Iowa caucus recap
Donald Trump won by a landslide in Iowa Monday, with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley trailing in a distant second and third place, respectively. The former president’s victory was so clear and decisive that the Associated Press projected his win just 30 minutes after the caucuses began – much to the ire of DeSantis.
A jubilant Trump offered an unusually conciliatory call for unity in his speech Monday night. “I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together,” he said. He also celebrated poll findings that the majority of Iowa Republics did not accept the validity of the 2020 election results.
Delegates will be allocated proportionally, once all the votes from across the state have been tabulated. But the night’s results are a big blow to both DeSantis and Haley. The former, especially, invested massive amounts of time and effort in the state, visiting all 99 of Iowa’s counties.
DeSantis told supporters at his watch party Monday night, “I can tell you because of your support, in spite of all of that, that they threw at us – everyone against us – we’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa.” Haley, meanwhile, insisted that this was a “two-person race” between her and Trump.
Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth and ended his campaign, endorsing Trump as he bowed out.
Frigid conditions and chilly winds, which the National Weather Service said made for dangerous conditions across the state, may have impacted turnout, which is estimated to be notably lower than 2016.
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When he arrived on stage to chants of “Ron, Ron, Ron”, Ron DeSantis cast the night as a successful stand against an array of forces his enemies had deployed against him.
“They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us,” he said, pointing to his opponents’ spending on ads targeting him, and negative coverage his campaign received from news outlets.
“But they were just so excited about the fact that they were predicting that we wouldn’t be able to get our ticket punched here out of Iowa. But, I can tell you because of your support, in spite of all of that, that they threw at us — everyone against us — we’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa.”
Finishing second in the state is the best result DeSantis could realistically hope for, and will keep his campaign alive going into New Hampshire’s primary on 23 January. However, it’s unclear if he can replicate that result in the Granite State, where Nikki Haley has seen a polling surge recently that may have put her within striking distance of Trump.
Here’s a striking visual from NBC election tabulator Steve Kornacki, who points out that Donald Trump has virtually accomplished a sweep of Iowa’s 99 counties.
And by a margin of 1 vote Nikki Haley appears to have won Johnson County (Iowa City), leaving Donald Trump that close to a 99-county sweep: pic.twitter.com/MI5bearyPx
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) January 16, 2024
Nikki Haley addressed her supporters as well, thanking Iowans, who she called “faithful and patriotic Americans”.
“I can safely say, tonight Iowa safely made this Republican primary a two person race,” she said. “The question before Americans now is very clear – do you want more of the same, or do you want a new generation of conservative leadership.
Haley appears to be referencing to a race between her and Trump – but her path ahead after sliding into a distant third tonight remains unclear.
“Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare,” she said.
“They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us,” said Ron DeSantis, speaking to supporters in Des Moines.
After all the time and funds his campaign poured into Iowa, his performance tonight will be a disappointment. But his candidacy has survived to fight another day. “We’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” he said.
Ron DeSantis cinches second place, AP projects
The Florida governor has finished a “distant second” to Donald Trump, the Associated Press projects. Nikki Haley is expected to come third.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has finished a distant second to former President Donald Trump in Iowa's leadoff Republican caucuses. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley came in third. https://t.co/yjeQ0DE6WV pic.twitter.com/9qhTgBX1yF
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 16, 2024
Vivek Ramaswamy drops out
“There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” Vivek Ramaswamy told supporters in Des Moines.
He reflected on his candidacy. “Nobody knew who we were, nobody knew what we were up to, but together, we have created a movement that I think is going to carry our nation to the next level,” he says.
He endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency.
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Ron DeSantis’s watch party is getting underway, with social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats pitching the Florida governor as the right candidate to beat Joe Biden.
“Now we will have a real fight between whether or not we’re going to return to someone who has proven all he knows how to do is lose to Democrats. Him and his candidates, for the last three cycles, that’s all they’ve done. For the rest of the country, tired of losing to these guys, let’s go with the guy who beat them and that is Ron DeSantis,” Vander Plaats said.
Nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republicans polled while entering the caucuses on Monday evening by Edison Research said they did not believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.
A majority of the 1,577 caucus-goers the firm questioned said Donald Trump would be fit to return to the presidency even if he were convicted of a crime. And nearly half of the respondents said they considered themselves part of Trump’s MAGA movement.
The results underline Trump’s hold on the Republican party in Iowa.
Here’s more from Reuters on the results:
Following are highlights from the Edison Research poll based on interviews with 1,577 Iowa Republicans. The results will be updated as more interviews are collected.
* 65% said they did not think Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020.
* 64% said they decided who to support in the presidential nomination contest before this month.
* 63% said Trump would still be fit to be president if he were convicted of a crime. 32% said he would be unfit if convicted.
* 59% said they favor a federal law that would ban abortions nationwide.
* 51% of white caucus-goers who considered themselves evangelical or born-again Christians supported Trump, while 29% backed DeSantis.
* 44% of voters said they considered themselves part of the MAGA movement, a reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. 51% said they were not part of that movement.
* Trump led Haley and DeSantis by double digits among men and women alike. But among college graduates Trump was preferred by about 36% of caucus-goers, compared to 30% for Haley and 27% for DeSantis.
* 37% percent of caucus-goers said the economy was the issue that mattered most in deciding who to vote for on Monday, compared to 34% who cited immigration, while the rest cited foreign policy or abortion.
* 14% said the most important quality a Republican presidential nominee should have is the ability to beat Biden, compared to 41% who said shared values mattered most.
Edison Research conducted the poll on behalf of the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations including Reuters.
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Vivek Ramaswamy is dropping out of the race, per multiple reports.
It’s unclear who he’ll endorse once he’s out.
Donald Trump is still talking, and after he delivered a few likely planned lines on unity, he’s started improvising, as he’s wont to.
Calling for law and order, the former president referenced the defacement of the Capitol on January 6.
Trump: "We're gonna scrub those marble columns and get the swastickers off them." pic.twitter.com/WbcGh7jAOV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2024
He also boasted about polling showing that the majority of caucusgoers questioned the 2020 election results.
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Ron DeSantis’s caucus night watch party is taking place at a Sheraton hotel in West Des Moines.
A ballroom packed with supporters, reporters and children is waiting for the Florida governor, but there’s no sign of him yet. Perhaps he’s waiting to find out for sure whether he finished in second or third.
If it’s the latter, many believe it would be a crushing blow to his campaign’s viability. But with a second place finish, he could make the case to supporters that he has a path forward in New Hampshire, the next state to vote in the GOP nomination process.
An estimated 100,000 voters participated in the caucus today, according to the Iowa Republican Party chairman, Jeff Kaufmann.
That’s far short of the 187,000 Republicans who caucused in 2016.
We are on track to have nearly 100k Iowans participating in the 2024 Caucus despite freezing temperatures and our beautiful state being blanketed in snow just two days ago.
— Jeff Kaufmann (@kaufmannGOP) January 16, 2024
Iowans will brave the cold for the future of their families, communities, and country.
THANK YOU, IOWA!
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Trump speaks in Des Moines
Donald Trump is addressing a cheering crowd in Des Moines. “I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together,” he said.
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Caucusgoers faced sub-zero temperatures and bitter winds, which may have affected turnout today. The National Weather Service warned of “dangerous weather” and warned people to “avoid outside activities if possible.” Parts of the state were also under a wind chill advisory.
These caucuses were officially the coldest on record – even colder than 2004 when Des Moines had a low temperature of 2F. The high in Des Moines is 1F.
Trump won so quickly that not many people had yet gathered at his election watch party in Des Moines. There was no great cheer to celebrate the moment.
But now hundreds of Trump supporters are in a cavernous hall at the Iowa Events Center, many sporting “Maga” regalia. Among them are Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and notorious far-right extremist Laura Loomer.
Two giant screens proclaim: TRUMP WINS IOWA! in white letters on a black background, then switch to Fox News. Between them is a big US national flag and a row of more US national flags. Golden oldies by Elvis and others – and from the musical The Phantom of the Opera – are booming from loudspeakers.
A lectern has “Trump: Make America great again” written on it. He is expected to give a victory speech sooner or later.
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Economy, border, foreign policy: key issues for Iowans
David Erlacher hadn’t made up his mind about who he was going to caucus for when he showed up to a Cedar Rapids brewery to hear Ron DeSantis speak on Sunday afternoon. But inside his jacket pocket was a handwritten list of issues that mattered most to him.
At the top was the economy, followed by the southern border. He then listed a series of foreign policy conflicts, including the Houthi attacks in Yemen, the war in Israel, and the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“The world’s a dumpster fire right now,” Erlacher, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in Cedar Rapids, said. “We got to try and find some water to throw on it. I’m not sure how that’s gonna happen. I’m just glad there’s smarter people than myself out there to do it.”
Those three priorities – the economy, the border and international instability – echoed what many Iowa voters said were their top issues as they prepared to caucus in the US’s first nominating contest on Monday, with Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and DeSantis at the top. A November Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that 81% of likely caucusgoers listed the economy as a “very important issue” and 80% of caucusgoers listed “immigration and border security as “very important issues” in the same poll.
Concerns over the economy underscore a significant challenge for Joe Biden as he seeks a second term. Traditional metrics have shown that the US economy is strong, but nearly two-thirds of Americans are unhappy with it, according to a September Harris survey conducted by the Guardian.
Kevin Hochstedler, 65, who works in home construction in Iowa City, was one of several voters who said his top issues were “number one the economy, number two, southern border”. Hochstedler, who planned to caucus for Haley, said he had seen a huge slowdown in his industry. He blamed the federal reserve for raising interest rates too quickly.
“The economy is slowing, slowing, slowing, it’s like a giant sucking sound,” Hochstedler said at a Saturday event for Haley, whom he planned to support on Monday.
Hochstedler was one of several voters who said they were outraged by Biden’s handling of migrants at the US-Mexico border. He said he supported the state of Texas in an ongoing dispute with the Biden administration over policing the border. “If I were governor of Texas, I’d call in the national guard, block it all off and keep the people in Mexico.”
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The Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump Republican group, said that the results today make clear that Trump will win the nomination.
“It’s been obvious for months that Trump would crush his rivals and will win the nomination. Dems and independents must wake up to the threat he poses. He will destroy individual rights and empower dictators overseas. Biden is the only one who can stop him and keep America safe,” said Gregory Minchak, the group’s communications director.
Retired farmer Ron Osborn’s reason for supporting Donald Trump, who won the most votes in Malcom, was simple.
“I think he’s the only one who can beat the cheating Democrats,” the 73-year-old said.
Terry Stanek said he had voted the same way because he believed Trump is “the only one who wants to build the wall, wipe out the cartels and stop the fentanyl” as well as reduce inflation.
To the 67-year-old, who restores classic cars, Trump’s four years in office were a far more placid period than the tumult he sees today, specifically the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021.
“You know, when Trump was in office, it was a calm planet,” Stanek said.
He believed the former president can best the current one in November “if it’s a fair election”.
“If it’s not a fair election, no one can beat him,” Stanek said.
This live blog was amended on 16 January 2024 to reflect the correct spelling of a town in Iowa: it is Malcom, not Malcolm.
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Farmer Jane Axmear said she was one of four people at the Malcom caucus to vote for Nikki Haley because the former South Carolina governor is the best choice to protect “women’s rights” – including access to abortions.
“What’s right for some people isn’t right for everyone,” the 57-year-old said of efforts by Republican elected officials nationwide to ban the procedure, or at thresholds so early that they’re before most women realize they are pregnant. “A 12-year-old shouldn’t be forced to have a kid because she made a mistake,” Axmear said.
The question of abortion access has vexed Republicans ever since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, and is also credited with giving momentum to Democratic candidates who have campaigned on restoring the former precedent. Haley has suggested that, as president, she would support any abortion restrictions that Congress approves, while saying such legislation was unlikely to be passed.
Asked why she wasn’t considering voting for Joe Biden and the Democrats, Axmear said the party’s philosophy on other issues did not appeal to her as a corn, soy and cattle farmer.
“I don’t believe in a handout,” she said. “In farming, you take a risk every day.”
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Here are some images from caucuses across the state.
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DeSantis campaign complains about vote call for Trump
The DeSantis campaign isn’t too happy with the AP’s call in favor of Trump.
“It is absolutely outrageous that the media would participate in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote,” said DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo. “The media is in the tank for Trump and this is the most egregious example yet.”
(To be clear: the AP’s projection in favor of Trump does not amount to interference, and was based on polls and early results.)
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In Malcom, chemical company worker Brad Hamilton, 53, used to support Nikki Haley, but was pulled into Ron DeSantis’s camp after seeing him speak at the Iowa state fair. Hamilton voted for DeSantis at his caucus site, where he came in a close second to Donald Trump, because he thought the Florida governor would be more effective at governing in Washington than Trump, who he had supported in the past.
“It’s just a friggin clown show right now,” Hamilton told me after the vote. “It would be nice to have smoother politics.”
Saying he was concerned about foreign militant groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, Hamilton, an army veteran, said America needed to look strong on the world stage, and he believed DeSantis could achieve that.
“For some reason, I think we’ve come at the world with a look of weakness,” he said. “I think we need to calm this whole world down. It’s getting out of hand.”
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Trump campaign celebrating win
The Trump camp is celebrating a victory.
“The people of Iowa sent a clear message tonight: Donald Trump will be the next Republican nominee for President. It’s now time to make him the next president of the United States,” said Alex Pfeiffer, communications director for Make America Great Again Inc, the Super Pac backing Trump. “It’s time for Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy to face reality and stop wasting time and resources.”
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It took only a half an hour for the AP to declare Donald Trump as the winner of the Iowa caucuses, but some precincts hadn’t even started voting when the result was announced.
Here in West Des Moines, the precinct was just wrapping up speeches from candidate representatives when networks started calling the race for Trump.
As multiple networks declare Donald Trump as the winner of the Iowa caucuses, voting is just getting underway at this precinct in West Des Moines. (Please note the repurposed HyVee grocery bag for ballots.) pic.twitter.com/bANj57BDGl
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) January 16, 2024
Even with the outcome known, caucusgoers proceeded to cast their ballots, which were thrown into a repurposed grocery bag before being counted by officials.
In the end, Trump won both precincts here, although Ron DeSantis came in a close second in one precinct. In the other precinct, DeSantis and Nikki Haley tied for second place.
Haley is expected to soon deliver remarks at the hotel in West Des Moines where those two precincts just concluded voting.
They just announced the results of the caucus here at Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids:
Donald Trump got 38 votes, followed by Nikki Haley, who got 22. Ron DeSantis got 17 votes and Vivek Ramaswamy got 7 votes.
Asa Hutchinson got 0 votes. One person voted “other”.
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Here in Cedar Rapids, where the caucus is still happening, a speaker for Vivek Ramaswamy also did away with prepared remarks in favor of a more improvisational speech.
“He’s not beholden to big donors. He’s so eloquent. If you get him onstage with anybody, he’s gonna come out ahead,” he said.
Brett Mason, dressed in a red Make America Great Again (Maga) hat, gave the speech nominating Donald Trump. He said that when Trump ran in 2016 he thought was was “capricious” and that he was “slow to get on that bandwagon”.
But now, he said, “he has a record”. He also said “it was kind of crazy all the conspiracies turned out to be true” and went on to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop story.
He also said Trump was approachable and that he had the chance to meet him a month or so ago. Mason said he asked Trump why he was running and Trump said: “It was a landslide election in 2020 - America put me in there and I don’t want to drop the ball for them.” Trump lost both the popular vote and the electoral college to Joe Biden in 2020.
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The cacuses are still under way, and the fight for second place still continues.
CNN’s entrance polls, which were taken as caucusgoers arrived at their sites, found that the majority identified with the “Maga movement”, referring to the “Make America Great Again” movement started by Donald Trump. That gives you a bit of an idea of where voters were ahead of the voting tonight.
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Trump wins the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa, AP projects
The caucuses kicked off just 30 minutes ago, but the Associated Press has already made its call for Donald Trump.
There’s no surprise – Trump has been by far the frontrunner. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are in a high-stakes fight for second place. How big Trump’s victory is, and how closely behind Haley and DeSantis trail could set the tone for how the rest of the primaries pan out.
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With the ballots counted, Donald Trump came out on top in Malcom, Iowa, with Ron DeSantis in a close second.
The final tally was 10 votes for Trump, eight for DeSantis, four for ex-South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and one for Ryan Binkley, a pastor and long-shot candidate.
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A man who did not give his name just gave a speech on behalf of Nikki Haley and decried fellow Republicans attacking each other.
“If we want to defeat Joe Biden, good lord folks, we can’t let that slip away by attacking one another. Whoever the Republicans nominee is I’m voting for them,” he said. He also spoke about Haley’s experience on the international stage and standing by America’s allies.
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Voting wrapped up quickly, and they’re counting ballots now.
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 16, 2024
“I think Donald Trump is going to win,” a voter said, as they counted ballots. “The reason why the news media is attacking him is because they and the Democrats are afraid of him.”
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In Malcom, precinct chair Rick Jacoby is now making his case for nominating Donald Trump.
“I think he’s done a great job for us in the past. I think he will do a great job for us in the future,” Jacoby said.
Another caucusgoer spoke in favor of Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
“I am afraid that as much as I supported Donald Trump the last two elections, I’m afraid that he has gotten so much negative against him, between the press and the Democrat party, that he will be ineffective if he gets elected,” the voter said.
Earlier, a voter piped up to say he did not think DeSantis should stand. “He’s got a job already, he’s the governor of Florida. That’s what he needs to focus on,” the voter said.
They’re now handing out ballots to determine who will win this precinct.
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Here at Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids, speeches on behalf of candidates are getting under way. Barrett Hubbard, the caucus chair, is giving remarks on behalf of DeSantis. Many of the lines are similar or identical to what I’ve heard DeSantis say on the campaign trail the last few days.
The precinct chair is explaining how the various conventions work - county, congressional district, state, national. Speeches on behalf of candidates are about to begin. pic.twitter.com/7OKlZS1j8I
— Sam Levine (@srl) January 16, 2024
“DC is swampier today than ever before,” he said. “Donald Trump is running on his own issues, Nikki Haley is running for her donors’ issues and Ron DeSantis is running for the issues theater matter to the American people.
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We’re kicking things off here in Malcom with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer.
There’s also the matter of Rick Jacoby’s role. He’s the temporary caucus precinct chair, because the person who was originally supposed to do it got sick. He asked the attendees to elect him the permanent chair, and they granted it.
A major component of the caucuses is local Republican party business. Jacoby is passing around an envelope for donations to the party, and looking for people to serve on the county central committee and attend the county convention.
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Donald Trump Jr asked if he would run in 2028
On a night when the 2024 race for the White House gets under way, some people are already talking about 2028.
At a Trump campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa, a voter asked Donald Trump Jr if he would consider a run next time. His girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle exclaimed: “Oh, god.” Don Jr, 46, looked over at her and shouted: “Hey, princess, you ready for this?” She replied: “Let’s go, Iowa!”
Don Jr then told the audience of 62 seated supporters: “You never know. Listen, I don’t want to say no because then if you decide to do it, like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s a major liar’, you know... I guess the answer is I will continue to fight no matter what. The question is do you want the day job of actually doing it?”
Another voter asked Don Jr if he believes his father was anointed by God. Trump’s eldest son replied: “That’s not for me to decide. There’s a higher power that decides that. But I’ll say he’s fought for this country where he’s taking on forces that probably no one else has, certainly in modern history, and I think he’s delivered accordingly.”
Arriving two and a half hours late because of a weather delayed flight, Don Jr endorsed “great replacement theory”, arguing that Democrats are deliberately importing people more likely to vote for them. “There’s literally more illegal immigrants coming across our border now on an annualised basis than there are babies born in America,” he said. “That’s not racist; it’s just statistics and facts.”
He also took swipes at his father’s rivals in the Iowa caucuses. “Who here thinks it’s acceptable for men to be wearing high heels while running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States?” he asked in a clear dig at Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has faced claims that he wears heel lifts to make him look taller.
“Nikki Haley has never met a war she didn’t want to be in,” Don Jr added. “We would be fighting, like, a 30-front war.”
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In the Iowa caucuses, the task of persuading attendees to vote for a certain candidate falls to the precinct captains.
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 16, 2024
Rick Jacoby is Donald Trump’s temporary precinct caucus chair at the site where I am – and also the only captain in attendance for any candidate.
Asked if he expects captains for any other contender to show up, Jacoby, who is also checking in voters as the precinct chair, replied, “it would be nice, but we’ll see what happens”.
Much has been made about whether the chilly weather Iowans are enduring will keep them from caucusing. Jacoby isn’t buying it. “Iowans are used to cold weather,” he said.
There are also five members of the press in attendance, indicating the interest in covering caucuses that happen in unusual settings.
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Scott Duffy, a 46-year-old engineer, arrived early here to the caucus at the Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids. He’s supporting Vivek Ramaswamy.
“He seems to get it and he’s not afraid to talk to you guys [the press], talk to anybody,” he said. “He’ll get down to it, he’ll get deep into the details on it. It’s not the boilerplate standard politician lines from everyone else. He’s a smart dude,” he said.
He acknowledged that Trump is the “odds on favorite,” but I’m not particularly fond of how he ran the country, especially in 2020. And then he caused a lot of problems in this country that I’m not real happy with.”
He added that he was interested to see how the weather affected turnout. He said he had seen rural roads nearby that were not yet plowed.
I’ve just arrived at the Heartland Co-op grain elevator, which is the caucus site for Malcom, Iowa, a town of a few hundred people located 62 miles east of Des Moines.
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 16, 2024
So far, about a dozen cacusgoers are in the chilly, spartan basement of the grain elevator’s office, where the caucus is to be held.
Malcom is located in Poweshiek county, which is among the rural Iowa counties that trended Democratic through Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s term, but shifted Republican after Donald Trump ran in 2016. The county, and Malcom itself, voted for him in both the 2016 and in 2020 general elections.
We’re going to find out tonight if the town’s Republicans think he is the right candidate to take on Joe Biden in November.
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I’m at a caucus site inside the Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids, and Brett Mason, who’s manning the registration table here, just informed caucusgoers that they couldn’t get the room unless they bought hors d’oeuvres. So the county GOP party bought everyone free hors d’oeuvres that are being served on a buffet. People are now flocking to it.
“The bar is open but that’s your own wallet,” he said.
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Caucuses in Iowa kick off
The caucuses are now under way, with Donald Trump widely expected to be declared the winner.
Voters are gathering at schools, steakhouses, churches, and even living rooms and grain elevators to decide the Republican presidential nominee. Today marks the first round of voting in the 2024 presidential primary.
Eligible voters, who have braved brutally cold conditions today to show up at their caucus location, will discuss candidates and issues with their neighbors. Representatives will speak up in behalf of their preferred candidates.
Within an hour or so, caucusgoers write their preferred candidate’s name on a slip of paper and hand it to the caucus chair of the caucus, who tallies the votes and release results to the state party, which will tally all the results. Candidates are then assigned delegates to the Republican national convention proportional to their share of the statewide votes.
First results are expected before 9pm ET.
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With less than one hour left until the start of the Iowa caucuses, Nikki Haley‘s campaign is setting up at a hotel in West Des Moines, where the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador will address supporters later tonight.
Greetings from West Des Moines. Nikki Haley will address supporters in this ballroom later tonight. Less than one hour until the Iowa caucuses start. pic.twitter.com/5FRscCmki3
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) January 16, 2024
Haley is hoping for a strong second place finish tonight, as Donald Trump is widely expected to cruise to victory in Iowa. But Florida governor Ron DeSantis is also hoping to secure second place and has devoted considerable resources to turning out voters across Iowa.
Regardless of Haley’s performance tonight, once the caucuses end, she will quickly turn her attention to New Hampshire, where she has seen momentum in recent weeks.
According to the FiveThirtyEight average of New Hampshire polls, Haley is now roughly 11 points behind Trump, having cut his lead in half over the past month.
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I’ve just arrived at Kingston steakhouse, a caucus site here in Cedar Rapids. Dinner is being served in the front and voters are slowly checking in and are seated around round tables. The caucus will get started at 7pm CT.
I’m here at Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids, which is a caucus site. The restaurant is open in the front and the caucus is being held in an event space in the back. pic.twitter.com/sCZ4WNOPYy
— Sam Levine (@srl) January 16, 2024
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Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has gone all in on Iowa to jumpstart his presidential bid, urged supporters not to believe the polls.
Ramaswamy has visited all 99 counties in Iowa twice and even rented an apartment in Des Moines during the final stretch of the campaign. He said on Monday he had done nearly 400 events in the state.
A final Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll on Saturday showed him with the support of 8% of likely Republican caucusgoers, trailing Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley for second place. DeSantis registered support with 16% of likely GOP caucusgoers while Haley had 20%. Trump held a commanding lead of 48% of likely caucusgoers in the poll.
“I think what we’ve seen is bordering on a kind of election interference in our GOP primary,” he told about 100 supporters on Monday. He went on to claim that his name wasn’t being included in polls when voters were asked who they support, causing him to register lower levels of support.
“I think the media has prebaked a narrative about this race that is disconnected from the reality of where people are on the ground, but does have an effect of shaping what some of those less engaged people who don’t come to events think about the race.”
Ramaswamy spoke for 30 minutes and then spent nearly 45 minutes taking questions from attendees on a range of topics, including immigration and gun rights. He also dismissed a last-minute attack from Trump, who urged his supporters over the weekend not to vote for Ramaswamy.
“Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ – don’t get duped by this. Vote for ‘TRUMP,’ don’t waste your vote! Vivek is not MAGA,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Ramaswamy seemed to suggest the attacks came from Trump’s “handlers” and continued to decline to attack Trump. He emphasized how he has staunchly defended the former president as he has come under attack “This system has made clear that they will stop at nothing, I mean nothing, to keep this man away from the White House.”
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Amid the snowy plains of Iowa, Donald Trump is set to pull off one of the most improbable of all political comebacks.
On Sunday, he held a campaign rally more akin to a victory lap in a state where Republican caucus-goers look certain to back him for a swift return to the White House.
Despite freezing temperatures and icy roads, the event at a college campus in Indianola drew more than 500 supporters in heavy winter coats and hats, filling the room to capacity and forcing some to watch on a big screen in an overspill auditorium. Some had driven from more than a hundred miles away.
“You didn’t need a plug-in to get energised in there,” said Gary Leffler, 62, wearing a white cap with “Trump caucus captain” sewn in gold lettering. “I mean, it was electric. It was powerful. People were ramped up. We’re ready to rumble.
“Everyone is asking, hey, are Iowans going to get out and caucus tomorrow night? Well, I’m telling you what, it was -48 windchill factor and look at the crowd. The room was full. People couldn’t get in. They had overflow. I’m telling you, that is the energy, that is the magnetism that Trump has.”
The rally dwarfed those of Trump’s Republican rivals. He looks set to win Iowa’s first-in-nation vote in the Republican presidential nomination race by a record margin on Monday night. A final poll by renowned Iowa pollster Ann Selzer shows Trump with the support of 48% of likely caucus-goers, followed by Nikki Haley at 20%, Ron DeSantis at 16% and Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%.
“A lot of people have counted us out and so if we can exceed those expectations that should be a storyline,” says Asa Hutchinson.
America in the Donald Trump years can feel like a wild horse trying to throw off its rider but Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, is still clinging on with one hand. He has made around 60 trips to a hundred cities in Iowa over the past year in a long shot bid for the White House. He has embarked on a solemn crusade against Trump in a state where the former president retains a cult-like following.
But he enjoys one advantage over his nemesis: whereas Trump has set impossibly high expectations for Monday’s Iowa caucuses, Hutchinson’s performance will disappoint no one: his support stands at 1% in the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll. Jonathan Capehart, a host on the MSNBC network, admitted on Saturday: “I’d forgotten that Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, is still in the race.”
If life is tough at the top, it can also be hard at the bottom. Over a lunch of chicken and a waffle with syrup at a restaurant in snowy dowtown Des Moines, Hutchinson recalls his struggle earlier that morning for votes in the Iowa caucuses, which require people to show up in person – no absentee voting is allowed.
“Somebody said, this lady here is about ready to support you but she has a few questions. So I call her up, spend 25 minutes answering very detailed questions on how I’m going to constrain the growth of federal government and on and on and on, even covering abortion issues and so on. And at the end of it, she says she’s about to get in the car to go to Florida. I said, you mean you’re not going to be in the caucus next week? And she said, no, but I’ll vote for you in November!”
They don’t make Republicans like Hutchinson any more. Last year the Politico website called him “the most normal Republican presidential candidate”. He calls himself a “Ronald Reagan conservative”, appointed by Reagan as the youngest US attorney in the country at the time at the age of 31. He served in Congress and was head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the George W Bush administration. Like Bill Clinton, he had two terms as governor of Arkansas.
Now 73, Hutchinson launched his White House bid in April in his hometown of Bentonville, pledging to reform federal law enforcement agencies and “bring out the best of America”. He also called on Trump, who had just been indicted by a grand jury in New York over hush money payments, to drop out of the race, contending that the office is more important than any individual.
“I believe in traditional conservative principles and Donald Trump has tried to reshape our party into an ego-driven machine that I don’t think reflects well in our country or our party,” he says.
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As she made her final pitch to Iowa voters, Nikki Haley directly called out Donald Trump, warning that his re-election would only bring more “chaos” at an already chaotic time for the nation.
One day before the Iowa caucuses, Nikki Haley addressed an energized crowd at a barbecue restaurant in Ames, just a few miles from Iowa State University. Despite the freezing temperatures, the room was filled to capacity with campaign volunteers, journalists and a few undecided caucusgoers.
