MANCHESTER, New Hampshire – Dr. Ben Carson and his campaign accused Sen. Ted Cruz’s team of sabotaging Carson in the Iowa caucuses Monday night by encouraging Cruz supporters to tell voters at their caucus sites – incorrectly – that Carson was dropping out of the race. 
 
 “It was happening all over,” Iowa State Director Ryan Rhodes told MSNBC. “One of the precincts Candy [Carson, the candidate’s wife] walked into, she had to correct the record. She actually walked in, in Ankeny, and gave a speech about no, he’s still in the race and that’s a lie.” 
 
 Carson came in fourth place in the state’s caucuses. 
 
 RELATED: Cruz wins Iowa, Trump and Rubio battle for second 
 
 Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler denied the allegations to MSNBC, but said his people did alert some supporters that Carson planned to go to Florida after the Iowa caucuses instead of campaigning. (Carson’s campaign says he is going home for just 24 hours before hitting the campaign trail on Wednesday.) Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope. https://t.co/lW5Js50EMA — Steve King (@SteveKingIA) February 2, 2016 
 
 Carson told reporters earlier in the night that he planned to go to Florida for a day to get “fresh clothes” after 18 days on the campaign trail; the campaign pushed back against “false media reports” that Carson was suspending his campaign, while one prominent Cruz surrogate – Rep. Steve King – championed a CNN tweet describing Carson’s as a sign the retired pediatric neurosurgeon was getting out of the race. 
 
 “That is really quite a dirty trick,” Carson told reporters on Monday night. ”I want [my supporters] to recognize this makes me more determined than ever to keep going.” 
 
 “To have campaigns come out and send emails to their caucus speakers suggesting that Dr. Carson was doing anything but moving forward after tonight is the lowest of low in American politics,” Carson campaign manager Ed Brookover told reporters. 
 
 Carson’s state co-chair, Rob Taylor, was more blunt, saying “This is horses—t, bottom line.” 
 
 “You can bleep it out all you want, but Iowans understand,” added Taylor, who is also a state representative and chair of the ethics committee in the state legislature. He said he will be releasing an official statement Tuesday “as to the potential ethical misconduct of the Cruz campaign.” 
 
 A half dozen Iowans, many of then connected with MSNBC by the Carson campaign, told stories of being mislead about Carson’s intentions in the race. Close video File under dirty tricks: Carson rumor untrue The Morning Joe panel briefly discusses a rumor spread by Ted Cruz’s people in Iowa that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race. share tweet email save Embed 
 
 Barb Heki, a homeschool activist and Gov. Mike Huckabee supporter who said she is friendly with nearly all the campaigns in Iowa, told MSNBC that the speakers supporting Cruz at her caucus location, Hyperion Point Country Club in Johnston, Iowa, announced that Carson was getting out of the race before several-hundred caucus-goers at her location took a vote. 
 
 “They gave their speech for Ted Cruz and said we also need to announce, and let you know, that Dr. Ben Carson has announced that he’s suspending his race for awhile after the caucuses are over,” Heki said. The Cruz supporters suggested the campaign had alerted them. Tyler denied this, saying that they’d shared the “newsworthy” news of Carson’s travel plans and that kind of communication to supporters was not unusual. 
 
 Pam Westrum was also at the caucus site with Heki and said she was “really rattled” when Cruz supporters said Carson had gotten out of the race, while Lisa Greenwood was the precinct speaker for Carson at a caucus site at Iowa State University when the Cruz speaker asked her to support the Texas senator because Carson was dropping out of the race. She said she was very confused, but caucused for Carson nonetheless. 
 
 In Waterloo, Iowa, Kim Murray said her caucus leader had told them Carson had dropped out, but did not say where she’d gotten that information; when she saw the votes tallied after the caucus afterwards, just one person had caucused for Carson. 
 
 Rita Davenport, a Carson campaign volunteer who was her precinct’s speaker in Boone, Iowa said she’d also been told by Cruz supporters that Carson was dropping out. 
 
 “Something just really crazy happened here in Iowa,” Davenport told MSNBC. 
 
 Additional reporting by Shaquille Brewster from West Des Moines, Iowa. 

 (CNN) Ben Carson charged on Tuesday that Ted Cruz needs to fire campaign staffers for falsely telling Iowa caucusgoers to support the Texas senator because the retired neurosurgeon was planning on quitting the race. 
 
 "If Ted Cruz doesn't know about this, then he clearly needs to very quickly get rid of some people in his organization," Carson said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "And if he does know about it, isn't this the exact kind of thing that the American people are tired of? Why would we want to continue with that kind of shenanigan?" 
 
