not match that of other campaigns, though his campaign has been holding fundraisers consistently since his rise in the polls.  Tuesday night, Gingrich attended a private fundraiser in Washington, D.C.

“Look, I’ve never suggested to have the kind of money that some of my competitors are able to raise.  We’re not going to have as many ads as they have, but we get a fair amount of earned media,” Gingrich said.

Though Gingrich appears to have the state swayed his direction in the polls, he admitted winning Iowa will depend upon groundwork laid in the next two weeks.

“I think Iowa is going to be a challenge,” he said.  “You have everybody firing away in a relatively small market.  And so I think it’s going to require two weeks of my going around telling the truth, letting people look at the negative ad, look at the truth, and decide: Do they really want to give their vote to somebody who’s not telling the truth?”

Gingrich will campaign Thursday in Iowa and will leave the state for private family events on Friday.

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