“This is truly cold,” Haley said. “But we’re going to keep on going anywhere and everywhere. We’re going to go all the way until the last hour because we know what situation we’re in.”
Haley’s own situation has improved in recent days, as the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the UN has gained momentum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. After trailing Florida governor Ron DeSantis for months, the latest Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll showed Haley in second place in Iowa, winning the support of 20% of likely Republican caucusgoers compared to DeSantis’s 16%.
But the poll also underscored the profound challenges that Haley – and any other Republican not named Donald Trump – faces in the quest for the nomination. Trump easily beat all of his opponents in the Iowa poll, capturing the support of 48% of likely caucus-goers. Even if Haley can squeak out a second-place finish in Iowa, the results are unlikely to answer the question that has shaped the entire Republican primary: how can any candidate defeat a former president who remains overwhelmingly popular with the party’s base?
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Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, is caucusing for Ron DeSantis.
After initial insisting on remaining neutral, Reynolds eventually backed DeSantis because she said she didn’t think Donald Trump could win the general election against Biden. “We have to look towards the future and not the past,” she told the Des Moines Register.
Her choice predictably landed her in Trump’s crosshairs. Reynolds had campaigned alongside Trump and initially aligned herself with him during her run for governor in 2018, and she campaigned for him in 2020.
At a rally yesterday, Trump called her “disloyal”.
“Here’s the thing I’m most proud of: She went from the most popular governor in the United States in two weeks to the least popular governor. She’s the least popular governor in the United States,” he told supporters.
Still, on Fox News today Reynolds said she’ll support Donald Trump, if he wins the nomination.
Reynolds: I’ll support Trump if he’s the nominee
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 15, 2024
Cavuto: After all the stuff he’s said about you?
Reynolds: Yeah because we’ve got to win pic.twitter.com/5drNhRa7v5
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The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, just wrapped up his final pitch to voters here in at a bar in Cedar Rapids, saying their vote for him on Monday could change the trajectory of the United States.
“You’re never gonna have an opportunity to have your vote pack as much of a punch as it will tonight,” DeSantis said in remarks that lasted about 15 minutes. “We don’t know how many people are going to be able to turn out given the weather.”
The comments were part of an effort by DeSantis to keep enthusiasm high after a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll showed him with the support of 16% of likely GOP caucusgoers. That trails Nikki Haley, who has the support of 20% of likely caucusgoers and Donald Trump, who has the support of 48% of likely caucusgoers.
“We live in a country now where the media thinks they should just be able to pick candidates,” he said. “I think the people should be able to pick the candidates.”
A year ago, DeSantis was considered a serious contender in Iowa and a threat to Trump’s chances of winning the nomination. His poll numbers have faded, even as he’s campaigned heavily in Iowa.
“I’m proud we’ve done Iowa right in terms of how you’re supposed to approach this caucus,” he said. “I visited all 99 counties. We did events in all 99 counties. We took questions from people all up and down this state.” While he didn’t mention them by name, it was a dig at Haley, whom DeSantis has criticized for not being as open with Iowa voters and Trump, the latter of whom has not campaigned as extensively in the state.
Listening in the audience was Steve Kessler, a 65-year-old retired engineer from Coralville. He said he hasn’t made up his mind about who he’s caucusing for yet. He said DeSantis gave a “good talk here” and he likes what he’s done in Florida.
“Vivek - I like the change he’s talking about. Very specific, very forceful and very knowledgable,” he said. “Nikki’s got quite a bit of horsepower behind her right now.
Kissler said he would not be caucusing for Donald Trump.
“He’s too flamboyant. And he distracts from the message,” he said.
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Donald Trump meets campaign advisers in Des Moines
Trump is in Iowa, where he expects to see a sizable victory tonight. The former US president, who is running for a second term, was pictured leaving a meeting with advisers in Des Moines – hours before caucus votes were due to begin.
On Saturday, when he arrived, he acknowledged he worried that the weather could affect turnout, though he noted that Trump supporters were passionate.
He rallied supporters on Sunday night in Indianola, Iowa, telling them they needed to show up Monday no matter what.
“You can’t sit home,” Trump said. “If you’re sick as a dog, you say ‘Darling, I gotta make it.’ Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.”
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Summary of Iowa caucuses before voting begins...
The caucuses are set to begin in two hours, kicking off the 2024 election season in the US. Trump is expected to win handily, though the weather will prove the ultimate wild card.
Here’s where things stand:
It is very cold. The frigid, snow-filled state has seemed dormant the last few days, mostly because people are quickly running in and out of buildings to escape the cold. Candidates still hosted events around the state on Monday to snag last-minute votes.
The caucus begins at precinct sites around the state at 7pm CT (8pm ET). Voters will stream into their local school gyms or community centers, where caucus captains volunteering for candidates will try to whip voters to their side. Results will be posted on this website as they come in.
Who’s going to show up? The extreme cold could affect whose voters turn out to caucus. Some parts of the state still have snow-covered or icy roads. Low turnout could boost candidates polling lower if Trump supporters think their votes won’t be needed to ensure a victory.
After former president and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump attacked Republican candidates Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy on Monday, Haley called Trump’s insults “fake news” while Ramaswamy refused to insult the former president in return.
Democrats – including Illinois governor JB Pritzker and Minnesota senator Tina Smith – held a press conference in Iowa with Joe Biden re-election campaign surrogates, who denounced the Republican candidates as extremists.
Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke in South Carolina, Democrats’ first primary state, at a Martin Luther King Jr day event, where she recalled King’s words and said Republicans served as a threat to freedoms like reproductive rights and access to education.
It is MLK day, a federal holiday honoring the civil rights leader. Republicans set their caucus date without regard for the holiday, though the Iowa GOP leader said he believes holding the caucus on the holiday honors King.
This is the true start of the 2024 election. Depending on tonight’s results, some Republican candidates could decide to end their campaigns and throw their support toward someone else. Or they could all continue, discounting the role of one rural midwestern state in the country’s politics.
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Donald Trump Jr urges Iowa voters to show up for Trump despite cold
Donald Trump Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle are in Ankeny, Iowa, telling voters they need to show up tonight to support Trump Sr, despite the frigid weather.
Guilfoyle laid out the high stakes for the election, saying Trump is the only choice to get the country back on track and that the country will be unrecognizable if Trump doesn’t take back the White House.
Trump Jr took jabs at Nikki Haley, Trump’s closest competitor, and said people needed to vote tonight despite Trump polling well ahead.
“They’re trying desperately to suppress the vote by saying you have it in the bag,” he said.
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Ron DeSantis is set to make a closing pitch at Jersey’s pub and Grub in Cedar Rapids as Iowans prepare to head to their caucus sites Monday evening.
Wyatt Landuyt-Kruger, 22, is plans to caucus for DeSantis and said he’s going straight from this event to his caucus site. The caucuses are at 7pm and people aren’t let in if they arrive late.
“He’s principled, he’s got good conservative values,” he said.
He added that he doesn’t believe the polls, which show DeSantis with the support of 16% of caucusgoers, trailing Nikki Haley (20%) and Donald Trump (48%).
“I don’t listen to the polls at all,” he said. “I think the polls elevate Trump because they know Trump would get beaten by Trump in a general election.”
Kevin Rigdon, another DeSantis supporter here, said he started following the Florida governor and was impressed with how he ran the state during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to speak here at a bar in Cedar Rapids in a closing pitch before tonight’s 7pm caucuses. Some people are going straight from here to their caucus sites pic.twitter.com/ySQByJgF4i
— Sam Levine (@srl) January 15, 2024
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Donald Trump Jr and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle are running very late for a campaign stop at a bar in Ankeny, Iowa. “Do you think we’ll still make it to the caucus?” one anxious supporter asked the Guardian.
Patiently hanging on is Blake Marnell, 59, who works in sales and lives in San Diego, California. He is one of the peculiar characters thrown up by the Trump era: he is wearing his trademark brick-patterned suit, a symbol of his support for Trump’s border wall, along with a “Maga” cap signed by Trump.
He says the suit was marketed in Britain for stag parties and he bought it off the internet. “These are suits made for bachelor parties in London where the lads all want to go out for a night drinking but the dress code at the club says you must wear suits, so there’s this industry of semi-disposable suits with garish patterns.”
Marnell estimates he has been to between 35 and 40 Trump rallies and confidently predicts the former president will win the Iowa caucuses. “I believe President Trump will win. I think everybody knows that so the real question is by how much? If you go by polling, I think that he will be over 50%.”
The “Brick Man” is also looking forward to seeing the president’s eldest son in action soon. “He’s an excellent speaker for President Trump, for his father, because one thing that a lot of President Trump’s surrogates don’t have but Donald Trump Jr does have is they share the same sense of humour: at times irreverent, at times offensive to some people, at times perhaps people might think it’s a little bit too much, but if you’re a fan of President Trump and his humour, you’re also going to be a fan of Don Jr.
“The politician that supports President Trump won’t have the freedom or the latitude to say things because they have to worry about their constituency back home and how that impacts their office. Donald Trump Jr? No filters. He can say what he wants to say. He can say what he’s feeling and people understand that and they gravitate towards him.”
Trump supporter and ‘Brick ‘Man’ Blake Marnell: “I believe President Trump will win. I think everybody knows that so the real question is by how much? If you go by polling, I think that he will be over 50%.” pic.twitter.com/z7WYiezVnK
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 15, 2024
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Kamala Harris warns of Republicans posing 'profound threat' to freedoms
Vice-President Kamala Harris said “freedom is under profound threat” in a speech in South Carolina to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr Day.
The vice-president spoke as Republicans campaigned around Iowa in the final push to sway voters before the caucus began this evening. Democrats aren’t holding an Iowa caucus this year, after shifting their calendar to make South Carolina the first official primary because Iowa and New Hampshire’s voters don’t represent the diversity of the party. Republicans set their Iowa caucus on MLK day to maintain its status as the first election contest, but the fact that it was a federal holiday didn’t seem to enter into the decision.
