All Eyes on Potential Trump, Haley Outcomes With Caucus Precious Hours Away

DES MOINES, Iowa — As the weekend of the 2024 Iowa caucuses dawned in Des Moines Saturday morning, two things were crowding most people’s thinking.

The first was whether it was ever going to stop snowing. Though a blizzard forecast to blanket the area in as much as a foot of new snow missed its projected mark late last week, the flakes continued to fall as most Iowans went to bed Friday night.

The second thing, also weather related, was whether it will really be as cold on caucus night, this coming Monday, as forecasters have warned since at least last Wednesday.

“Twenty below zero is cold,” said the affable Will Rogers, a former chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, as he addressed reporters at the huge media staging center established near downtown by the Iowa Caucus Consortium, a business and tourism group.

“It will keep people home on caucus night,” he said.

As for the contest itself, the singular American political event that has had candidates, political operatives and volunteers pounding the pavement for months, the foregone conclusion is that former President Donald Trump will probably win.

The real question is who will nab second place and how decisively they will do so.

No one, but no one, is talking about entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy or former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. 

The real question is whether former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will advance to what’s been shaping up as a coronation, with the prize to be named the undisputed challenger to Trump’s bid for a second term.

“The thing about the Iowa caucuses, unlike any other contest leading up to their respective parties nominating conventions, is that there is such a long lead time and then there’s this huge surge in activity at the end,” said Karen Kedrowski, professor of Political Science at Iowa State University.

“And Donald Trump is a great example of what happens,” Kedrowski said.

“Trump initially did not spend as much time in the state as many of his rivals, and if you look at the polls, he didn’t have to; Trump has been so far ahead for so long that it’s almost ridiculous,” she said.

One result is the marked difference in how the national media has covered the contest and how the local media went about its work.

“Certainly the national media has been paying more attention to Trump than the local media has, and that’s because the national media has been concentrating on his legal troubles, which are newsworthy and certainly something they should be covering,” Kedrowski said.

“But in terms of the horse race — the twists and turns of which are fodder for the local media — almost all of the attention in-state has focused on Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“In fact, I’d say if you looked only at the coverage by the media in the state, you could think the gap between DeSantis and Haley and Trump is a lot smaller than it is,” she said.

And like a real horse race, things can change on a dime.

It was huge news in November, for instance, when Iowa’s popular Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds broke with long-standing tradition and endorsed DeSantis.

“That was very big news,” Kedrowski said.

In fact, it was so big that it forced Trump to respond. Though DeSantis at the time was running four television and radio spots compared to Trump’s one, the ex-president immediately stepped up his game.

“There is one ad the Trump campaign has been running constantly that shows Kim Reynolds saying nice things about Trump … the thing is, the clips are from 2016 and 2020. And you can tell it’s not current footage because her hair is totally different.

“Now, of course, the radio versions of the same spots are more effective because you can’t actually see her and how dated the remarks are, and she’s really mad about that,” Kedrowski said.

Two months later, with Iowans poised to go to their respective caucus sites, Haley has seized the momentum.

While it is unlikely she’ll close the 30-point gap the latest polls suggest separate her from frontrunner Trump, denying her first bid to become the first Republican woman to ever win a presidential nominating contest, there is a consolation prize.

She will undoubtedly achieve another milestone — becoming the first Republican woman to win more than one delegate in modern party history, and doing so with hordes of reporters on hand to acknowledge it.

But former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who briefly ran for president himself this year and served as a spin room surrogate for Haley after last week’s televised CNN debate with DeSantis, has been warning people not to underestimate just how well she’ll do Monday night.

“She’s going to shock some people in Iowa once the votes are tallied,” he said the other day.

“Then we’re going to see things happen in New Hampshire that people didn’t expect, and that builds momentum going into her home state, a political landscape she knows very well,” he said.

Hurd said the fact DeSantis stepped up his attacks on Haley during the debate only amplified “the fact that her momentum is so strong.”

“Nikki’s optimism is performing here in Iowa,” he said. “It’s doing the same in New Hampshire, and she’s already making inroads in the Super Tuesday states.”

Of course, Donald Trump has of late been doing everything he can to maintain his perceived lead in Iowa. 

After being largely absent from the state in the early days of the race — a move that mirrored his refusal to debate his rivals on television — the former president has been a near constant presence here in recent days.

Between Saturday and Sunday, he’s got a half a dozen town halls planned, and on Friday, his campaign added another half dozen virtual events to his schedule.

All that effort, Hurd suggested, underscores another reality about the Iowa caucuses — there are the results and then there is the perception of the results.

“Come late Monday night, I think a strong showing will be one where people walk away saying something like, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that to happen,’” he said.

At the same time, however, Hurd declined to set a bar for assessing the magnitude of success or failure for Haley in the caucus.

“I mean, leaving here, we know the momentum in New Hampshire is absolutely real,” he began before offering that if anybody is up against it in terms of the expectation game this weekend, it’s Trump.

“Donald Trump has set the expectation that he’s gonna get 50% of the vote in Iowa,” Hurd said. “If he doesn’t get 50% of the vote in Iowa, that’s a failure. 

“If Ron DeSantis doesn’t win Iowa, that’s a failure. This is what they have set out to do,” he said.

“But you know, I firmly believe that whatever happens in regard to the outcome for those two men, it is not in any way going to change any of the momentum you’re seeing Nikki Haley gain in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“Iowa set the stage, and now it’s only going to continue to grow,” Hurd said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue