The coldest caucuses in Iowa history come Monday night amid expectations that state Republicans will pick the former president Donald Trump marching toward a third Republican Party presidential nomination.
The battle for second place, very close between the governor of Florida, Ron De SantisAND Nikki Haleyformer governor of South Carolina, will anoint Trump’s closest rival ahead of the New Hampshire primary and beyond.
Asa Hutchinson, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate, speaks to students at Xavier University in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 13, 2024. In the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters will render an initial verdict on the demands made by the former president Donald Trump’s rivals have pushed the party out of his control as he seeks to turbocharge the nomination. (Hilary Swift/New York Times)The stakes are high for Iowans.
Trump aspires to return to the presidency despite – or perhaps because of – 91 felony charges in four criminal cases, an upcoming fraud ruling that could decide the fate of his New York real estate empire, and a pending decision on defamation of a woman for which he has already been held liable sexual abuse.
His opponents have implored Republican voters to put the “chaos” and controversies of the Trump era behind them and elect another standard-bearer to challenge the president. Joe Bidenwho defeated Trump in 2020.
Iowans will render the first verdict on those pleas.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley exchange comments during the fifth Republican presidential debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 10, 2024. In the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters will issue their first verdict on the demands Former President Donald Trump’s rivals pushed the party beyond his control as it sought to turbocharge the nomination. (Maansi Srivastava/New York Times)This is what you need to see as the results come in.
Will Trump be able to exceed 50%?
The Iowa caucuses are traditionally close, so much so that Democrats failed to achieve definitive results in the chaotic 2020 race.
Republicans falsely stated Mitt Romney narrow winner in 2012, depriving the real winner, Rick Santorumof the boost that victory in a caucus can bring.
On this occasion, polls consistently showed Trump far ahead, to the point that the former president barely campaigned in the state.
Until last weekend, he and his campaign were projecting confidence in a landslide victory, raising expectations when most campaigns try to lower them.
Yes, Trump exceeds 50%will get what he predicted would be “a historic setback.”
And perhaps more importantly, Iowa will have demonstrated that even if the Republican field narrows to Trump and a challenger, it could still command the loyalty of a majority of the party’s primary voters, at least in the heartland.
Who will come in second place?
DeSantis officially entered the Republican presidential race in May with strong financial backing and talk that he would win Iowa and help the party turn the page on Trump while continuing to embrace his policies.
Workers clear sidewalks in downtown Des Moines as a winter storm moves through the Iowa region on Jan. 12, 2024. In the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters will render their first verdict on claims made by rivals of the former President Donald Trump. party to overcome his control, while seeking a turbo launch towards the nomination. (Haiyun Jiang/New York Times)But the electoral apparatus built around his super political action committee faltered just as Haley was regaining his footing.
He initially focused on New Hampshire and his home state, then moved on to Iowa.
The latest poll conducted in Iowa by The Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom, as expected, placed Trump comfortably in the lead, with support from 48% of potential voters.
Haley was at 20% and DeSantis was at 16%, a split bordering on the poll’s margin of error.
A group of people listen to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a campaign rally in Grimes, Iowa, during the week before the caucuses. DeSantis campaigned heavily in the state. Photo by Jordan Gale for the New York TimesA second-place finish for Haley would give her a boost ahead of New Hampshire, where she has moved closer to Trump and could benefit from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s withdrawal from the presidential race on Wednesday.
For DeSantis, third place could spell doom for New Hampshire, where he has slipped to single digits in polling averages, and South Carolina, which is a Trump stronghold and Haley’s home turf.
Will Haley be able to maintain eligibility?
Haley’s final argument in Iowa was that she would not only defeat Biden in the general election, but defeat him in a resounding landslide that would usher in an era of unified conservative government in Washington.
A CBS News poll released Sunday showed that both Trump and DeSantis led the president by narrow margins, but that Haley led him by 8 percentage points, 53% to 45%.
Many Iowa Republicans are confident that Trump is a proven player capable of beating Biden, despite the former president’s personal baggage and legal dangers.
But the topic of Haley’s eligibility she was convincing among college-educated Republican voters, 39% of whom supported her in a New York Times/Siena College poll released last month.
His job in Iowa is to appeal to a significant number of Iowans without a college degree, while trying to appeal to a broader Republican electorate that Trump has turned into a bastion of voters without a college education.
Haley had the support of just 3% of voters in the Times/Siena poll.
Who will run for election?
The Iowa caucuses have never been particularly Democratic.
Monday’s meetings in 1,657 locations are more like party meetings.
The voters meet, discuss some issues, listen to the speeches of the representatives of each campaign and, finally, cast the secret vote.
Caucuses can be time-consuming, public, and not particularly crowded.
In 2016, when Republicans held their last caucuses, 186,874 votes were cast out of a total of 615,066 registered Republicans, a turnout of about 30%.
Monday night temperatures will reach minus 7 degrees across much of the state, where snow blows onto icy roads.
DeSantis displayed an exceptional vote-gathering operation. Haley is backed by Americans For Prosperity Action, a conservative activist group funded by the fortune of Charles and David Koch.
Trump has a much more organized ground game than in 2016, when he finished second to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. All this while fighting against the elements.
Trump told supporters in Indianola, Iowa, on Monday that they should hold a caucus even if “you’re sick as a dog.”
Then he joked: “
Even if they vote and then die, it’s worth it.”
Participation will not only influence the order of arrival of the candidates, but also how real their pride will be in the face of the more representative primaries that are approaching.
And the other candidates?
No one has put in as much effort as Iowa Vivek Ramaswamy a businessman and political newcomer with an increasingly conspiratorial mindset, who experienced a brief surge in approval in August, only to fall back to single digits: 8% in the latest Iowa poll.
There is also the former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinsonand a Texas businessman and pastor, Ryan Binkley, both at 1% in the latest Iowa poll.
Numbers like these don’t mean any of them have much influence, although Trump was clearly playing to Ramaswamy voters when he attacked his former ally on Saturday.
Traditionally, Iowa caucuses have eliminated underdogs.
The former vice president Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota didn’t even make it to the first ballot. (Burgum supported Trump at the Indianola rally.)
Both Ramaswamy and Hutchinson say they will exceed expectations.
“I think I’m the last, best chance this country has,” Ramaswamy told Iowans at a rally Friday.
But depending on their performance on Monday, it remains to be seen whether they will give up and choose a side: Trump or someone else.
c.2024 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.