Harris cited MLK’s iconic “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, where the civil rights leader wrote that “the goal of America is freedom”.
“And so, as we gather to honor his legacy, I pose a question I believe Dr. King would today ask: In 2024, where exactly is America in our fight for freedom?…As Vice President of the United States, I’d say: At this moment, in America, freedom is under profound threat,” she said.
Speaking at an NAACP event, Harris sought to make the case that supporting Democrats in this year’s elections would protect freedoms in the wake of attacks on reproductive rights, book bans and voting rights. She implored attendees to join the fight against these restrictions by voting blue in 2024.
“This generation now has fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers,” she said. “It is not hypothetical that from kindergarten to 12th grade, this generation has had to endure active shooter drills. Our children, who should be in a classroom fulfilling their God-given potential and exploring their wonder for the beauty of the world, instead have to worry that someone might burst through their classroom door with a gun. It is not hypothetical. When students go to vote, they often have to wait in line for hours because of laws that intentionally make it more difficult for them to cast a ballot.”
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Shortly after that, the Biden campaign’s press conference wrapped up.
We’re now four hours away from the start of the Republican caucuses in Iowa’s 99 counties, and you can expect the Biden campaign will speak up again once their choice becomes clear.
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JB Pritzker was asked about Joe Biden’s persistent unpopularity.
The president’s approval rating has been underwater for more than two-and-a-half years, and has lately lurked in the low 40% range. The factors behind this trend are myriad and include Biden’s advanced age as well as the hangover from the record inflation Americans experienced in 2022, but the trend has been enough to make many Democrats nervous about his bid to win another four years in the White House.
Pritzker argued that polls don’t yet reflect the reality of the presidential race, since the Republican nominee hasn’t yet been decided.
“Until we see that we won’t know really what the numbers are,” the governor said (though many pollsters have surveyed how the president would perform against various Republicans, including Donald Trump, who some polls have found voters prefer.)
But I can tell you this, that it’s Joe Biden that’s delivered for the American public, it’s Joe Biden that’s got an awful lot to brag about, and I think the dangers that are posed by this Republican field will be well known to people once ... one of them is chosen.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, a movie mogul who is co-chairing the national advisory board for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, is talking up the mammoth fundraising haul the president received in the final quarter of last year.
“Last quarter, Team Biden Harris raised more than $97m and reported $117m of cash on hand,” Katzenberg said.
It means team Biden-Harris is entering the election year with more cash on hand than any democratic candidate in history.
He said the Biden campaign’s financial firepower now dwarfs his Republican rivals, no matter who that may be, and allows them to focus their efforts on winning the November general election. Katzenberg said:
Republicans are spending money in a race for the Maga base without a single dime going towards the voters who will ultimately decide the general election. By the time they are finished with the primary and Donald Trump or whichever extremists is finally in a position where they can start trying to compete with us, it’s just going to be too late.
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The Minnesota senator Tina Smith laid into the Republican field, saying all the candidates had plans to cut off access to abortion.
We know one thing for sure. Every one of these extremist candidates is attacking women’s freedom to make their own decisions about abortion. These extreme Republican candidates want a national ban on abortion, and that is what they will try to do if given the chance.
The reality is that none of these candidates trust women to make their own decisions about abortion because they believe that they know and that is why we cannot trust them to be president.
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 15, 2024
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Republican candidates espousing extremist ideas, Illinois governor tells Iowa Democratic event
The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, is up at the podium first, and saying that all Republican candidates competing in tonight’s caucus are ignoring the country’s needs and espousing extremist policies. Pritzker said:
Here we stand on Martin Luther King Jr Day, and this field of candidates is espousing Adolf Hitler’s ideas, denying that ... the civil war was about slavery, or demonizing and discounting the rights of large groups of Americans. All of these Republican candidates are singing the same, terrible song.
In an apparent reference to Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and sole woman in the Republican race, and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who has been accused of wearing footwear that boosts his stature, Pritzker said:
Tonight’s contest is simply a question of whether you like your Maga Trump agenda wrapped in the original packaging with high heels, or with lifts in their boots.
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 15, 2024
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While everyone will be watching who Iowa Republicans select as their nominee tonight, Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is in town to, in their words, “remind voters what’s at stake this November as Donald Trump and Maga Republicans launch an all-out assault on Americans’ freedoms”.
They’ve got some Democratic heavy hitters speaking to the press this afternoon at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, including the Illinois governor JB Pritzker, the Minnesota senator Tina Smith and Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign’s national advisory board.
I am in the room and will let you know what they have to say.
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What is a precinct captain - and what do they do?
Precinct captains in Iowa will try to persuade caucus voters tonight to pick their preferred candidate, a practice common to the Iowa caucuses but not typical of US elections otherwise.
Candidates work to have volunteer caucus captains at all precinct voting sites, usually local schools or community gathering places. Those captains whip votes at the precinct, speechifying and debating with voters who are unsure who to vote for or could be swayed from one candidate to another.
Outside the caucus process, it’s usually illegal to actively campaign at a polling site.
This year, Trump’s precinct captains are donning white hats with “Trump Caucus Captain” written in gold lettering. The hats were given to 2,000 caucus captains and have become “the hottest item in Maga world”, Politico reported.
The precinct captains, while their role is important on caucus day, are typically regular Iowa voters who volunteer to help their preferred candidate because they’re passionate about that person winning. They’re often seen as people who can influence their neighbors at the hyperlocal precinct sites.
Sometimes, the New York Times writes in its feature about caucus captains, the captains can be more high-profile. “One of Ron DeSantis’s captains is a former co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, and one of Nikki Haley’s is a state senator,” the paper notes.
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Climate activists from the Sunrise Movement protested outside a diner near Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where Nikki Haley was addressing supporters today.
Iowa’s Republican party has announced a website where it will publicly collate the results of this evening’s caucuses.
The website will post results from precincts in all 99 counties, and include the following candidates: the former president Donald Trump; the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis; the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley; the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson; the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; and the pastor Ryan Binkley. The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie will also appear in the results because, the state GOP said, they had planned for him to be there. Christie suspended his campaign last week.
Doors to caucus sites will open at 7pm ET, with the caucusing beginning at 8pm. All sites are open to reporters, except for those in Perry, where a school shooting occurred last week. The community has requested the press not be present, the Iowa GOP says.
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This year’s Iowa caucuses coincide with Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US, a federal holiday that honors the civil rights leader on the third Monday in January.
The holiday didn’t seem to initially factor into Republicans’ decision to set the date, reporting from the Associated Press last July said. Democrats aren’t holding a caucus in Iowa this year.
Setting the Iowa caucus on 15 January ensured it would occur before New Hampshire’s contest and maintain its first-in-the-nation status.
After the decision was made, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said:
As Republicans, we can, I, we see this as honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King in terms of having a caucus here.
The Monday night caucus interfered with scheduled events meant to commemorate MLK Day. The Sioux City NAACP shifted a celebration to Sunday, though organizers didn’t mind, the Sioux City Journal reported. “The Iowa Caucuses are very important. If you want to participate, you should be able to participate,” Sandra Pearson told the paper.
In Ames, Iowa, an annual MLK day celebration is still set for Monday night, which has some local leaders frustrated and residents deciding whether to attend one or the other, the Iowa State Daily reported.
“Why do we even make people have to choose on something like this?” Ames council representative Tim Gartin said, according to Iowa State Daily.
So that’s the part that’s painful to me is that this is a choice that we should never have to make, you should be able to do both.
Vivek Ramaswamy has also responded to Donald Trump’s post on his Truth Social site this morning, where he said voting for the tech entrepreneur would be a “wasted vote”.
Ramaswamy refused to cricitize the former president, saying instead that he had “defended Trump and respect him immensely”. He added:
I’m asking for your vote tonight because I believe it’s the right thing for our country. We cannot walk into the other side’s trap & watch the puppet masters quietly trot Nikki into power.
I’ve defended Trump at every step & respect him immensely. You won’t hear me attacking him. I’m asking for your vote tonight because I believe it’s the right thing for our country. We cannot walk into the other side’s trap & watch the puppet masters quietly trot Nikki into power. pic.twitter.com/E1gM5ydrXW
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 15, 2024
'Don’t believe the fake news': Haley hits back at Trump's attacks
Nikki Haley has dismissed Donald Trump’s comments earlier today that she is a “Globalist Rino” and “doesn’t have Maga”.
“Donald Trump knows Nikki Haley is a strong conservative who he praises repeatedly for her toughness at the United Nations,” said a national spokesperson for Haley, Olivia Perez-Cubas.
Now that Nikki is surging and Trump is dropping, his campaign is flinging phony, contradictory attacks. Don’t believe the fake news from Trump world – they don’t believe it themselves.
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Before Vivek Ramaswamy’s event started in Cedar Rapids, I spoke with Gaylen Vance, a 68-year-old retiree who said he’s still undecided about who to caucus for.
Nikki Haley has the best chance of winning the general election, he said. Ron DeSantis is “the most like Trump without some of the extraneous crap”. And Ramaswamy is “the smartest guy in the room”.
Vance said his wife was a caucus captain for Trump in tonight’s caucuses but he was hesitant to support the former president because of his lies about the 2020 election.
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Vivek Ramaswamy is about to take the stage here at a brewery in Cedar Rapids just a few hours ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
The room here is crowded – I would guess around 100 people are here – though noticeably smaller than the crowd at events I’ve been to for Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis in recent days. Ramaswamy trails DeSantis by 8% and Haley by double digits in Iowa.
Before the program started, a speaker asked how many voters were undecided and a smattering of hands went up. She said this was a chance for those undecided voters to ask Ramaswamy anything.
Vivek Ramaswamy is about to speak here at a Brewery in Cedar Rapids. One of his supporters, Steven Mosnik said he doesn’t believe the polls, which show Ramaswamy with the support of 8% of likely GOP caucus goers. pic.twitter.com/RAxHBa5wGR
— Sam Levine (@srl) January 15, 2024
Steve King, a far right former Republican congressman who has endorsed Ramaswamy, spoke before the candidate.
