Trump faces high expectations, ignores Iowa caucus rivals – Omaha World-Herald
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When Donald Trump staged a MAGA rally in western Iowa a week ago, he spoke confidently of his “phenomenal” polling numbers and the “massive” victory he sees coming in Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
But the former president also had to temper that trademark bravado by cautioning his fervid followers against becoming too complacent. After all, he needs them to show up Monday night amid the cold and snow.
“It’s so important that we get out and vote and really show the strength,” he said, “because the only way we can get hurt is if you sit home and want to watch the great results on television.”
When Iowa Republicans gather Monday night for the nation’s first-in-the-nation presidential test, there’s little question that Trump will come out on top — most likely bigly. Polling above 50%, he has a commanding 30-plus-point lead over even his closest rivals.
As Trump pursues a White House comeback in 2024, his campaign believes a huge win in Iowa could cement his hold on the Republican Party, begin the process of rolling up his remaining GOP opponents and help secure a November rematch against President Joe Biden.
“They’re thinking if they do get that 50% or so that they’ve been showing in the polls, that will just undermine the rationale for these other challengers,” said Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political scientist and longtime caucus watcher. “He wants to dispose of them as soon as he can.”
The biggest challenge to Trump right now may not be Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley — his two closest pursuers — but the high expectations those lofty poll numbers create. Caucus history has shown underperforming expectations can create a chink in the armor of a presumed front-runner.
“It’s all about beating expectations — I can’t hammer that home enough,” said Randall Adkins, a University of Nebraska at Omaha political scientist. “If Trump gets less than 50% in Iowa, I think that signals he’s weaker than everyone says he is.”
A weaker-than-expected performance from the front-runner would also put that much more focus on who finishes second to Trump in Iowa.
As the nomination battle moves on to New Hampshire and beyond, the Iowa runner-up could be seen as the leading Trump alternative for GOP voters who are weary of Trump’s false 2020 election fraud claims and the division he sows within the nation’s politics.
Polling suggests the battle for No. 2 right now is closely contested between Florida Gov. DeSantis and Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador under Trump.
DeSantis has seemingly staked his whole campaign on Iowa, even choosing to ring in the New Year in the state two weeks ago.
The DeSantis campaign essentially peaked the day before he formally announced his bid last year, Goldford said. His pitch that he offers voters Trumpian policies without the chaos has not caught on with most voters.
Now DeSantis is hoping the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and strong support among Iowa’s army of evangelical voters can finally give his campaign a spark.
Haley may go into Monday with more upward momentum than any of the contenders, having recently surged in both Iowa and New Hampshire polls — within single digits of Trump in some Granite State surveys. She paints herself as the GOP candidate most likely to be able to court moderates and independents against incumbent Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee.
The biggest challenge for DeSantis and Haley, Goldford said, is threading the needle between making a case for why Trump should not be the nominee without alienating the MAGA Republicans who make up a sizable, vital chunk of the party’s base. Due to that fear, the two candidates have been mostly muted in their direct criticisms of Trump.
“They spend a lot of time here talking about Biden, but they’re not running against Biden right now,” Goldford said. “They’re running against Trump.”
Indeed, DeSantis and Haley mostly ignored Trump and fiercely went after each other in the final Iowa debate Wednesday night in Des Moines, each accusing the other of being a liar.
Trump skipped the affair, as he shrewdly has all other debates in the campaign. He knows that appearing on stage with his challengers only gives them more attention and legitimacy.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy all failed to qualify for the last debate due to low poll numbers. And Christie — the only GOP candidate who has aggressively opposed Trump — that same day ended his campaign.
A poor caucus showing Monday could well spell the beginning of the end for fellow longshots Hutchinson and Ramaswamy, too.
At least, that’s the way it’s all shaping up entering the 7 p.m. Monday caucuses.
As has frequently been proven in the past, the night can produce some big surprises when Iowans gather in churches, school gyms and community centers to express their presidential preferences.
With wind chills expected to deliver the coldest caucus night ever, the weather could also play a role in deciding which candidates’ supporters turn out.
“The weather should be cold, but we’re Iowans and we’re used to it,” said Starlyn Perdue, chair of the Pottawattamie County GOP. “We still expect a very good turnout Monday.”