 "If he did know about it, he needs to come out and admit what he did and try to offer a solution," Carson added. 
 
 Cruz issued an apology to Carson later on Tuesday calling the incident a "mistake." 
 
 Cruz said in a statement Tuesday that his campaign staff saw a CNN report that Carson was dropping out, although CNN had not characterized Carson's actions that way. 
 
 "Last night when our political team saw the CNN post saying that Dr. Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story," Cruz said in a statement first shared with CNN. "That's fair game. What the team then should have done was send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out." 
 
 The Cruz campaign had seized on the news late Monday that Carson would not travel directly from Iowa to New Hampshire or South Carolina, and incorrectly suggested to precinct captains it was a sign that he would be dropping out of the race while the caucus was still in progress. 
 
 Cruz Iowa staffer Spence Rogers sent precinct captains an email during the caucus hinting that Carson planned to leave the race, despite the fact that Carson's campaign said he would continue. 
 
 "Breaking News. The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week," the email, acquired by CNN, read. "Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz." 
 
 Meanwhile, Cruz surrogate Iowa Rep. Steve King told followers on Twitter that "Carson looks like he is out." 
 
 Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope. https://t.co/lW5Js50EMA — Steve King (@SteveKingIA) February 2, 2016 
 
 Carson told Fox News that his wife, Candy, was left to correct the Cruz campaign's misinformation at one event. 
 
 "She spoke at one of the caucus sites and before she got there one of the Cruz people had again disseminated that information to the crowd," he said. "And one of the organizers told her 'I'm so glad you're here, so you could set the record straight.' And she did and we actually won in that precinct." 
 
 Carson's campaign was furious when they first learned of the tactic, and Carson decried it as a "dirty trick" during remarks Monday night at a party with supporters in West Des Moines. 
 
 "This is really a dirty trick," Carson said. "This makes me more determined than ever to keep going." 
 
 Cruz's campaign defended the Rogers message to the precinct captains. 
 
 "Carson said he was taking time off to go home. We simply repeated what he said," Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said Monday. "Our email simply stated the facts." 
 
 When asked what the "big announcement" mentioned in the email referred to, Frazier did not respond. 
 
 Carson will go home to Florida following the Iowa caucuses instead of flying directly to early-voting states New Hampshire and South Carolina, regardless of what happens in the first-in-the-nation voting state, so he can "get a fresh set of clothes," his campaign said Monday. 
 
 Larry Ross, a spokesman for Carson, insisted in a statement that the retired neurosurgeon "is not suspending his presidential campaign, which is stronger than ever." 
 
 "After spending 18 consecutive days on the campaign trail, Dr. Carson needs to go home and get a fresh set of clothes," Ross said. "He will be departing Des Moines later tonight to avoid the snow storm and will be back on the trail Wednesday. We look forward to tonight's caucus results and to meaningful debates in New Hampshire and South Carolina." 
 
 Campaign manager Ed Brookover characterized the break as a "deep breath" after Iowa. 
 
 Carson will remain in Florida until he travels to the Washington, D.C., area for meetings on Wednesday. He'll attend the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, and then he'll head to North Carolina for a fundraiser and New Hampshire for Saturday's Republican debate. 
 
 Despite the unusual travel plan, Carson projected confidence as voters packed caucus sites across the Hawkeye State, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer earlier on Monday that he believes there is "a very strong chance" he'll finish among the top three candidates. 
 
 "The people who support me are extremely enthusiastic," Carson said, suggesting pollsters have underestimated his backing. 
 
 Carson told Blitzer he would reassess his campaign no matter where he finished in Iowa.
– Ben Carson has been extremely disappointed to learn that a man can't even go home and get fresh clothes without Ted Cruz playing dirty tricks on him. CNN reports that after Carson announced that he was going to Florida for a couple of days, a Cruz staffer in Iowa emailed precinct captains to suggest that Carson was dropping out of the race. "The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week," the email read. "Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz." "This is really a dirty trick," Carson told supporters in Iowa. "This makes me more determined than ever to keep going." MSNBC reports that Carson staffers were furious, with a campaign manager calling the Cruz team's behavior the "lowest of the low." "This is horses--t, bottom line," state co-chair Rob Taylor told reporters, adding: "You can bleep it out all you want, but Iowans understand." A Cruz spokeswoman said the campaign "simply stated the facts" after Carson announced that "he was taking time off to go home." She declined to comment when asked about the "big announcement" the Cruz email claimed Carson was going to make. (Carson is still in the race, but two other candidates dropped out on Monday night.)