“When I step in and endorse in and endorse a candidate I’m all in,” King said. “And today where am I? I’m really really enthusiastically all in.”
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It’s hard to put into words just what the -1F (-18C) temperature in Des Moines feels like.
Suffice to say, few people are outside in downtown Des Moines, and those that must go out are typically darting from a car into a building.
Conditions remain treacherous, and the sub-freezing temperatures that have stretched on since Friday’s snow dump mean roads remains slick with slush, sidewalks are piled high with drifts, and it’s still typical to see cars stuck in piles of snow.
The one group of people spending more time outside than most is television reporters doing standups, who apparently have no option but to brave the frigid weather in exchange for a nice background of the state capital:
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 15, 2024
The caucuses are a big event for Des Moines, drawing reporters and politicians from all over the country. The city rolls out the welcome mat in a variety of ways, including with banners posted all over the downtown’s very useful skywalk system:
— Chris Stein (@ChrisJStein) January 15, 2024
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The longshot rightwinger Vivek Ramaswamy is out and about on the frozen trail in Iowa today, too, earlier hanging with one of Britain’s ultimate Brexiteers, Nigel Farage.
Here’s a very ordinary post on X/Twitter from Ramaswamy earlier.
I’m a businessman, not a politician. My parents came to this country 40 years ago with no money, and I’ve gone on to found multibillion dollar companies. I did it while getting married to my wife Apoorva and raising our two sons. That’s the American Dream. For a long time, we… pic.twitter.com/4es2ycLFNx
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 15, 2024
And the less ordinary, giving his provocative, ultra-conservative definition of “truth”.
TRUTH.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 15, 2024
1. God is real.
2. There are two genders.
3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.
4. Reverse racism is racism.
5. An open border is no border.
6. Parents determine the education of their children.
7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to… pic.twitter.com/xZgqgBjC5v
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Iowa is a crucial state for every Republican candidate, but it’s shaping up to be a uniquely important test for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose bid for president does not seem to be catching on with voters.
Recent state polls have shown him either tied with the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley or trailing her, and a third-place finish for DeSantis in Iowa, a state he has banked on winning, would do great damage to his campaign.
In downtown Des Moines, the Guardian’s US politics live blog ran into Chuck Volpe, a political talkshow host from north-eastern Pennsylvania who is on DeSantis’s national finance committee, and will be speaking at a caucus site when the vote is held this evening.
Asked for his thoughts on the much-debated impact of the foul weather on the election, Volpe replied: “I think if you’re projected as the underdog, the weather should be a benefit because you could depress turnout.”
He noted that DeSantis had visited every county in the state, completing what’s known as a “full Grassley” after the long-serving Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, and has the endorsement of the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds. Volpe also recounted how candidates that seemed to be struggling in the past, such as the former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum in 2012, have won over the state’s voters and seen their campaigns regain strength.
“It literally breathed life into a campaign that was defunct ... Iowans seem to do that. So, we’re confident,” Volpe said.
Left unsaid was that despite Santorum’s win in Iowa in 12 years ago, it was Mitt Romney who won the Republican nomination that year, only to lose the presidential race to Barack Obama.
DeSantis has Reynolds on side, per this post via his team.
Iowa Governor @KimReynoldsIA message to caucusgoers today: @RonDeSantis is the one true conservative in this race, and he's got a record to back it up. pic.twitter.com/lR0OEgEqpk
— Gloria Taylor (@Glo_Tay) January 15, 2024
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Summary of Iowa caucuses day so far
It’s a bracing day in Iowa as the caucus gatherings approach later on Monday, and there are other items of US politics news occurring too, all brought to you as they happen. We are here, live, to bring you all the events.
Here’s where things stand:
Economy, border, foreign policy are key issues as Iowans head to caucus, with Republican voters in the Hawkeye state saying these themes are top of mind as they prepare to caucus tonight in the US’s first nominating contest.
Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis on the morning of the day Iowans go to vote on their Republican candidate.
The Pentagon said the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has been released from hospital today. Austin, 70, had been hospitalized since 1 January due to complications after prostate cancer treatment, but there was uproar because he didn’t tell the White House (or many others) about it.
Iowa Republicans will brave brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination. The final results will depend on turnout, which could be acutely impacted by the weather.
Iowans have been told to “limit outdoor exposure” as much as possible with forecasters saying the wind chill temperature could go down to as low as -35F on Monday evening in the “dangerous cold”.
The 2024 US presidential election begins in earnest in Iowa today. The final Des Moines Register/NBC News poll before Monday night’s caucuses found former president, Donald Trump, maintaining a formidable lead over his opponents, supported by 48% of likely caucus-goers. After trailing the two-term Florida governor, Ron DeSantis for months, the latest poll showed Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, in second place in Iowa, winning the support of 20% of likely Republican caucus-goers, compared to DeSantis’s 16%, with Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%.
Updated
“It’s caucus day. Get excited!” Nikki Haley told a crowd of supporters as they packed into a diner near Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Speaking directly to those serving as caucus captains, Haley asked them to “speak from the heart” in their Monday night speeches, AP reported.
The former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the UN plans to make several stops in central Iowa ahead of tonight’s votes, including making an appearance at a caucus location before heading to her campaign celebration.
Updated
Economy, border, foreign policy: key issues as Iowans head to caucus
David Erlacher hadn’t made up his mind about who he was going to caucus for when he showed up to a Cedar Rapids brewery to hear Ron DeSantis speak on Sunday afternoon. But inside his jacket pocket was a handwritten list of issues that mattered most to him.
At the top was the economy, followed by the southern border. He then listed a series of foreign policy conflicts, including the Houthi attacks in Yemen, the war in Israel, and the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“The world’s a dumpster fire right now,” Erlacher, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in Cedar Rapids, said.
We got to try and find some water to throw on it. I’m not sure how that’s gonna happen. I’m just glad there’s smarter people than myself out there to do it.
Those three priorities – the economy, the border and international instability – echoed what many Iowa voters said were their top issues as they prepare to caucus in the US’s first nominating contest on Monday, with Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and DeSantis at the top. A November Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that 81% of likely caucus-goers listed the economy as a “very important issue” and 80% of caucus-goers listed “immigration and border security as “very important issues” in the same poll.
Concerns over the economy underscore a significant challenge for Joe Biden as he seeks a second term. Traditional metrics have shown that the US economy is strong, but nearly two-thirds of Americans are unhappy with it, according to a September Harris survey conducted by the Guardian.
Trump steps up attacks against Haley and DeSantis on morning of Iowa caucuses
Donald Trump stepped up attacks against his rivals on Monday morning ahead of tonight’s caucuses in Iowa.
On his Truth Social site, Trump knocked his former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, as “Globalist Rino” (short for Republican In Name Only) who is “weak on the Border, and will always be willing to obliterate Social Security and Medicare, while at the same time raising your taxes”.
Trump also described voting for Vivek Ramaswamy as a “wasted vote”, adding that the tech entrepreneur conducted “deceitful campaign tricks” and “played it too ‘cute’ with us”.
Updated
A convoy of black Chevrolet Suburbans and police cars idling in downtown Des Moines stood out this morning. Chances are, they were waiting for Donald Trump to head out for the day.
The convoy was parked outside Hotel Fort Des Moines, where the former president is staying and which has become a hangout for journalists hoping to hear from his advisers and catch a glimpse of the Republican frontrunner.
The Washington Examiner caught video of him arriving on Saturday evening, where the bitter temperatures could not escape his notice (perhaps because he wasn’t particularly bundled up):
President Trump walks into the Hotel Fort Des Moines where I happen to also be staying. Trump: “That’s a lot of cold weather. We have a lot of meetings tonight, a lot of tremendous support, but it’s nasty out there.” Cc: @dcexaminer pic.twitter.com/B3obeiVxhK
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) January 14, 2024
On Sunday, Trump held a rally in the town of Indianola, just south of Des Moines. There, he announced the endorsement of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, and delivered, in the words of the Guardian’s David Smith:
A typically meandering, disjointed and falsehood-laced speech for an hour and a half, ranging from the proximity of a third world war to lambasting Washington as ‘a rat-infested, graffiti-infested shithole’.
Fewer than half of likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa identify with Donald Trump’s Maga, or “Make America Great Again”, base, according to a new poll.
The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll shows 40% of registered voters who said they are likely to attend the Iowa caucuses identify themselves as either “Ultra Maga” (18%) or “Regular Maga” (22%) when asked how they view the phrase.
Another 38% said they are neutral to the Maga movement, and 17% are anti-Maga.
Sixty percent of likely caucus goers who said Trump is their first choice described themselves as either “Ultra Maga” or “Regular Maga”. By contrast, only 11% of those who selected Nikki Haley as their first choice identified with the Maga brand.
Updated
Here’s more from Ron DeSantis’s interview with CNN this morning, in which he said he doesn’t regret previously supporting Donald Trump, who endorsed him ahead of his first run for Florida governor.
“When he was president, I supported his policies. He was under assault from the left and the media,” DeSantis said.
I was happy to do that, because he was our chance to get things done in a positive direction.
But this time is different, he added.
When you’re in a primary situation, I want Republicans to do well. If someone’s endorsed me, great. If they haven’t, if they’re doing a good job, I’m happy for that. I want our party to do well. Donald Trump is not that way. He wants to trash Governor [Kim] Reynolds who is gold here in Iowa, simply because she’s on my team.
Updated
Good morning from Des Moines, where the temperature is -5F (-25C), but feels like -19F (-28C).
All of that raises the question – who will feel like showing up to the Republican caucus this evening?
While the snow stopped falling, the big winter storm that struck Friday is expected to dent turnout for this evening’s vote, with unpredictable effects on contenders’ fortunes. Perhaps the candidate most at risk is Donald Trump, who polls indicate has a massive lead in the state.
