Donald Trump thinks his supporters are so devoted that he could "shoot somebody" on Fifth Avenue without losing any voters.
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters," Trump said during a campaign event in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Trump was drawing a distinction between his loyal based of supporters and those supporting Ted Cruz's campaign. He described Cruz's supporters as "soft."
Trump's gun comments also come as the debate about gun violence in America has taken center stage, after a series of highly publicized mass shootings.
With just a little more than a week to go until the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, Trump is locked in a tight race in Iowa with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. A recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll found that 25% of Iowa's voters support Cruz, while 22% back Trump. Both are aggressively courting evangelical voters, Tea Partiers and social conservatives in Iowa.
While early in the race the two were relatively friendly, they have been aggressively attacking each other as the race has grown tighter.