Hollywood conservatives are flushed with a new wave of confidence following Monday night’s Iowa caucuses.
It’s not the candidates who have them smiling from ear to ear, but the voters.
“I’m feeling ebullient bordering on jubilant,” Lionel Chetwynd, a 1975 Oscar nominee and member of the Hollywood conservative group Friends of Abe, told TheWrap. “New voters are now participating in the process. It’s a huge movement.”
Conservative-leaning industry insiders say the record-breaking turnout among Republican voters means more Republicans are now part of the process and could make all the difference come November.
“It doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate now, Republicans will win the White House,” Chetwynd said.
According to the Des Moines Register, Republicans counted more than 180,000 caucus goers, besting their previous record in 2012 by an estimated 60,000 people.
Roger Neal, founder and owner of NPR, a Hollywood public relations and management company, told TheWrap,”It’s a great sign. I was very happy to see that people are showing up to vote.”
The fact that the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side was so close was just the icing on an already sweet cake.
“I think [Hillary Clinton] is an incredibly weak candidate,” Dave Berg, former co-producer of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and another member of Friends of Abe, told TheWrap. “A 74-year-old, self -proclaimed socialist basically tied with her. I think she’s in trouble.”
Berg had an extra reason to smile on Tuesday. A Rubio supporter, he was happy to see his candidate come in third behind winner Ted Cruz and second-place finisher Donald Trump.
“Marco Rubio looked very good last night,” Berg said. “It’s a three-man race now.”
Hollywood Republicans do not seem to have coalesced around any single candidate.
Dee Dee Sorvino, an Emmy award winning host and Trump supporter, told TheWrap she still believes her candidate will eventually win the nomination, despite his second-place showing in Iowa.
“Trump will crush everyone in New Hampshire,” she said, insisting all Trump needed was “to come in the top three in Iowa.”
Neal said he was still undecided, but leaning towards either Trump or Rubio.
Chetwynd, a longtime Cruz supporter, said he was thrilled to see his candidate take Iowa.
“I had no doubt he would win,” Chetwynd said. “The system was totally broken with lobbyists and capitalist cronyism. It needed to be rebooted.”