His campaign wants not just to win, but to win big to cement his frontrunner status. Much of his voters come from rural areas where the storm has left the roads most treacherous, and one of the big questions of today is whether they will be able to make it to their caucus sites, and give Trump the margin of victory he is looking for.
Even Des Moines, the state capital and largest city, is still digging out from the eight inches-plus of snow that the storm brought. The city’s downtown has felt deserted for days, not because no one is around, but because it’s too cold to walk outside – everyone is driving from place to place. This morning, the few people on the streets were busy shoveling snow off sidewalks and away from storefronts. While winters are typically cold in Iowa, the awful weather has kept the candidates inside as well for the last few days, and discouraged the door-to-door campaigning that typically takes place in the run-up to the vote.
Temperatures won’t improve much as the day goes; today’s high is expected to be 0F (-17C).
Updated
Lloyd Austin released from hospital, says Pentagon
The Pentagon said the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has been released from hospital today.
Austin, 70, had been hospitalized since 1 January due to complications after prostate cancer treatment.
He had been admitted to Walter Reed national military medical center in Washington on 22 December and underwent surgery to treat the cancer. He was hospitalized again to treat a urinary tract infection related to that operation.
Doctors said he remained in the hospital due to ongoing leg pain resulting from the infection and so he could get physical therapy.
Austin is expected to perform his duties remotely before returning full-time to the Pentagon.
Updated
Fire engines and other emergency vehicles responded to a fake 911 call this morning that the White House was on fire, while Joe Biden and his family were at Camp David.
Within minutes of the report, which came just after 7am, District of Columbia fire and emergency medical services and US Secret Service personnel determined that it was a false report and called off the response, AP reported, citing a source.
Biden is set to return to the White House this afternoon after spending part of the weekend at the presidential retreat in Maryland and participating in a service event in Philadelphia to mark Martin Luther King Jr Day.
Updated
A passing weather system brought snowfall and temperatures dropped to about -20C (-4F) as voters prepared for the Republican party of Iowa’s presidential caucuses on Monday.
The National Weather Service in Des Moines has warned voters to expect “frigid” conditions to continue today with temperatures to rise midweek.
Frigid conditions are expected to continue, with coldest conditions today as highs remain below zero. By midweek, temperatures will improve into the teens before falling back into the single digits by Friday. Light snow chances remain late Wednesday and Thursday. #iawx pic.twitter.com/kPCzHncUpt
— NWS Des Moines (@NWSDesMoines) January 15, 2024
Ron DeSantis has dismissed Florida senator Marco Rubio’s backing of Donald Trump as evidence that the former president is in line with the “DC establishment”.
As we reported earlier, Rubio endorsed Trump on Sunday despite previously calling him a “con artist” who was not worthy of the presidency.
Speaking to CNN this morning, DeSantis pointed out that he had endorsements from more state lawmakers than Trump and Nikki Haley. He said:
Donald Trump is the party of Washington DC establishment. They have lined up behind him. I am the candidate that would be a change agent in Washington DC. And I like that contrast.
He said tonight’s caucuses will create a clear, binary choice for voters, adding: “I think people are going to say there’s only two possible nominees: Donald Trump or Governor DeSantis”.
We’re the only ones that have strong support amongst bedrock Republican conservative voters, and to win a Republican nomination, you have got to be able to do that. I think Iowa will show that very clearly.
The Democratic National Committee celebrated the Iowa caucuses by releasing its first youth-focused campaign ad of the 2024 election cycle.
The ad, which is running on campus kiosks at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, criticizes the Republican presidential candidates for their positions on the climate crisis.
In the video, Donald Trump is seen describing climate change as a “hoax”, while Nikki Haley brags about helping the US withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. Ron DeSantis similarly dismisses the climate crisis as “the politicization of the weather”.
The DNC national press secretary, Sarafina Chitika, said of the ad:
Ahead of the first nominating contest for the most extreme Republican presidential field America has ever seen, where denying the threat of climate change has been the party line for the GOP, this campus campaign kicks off the DNC’s early work to emphasize how the MAGA [‘Make America Great Again’] agenda would be a disaster for generations to come.
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How will Iowa shape the 2024 US election?
Iowa winners don’t always go on to be nominees – or presidents.
Among the Democrats, the last winner of a competitive Iowa caucus was Pete Buttigieg, then the little-known mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He ended up endorsing Joe Biden, his reward a cabinet post. Before that, in 2008, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton narrowly in Iowa and went on to the White House. In 2004, John Kerry beat John Edwards and won the nomination but lost the general election. In 2000, Al Gore won Iowa and the nomination but lost the White House to George W Bush.
Of late, fewer Republicans have won Iowa and the nomination. In 2016, Ted Cruz lost the nomination to Trump. In 2012, Rick Santorum won Iowa but lost the nomination to Mitt Romney. In 2008, Mike Huckabee beat Romney but John McCain, fourth in Iowa, became the nominee. In 2000, George W Bush – a rare candidate with appeal both to evangelicals and moderates – was a clear winner on his way to the White House.
So losers in Iowa can very much go on to win the race elsewhere. As Tom Beaumont of the Associated Press explains, for Iowa Republicans this year:
Donald Trump remains the dominant frontrunner [and] the race is essentially for second place. Nikki Haley is in the race for second place in Iowa. Should Haley beat Ron DeSantis, that would almost certainly signal the end of the DeSantis campaign and provide a lift to Haley, who is stronger than any other [non-Trump] candidate in New Hampshire.
Why does Iowa get to go first?
“Iowa got its spot by historical accident,” the New York Times puts it.
Responding to a previous political fiasco, the protest-racked Chicago convention of 1968, Democrats wanted to give voters more of a say than party insiders in picking a nominee. In 1972, Iowa Democrats happened to schedule the first such contest. Four years later, Iowa Republicans did the same, while Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to win the Democratic caucus, the nomination and the keys to the White House.
“The power of going first thus clearly demonstrated,” the Times said, “the Iowa legislature passed a law requiring the state to continue scheduling its caucuses before any others.”
Is Iowa the right state to vote first?
Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status has long been questioned, given that it – like New Hampshire – is predominantly rural and white in a country trending ever more urban and demographically mixed.
On the flip side, David Yepsen offers a historical nugget that points to a place in the tapestry of US life – “Caucus is thought to be a Native American term, Algonquin for meeting of tribal leaders” – and even Iowa is changing: white children, for example, are now in a clear minority in Des Moines public schools.
If they were running a traditional caucus, the lack of diversity would be an issue for Democrats. But they aren’t, because of the mess last time and because of concerns about diversity. They now kick off with South Carolina, where Black voters saved Joe Biden in 2020.
For the Republicans, the question of whiteness is less of an (internal) problem. Heavily influenced by evangelical Christians, the GOP’s Iowa caucuses offer a reasonable indicator of the temperature inside the party. Eight years ago, the last time the GOP caucuses were competitive, the Texas senator Ted Cruz courted evangelicals and won. This year, a key endorsement of Ron DeSantis notwithstanding, Donald Trump seems to have the evangelical vote sewn up.
Explainer: What are the Iowa caucuses?
The 2024 US presidential election begins in earnest in Iowa on Monday, as Republicans in the midwestern state stage their caucuses, events through which their preferred nominee is selected. The process is hallowed but arcane. Here’s an attempt to explain.
What is a caucus?
Merriam-Webster, “America’s Most Trusted Dictionary”, defines a caucus thus:
A closed meeting of a group of persons belonging to the same political party or faction usually to select candidates or to decide on policy.
David Yepsen, a doyen of Iowa political journalism, boils it down:
A caucus – it’s a neighbourhood meeting.
And as Tom Beaumont of the Associated Press explains, more than 1,600 such meetings will take place on Monday, “one for every precinct in the state”.
Either which way, it’s not a primary, the straight-vote contest held by most states, starting in New Hampshire next week.
How does a caucus work?
In Iowa, Republican and Democratic caucuses work differently. Now, after chaos and confusion in 2020, Democrats have made changes: they will meet on caucus day and conduct political business, but their choice for president will be made by mail and announced later.
Republicans are going ahead as usual. That means participants will gather in each precinct – usually a school, community center or similar venue – at 7pm local time (8pm ET) on Monday.
Eligible voters, who must be registered Republicans, check in to the caucus and then start discussing candidates and issues with their neighbors. As Beaumont said, some also “stand up and speak on behalf of the candidates”. Within an hour or so, the caucusgoers write their choice of candidate on a slip of paper and hand it to the chair of the caucus, who then tallies the votes and submits them to the state party. The state party counts and releases the results, usually within a few hours.
Each precinct is then assigned a number of delegates based on the results. Ultimately, 40 delegates from Iowa will go to the Republican national convention, where the presidential nominee for the party is chosen.
In terms of the presidential race, the person with the most votes “wins” Iowa. In practice, delegates to a state convention are awarded on a proportionate basis, so everyone “wins” – in a way.
A cold coming we had of it. Icy winds blow across the plains, numbing the face and cutting to the bone. Stranded cars and tractor trailers lie abandoned at the side of highways. Snow is piled high on the side of every road in the state capital, where giant icicles hang off buildings. Candidates’ yard signs and children’s playgrounds have been enveloped by a white blanket.
Welcome to Iowa, often described as the centre of the political universe at this stage of the US electoral cycle, but currently feeling more like the outer reaches of our solar system.
It is here, amid wind chills of around -40F (-40C), that Monday will witness the dawn of the 2024 presidential election, the first since the insurrection of 6 January 2021, when US democracy itself hung by a thread.
The brutal weather has proved timely for reporters in need of something to talk about ahead of some particularly anti-climactic Iowa caucuses. Democrats are not actively engaged this time, while the Republican race has never been such a foregone conclusion: Donald Trump in an avalanche.
The only suspenseful questions on what is expected to be the coldest caucus night ever are: will Trump exceed 50% of the vote and will Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, eclipse the one-time rising star Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida?
Read our Washington DC bureau chief David Smith’s full report from Des Moines, Iowa: In deep Iowa snow, Trump expected to win caucuses in an avalanche
We’re still hours away from the 7pm CT start of the caucuses here in Des Moines, but Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign has started their day off by releasing a new television ad dinging Donald Trump.
