US Election 2016: Donald Trump reverts to type with attack on Ted Cruz, the media and anyone who dare attack America if he were president

You can’t keep a good Donald down. After the calm magnanimity of his concession speech in Iowa, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is back to berating his rivals on Twitter.

Mr Trump, who finished second to Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, has accused the Texas Senator of dirty tricks and demanded a re-run of the vote.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it,” the billionaire property mogul tweeted. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!” Mr Trump amended the tweet shortly afterwards, removing the word “illegally”.

Late the previous evening, after a day of uncharacteristic near silence, he had recovered his bombastic form, castigating the media for focusing on Marco Rubio, who came third, and declaring that if anyone attacked the US and he were president, he would “bomb the s*** out of them”.

The Republican field narrowed further as Rand Paul and Rick Santorum both suspended their campaigns. Mr Paul, the junior US Senator for Kentucky, came in fifth in Iowa with 4.5 per cent of the vote. Mr Santorum, who won the 2012 Iowa Caucus, attracted just one per cent this time around.

There remain nine candidates, with Mr Trump comfortably ahead both nationally and in New Hampshire on most recent polls.

The businessman levelled several specific charges against Mr Cruz, namely: his campaign told supporters that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race and Carson voters ought to caucus for Mr Cruz; that a misleading Cruz campaign mail shot amounted to “fraud”; and that Mr Cruz told his supporters Mr Trump was in favour of Obamacare. “A total lie!” Mr Trump insisted. “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified,” continued Mr Trump, who still leads Republican polls nationally and in New Hampshire, which is due to hold its primary next Tuesday, 9 February.

While Mr Trump may have reconsidered his perilous claims of illegality, there was some truth to his tweets. Mr Carson, who came fourth in Iowa – behind Mr Cruz, Mr Trump and Florida Senator Marco Rubio – also accused the Cruz campaign and its surrogates of spreading false rumours that he was suspending his presidential bid. “There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses,” said a spokesman for the retired neurosurgeon.

Mr Cruz, who has been vying with Mr Carson for the support of evangelical voters, issued a qualified apology, saying his team had misinterpreted a news report that Mr Carson was taking a break from the campaign trail, and emailed supporters to say he was dropping out. They ought to have sent a clarification after realising the error, Mr Cruz acknowledged in a statement. “This was a mistake from our end, and for that I apologise to Dr Carson,” the Texas senator said.

Mr Carson had fallen well behind in the polls long before caucus night, so it is unclear whether the rumours affected the result, but the Cruz campaign is also under fire for a campaign message posted to prospective voters last week, apparently accusing them of “voting violations”. The letter assigned its recipients low grades that it claimed were based on their voting history, and urged them to caucus “to improve your score”.

Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State, Paul Pate, said making such accusations was “false representation of an official act” and the mail shot was not in keeping with “the spirit of the Iowa caucuses”. But Mr Cruz said: “I will apologise to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote.”

Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, who attended Mr Trump’s most recent wedding in 2005, has distanced herself from the Donald in an interview with People.

“We’re not friends,” said the former US Secretary of State. “We knew each other, obviously, in New York. I knew a lot of people.”