The spot makes light of his predictions that he will win the first state to vote in the Republican primary process by 60% – which would be the biggest-ever win for a non-incumbent Republican. Haley’s campaign wrote:
Sixty points? The latest Des Moines Register/NBC News poll shows Trump with a lead of less than half his prediction and the kick-off to a two-person race between Nikki Haley and Trump.
Here’s the ad:
Updated
Nikki Haley expressed confidence that Iowans would not be deterred from the cold weather and turn out and caucus for her today.
Haley, in an interview with on Fox and Friends this morning, said she was “determined to be out there in the snow until the very last second, trying to earn every vote”.
Citing a recent poll that found her beating Joe Biden in a head-to-head match by 17 points, Haley said she would have a “double digit mandate going into DC” to make sure “we get our economy back under control, reduce inflation, get our kids reading again, securing our borders once and for all.”
On the eve of the caucuses, Donald Trump predicted he would set a modern-day record for an Iowa Republican caucus with a margin-of-victory exceeding the nearly 13 percentage points that Bob Dole earned in 1988.
He also sought to downplay expectations that he would earn as much as 50% of the total vote.
Updated
Trump, Haley, DeSantis in big test in freezing Iowa
Iowa Republicans will brave brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination.
The final results will depend on turnout, which could be acutely impacted by the weather. After a blizzard swept through Iowa on Friday, many roads remained covered in snow as temperatures dropped well below freezing.
Trump acknowledged on Saturday that he was concerned about the weather affecting caucus turnout but expressed confidence in his supporters’ dedication.
“It’s going to be cold. It’s not going to be pleasant,” DeSantis said at a campaign event in West Des Moines on Saturday.
If you’re willing to brave the elements and be there for the couple hours that you have to be there, if you’re willing to do that and you’re willing to fight for me on Monday night, then as president I’ll be fighting for you for the next eight years.
Even as the National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening” cold, Iowa voters largely shrugged off questions about how they would reach their caucus sites.
“People in the country live like this all the time,” said Abbey Sindt, a caucus-goer who attended Haley’s town hall in Ames on Sunday. “So it’s really not that big of a deal, in my opinion.”
Max Richardson, who also attended the town hall, agreed with Sindt, saying,
Everyone’s shoveled out. Everyone’s getting the ice melt down. It’s just a question of, can you get the car there?
Updated
Florida senator Marco Rubio formally endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday, effectively snubbing his state’s own governor Ron DeSantis.
In a social media post, Rubio cited his work with Trump to expand child tax credit as well as sanctions placed on Cuba and Venezuela as reasons for throwing his support behind the former president. Rubio added:
I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created.
When Trump was in WH I achieved major policies I had worked on for years (like expanded Child Tax Credit & tough sanctions on regime in Cuba & Venezuela) because we had a President who didn’t cave to special interests or let bureaucrats block us.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 14, 2024
I support Trump because that…
Rubio previously ran against Trump in 2016, during which he called him a “con artist” who had “no ideas of any substance” before dropping out after losing the Florida primary. Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly taunted Rubio with the nickname “Little Marco”.
Rubio’s endorsement means that both of Florida’s Republican senators have opted not to back their own governor. Rick Scott endorsed Trump in November.
Trump holds dominant lead ahead of Iowa caucuses, poll finds
Donald Trump looks set to win Iowa’s first-in-nation vote in the Republican presidential nomination race by a record margin tonight.
A final poll by renowned Iowa pollster Ann Selzer published on Saturday night shows the former president holding a nearly 30-point lead over his rivals.
The final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll before today’s GOP caucuses shows Trump with the support of 48% of likely caucus-goers, followed by Nikki Haley at 20%, Ron DeSantis at 16% and Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%.
If Trump’s current lead holds, it would be the largest margin of victory for a non-incumbent competing in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses. The current record margin, 13 points, was set by Bob Dole in 1988.
Iowans are set to brave subzero temperatures on Monday when they arrive at their caucus sites at 7pm to formally kick off the process to choose their nominee.
In terms of pure numbers, the Iowa caucuses won’t have much of a role in determining who the Republican nominee is. The state allocates 40 delegates in the Republican nominating contest, roughly just 1.6% of the more than 2,400 that are up for grabs. But that small total belies the outsized influence the state can have on US presidential politics.
For more than half a century, Iowa has come to occupy a near-mythological place in American politics – becoming known as the place where underdogs can become serious contenders and where dreams of the White House can die. The rural state’s voters often reward retail politicking, giving hope to candidates who visit its 99 counties to shake hands and give stump speeches.
Since the 1970s, its caucuses have been the first nominating contest in each presidential cycle. Candidates crisscross the state in hopes of exceeding expectations and gaining momentum. And while it does not always pick the eventual nominee – Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have all won there – victories there have been rocket fuel to candidates like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.
Iowa is not first because it’s important. It’s important because it’s first
said Dennis Goldford, a professor at Drake University in Des Moines and the co-author of The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event. “The morning after the caucuses, Iowa falls off the face of the earth.”
Read our full explainer here: Iowa caucuses are ‘important because they’re first’ – but are they democratic?
As well as the extreme cold weather possibly affecting turnout later, Iowa’s caucuses are also playing out on Martin Luther King Day, which is a federal holiday.
Iowans told to 'limit outdoor exposure' as the 'dangerous cold' sweeps the state
Iowans have been told to “limit outdoor exposure” as much as possible with forecasters saying the wind chill temperature could go down to as low as -35F on Monday evening in the “dangerous cold”.
The life-threatening cold blanketing the midwest, which already forced the campaigns to cancel several events over the weekend, could lead to a lower turnout later today.
Unlike a regular election, Iowa’s caucuses require voters to gather in person.
Dangerous cold is expected to continue today and into Tuesday morning, with wind chills down to 30 to 35 below zero expected. If possible, limit outdoor exposure as much as possible and dress warmly. Stay warm out there! #iawx pic.twitter.com/weyZ2iJsFJ
— NWS Des Moines (@NWSDesMoines) January 15, 2024
Monday has been forecast to potentially be a record cold caucus night with temperatures as low as -20F (-29C). Biting winds could make it feel as cold as -45F in some places.
Data from the National Weather Service indicates that the coldest caucus before this year was in 2004, when temperatures did not rise above 16 degrees.
Updated
The MyPillow chief, Mike Lindell, a close ally and cheerleader for Donald Trump and his bogus stolen election claims, is expanding his own conspiratorial TV network, while aggressively stumping for Trump again and fighting defamation lawsuits from two electronic voting firms, one of which wants over $1bn in damages.
The moves by Lindell show the continuing presence of powerful parts of the pro-Trump movement, undeterred by the extensive legal peril their false claims of election fraud due to electronic voting machines have caused them.
His expansion of his television network also shows the growing power of rightwing media as the 2024 race for the White House gets under way, and its ability to elevate conspiracy theories.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Peter Stone, here:
Biden and the Democrats raise $97m to close out 2023
US president, Joe Biden, and the Democratic National Committee have said they raised more than $97m (£76m) in the final three months of last year.
The Biden campaign said it took in $235m (£185m) from its launch last April until the end of 2023 and finished the year with $117m (£92m) in cash on hand – which it said was the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle.
It added that over 520,000 donors made 926,000-plus contributions in the last quarter of 2023.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said:
This historic haul- proudly powered by strong and growing grassroots enthusiasm – sends a clear message: the team Biden-Harris coalition knows the stakes of this election and is ready to win this November.
Across our coalition, we are seeing early, sustained support that is helping us scale our growing operation across the country and take our message to the communities that will determine this election.
Our democracy and hard-fought basic rights and freedoms are on the line in 2024, and these numbers prove that the American people know the stakes and are taking action early to help defeat the extreme Maga Republican agenda again.
Updated
Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have both expressed confidence that they would exceed expectations on Monday.
DeSantis – whose pitch to voters has been that he would replicate his conservative remaking of Florida on the national stage – told Fox News on Sunday: “I have a record of doing well as the underdog … we’re gonna do well.”
“The only numbers that matter are the ones that we’re going up and everybody else went down,” Haley told the network. “And that shows that we’re doing the right thing.”
Updated
The Iowa caucuses begin at 8pm ET on Monday evening (1am GMT on Tuesday). Caucus participants will gather inside more than 1,500 schools, churches and community centers to debate their options, in some cases for hours, before casting secret ballots.
To find out more about the mechanics of the Iowa caucuses and the influence they will have on the 2024 US election, you can read this useful explainer by my colleague, Martin Pengelly, here:
Trump forecast to get nearly 50% of vote in final Iowa poll as brutal cold grips state
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The 2024 US presidential election begins in earnest in Iowa on Monday, when voters across the midwestern state will battle freezing temperatures to gather in the unique caucus format to select their Republican candidate of choice.
The final Des Moines Register/NBC News poll before Monday night’s caucuses found former president, Donald Trump, maintaining a formidable lead over his opponents, supported by 48% of likely caucus-goers.
After trailing the two-term Florida governor, Ron DeSantis for months, the latest poll showed Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, in second place in Iowa, winning the support of 20% of likely Republican caucus-goers, compared to DeSantis’s 16%, with Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%.
Should DeSantis finish lower than second place, it could prove fatal to his ability to continue competing in New Hampshire, the next state to vote, and later in the primaries.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign hopes that a victory in Iowa would give him enough momentum to win the next contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan, putting him ahead of the field for Super Tuesday on 5 March.
If he exceeds 50% of the vote in Iowa, Trump will earn what he predicted would be “a historic landslide”.
Monday is forecast to be a record cold caucus night with temperatures potentially reaching around as low as -20F (-29C).
The Florida senator, Marco Rubio, on Sunday become the 24th Republican senator to endorse Trump for president, meaning he is now one Republican senator short of securing the majority support of the GOP senators.
Former Republican presidential candidate and North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, also endorsed Trump for president on Sunday.
Updated