There will be no caucus night drama on the Democratic side. And after the disastrous Democratic caucuses of 2020, that’s probably a good thing.
Due to technical glitches with the app Iowa Democrats used to compile caucus results, Biden and other candidates left Iowa four years ago not knowing who had prevailed.
Though Biden faces no serious challenger within his party this year, Iowa will no longer be the first testing ground for Democratic candidates.
Iowa Democrats will caucus on Monday, but they won’t state their presidential preferences. They will instead vote by mail, and the results will be released in March along with several other states on “Super Tuesday.”
Here’s a look at the campaigns of the top GOP contenders in the Hawkeye State, in order of their Saturday standing in the 538 website’s composite of the leading polls: Trump 51%, Haley 17%, DeSantis 16%, Ramaswamy 7% and Hutchinson less than 1%.
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The fervent backing and loyalty Trump still engenders among his base has been evident at his rallies across Iowa. The events pull in hundreds of supporters wearing their trademark MAGA hats and shirts.
Former President Donald Trump arrives for a Fox News town hall last week, an event he held in lieu of debating his rivals.
“He’s got to get back in there,” said Marj Wichers, among an estimated 500 supporters attending the Trump rally a week ago in Sioux Center, in Iowa’s northwest corner. The 58-year-old said the back seat of her car was filled with Trump gear she had bought earlier.
After taking the stage that day, Trump delivered Wichers and other backers a rambling marathon speech running an hour and 45 minutes — one in which he repeatedly aired his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
“We won twice, and we’re going to win a third time,” he said at one point.
Trump railed against the legal charges he faces related to his efforts to overturn the election and his handling of classified documents. He also criticized the prosecution of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in the midst of his lies about the election, referring to them as “hostages.”
Trump still follows no conventional political mores, at one point performing a comic imitation of Biden and referring to Biden, DeSantis and Haley by the degrading nicknames he’s tagged them with.
He spoke in glowing terms of his own presidency and described the nation’s current state as dire and disastrous, calling this election “our last chance to save America.”
Again and again, he turned to immigration — the issue that first fueled his political rise eight years ago, and which for many continues to be the hallmark of his appeal.
“A vote for Donald Trump in these caucuses is a vote to secure our border,” he said. “It’s a vote to stop the invasion of millions of people from parts unknown.”
In addition to skipping debates, Trump, unlike his opponents, has not been crisscrossing the state to meet voters retail-style and take their questions, opting instead for his rallies.
What the 77-year-old Trump does not want to see is a repeat of caucus night eight years ago.
He went in with a five-point lead in the polls, defying critics who believed his incendiary rhetoric wouldn’t fly with voters. But he had a poorly run organization in the field and ended up losing to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz 28% to 24%.
The next day, he accused Cruz of fraud and called for the results to be nullified. “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump tweeted then — foreshadowing the false election claims he would make as president four years later.
Trump has apparently learned from his 2016 Iowa campaign missteps. He has a much better ground game this time, organized in all 99 Iowa counties to urge his supporters to get out to caucus. His rallies also feature a video with an animated character who explains how the unique caucus system works.
“It was all hype and showiness,” Goldford said of Trump’s 2016 Iowa campaign. “By all accounts, he’s got a much better organization this time, more staff and more in touch with people.”
Trump last week said the bad weather forecasts might even prove to be to his advantage, believing he has the most committed caucus backers.
“We’d love bad weather,” he said. “My people will walk on glass.”
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Nikki Haley attended the Iowa State Fair in August wearing a T-shirt that said “Underestimate me. That’ll be fun.”
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador under President Donald Trump, has been rising in the polls.
There are fewer people underestimating her now. At the time registering less than 5% in Iowa polls, she has rallied to the high teens and into second in Iowa polling averages — though still more than 30 points behind Trump.
The daughter of Indian immigrants rose to prominence when elected governor of South Carolina in 2010. Beginning in 2017, she served for two years as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump.
The 51-year-old touts that foreign policy experience on the stump, saying she has dealt with Russia, China, Iran and Israel. Unlike many of her rivals, she has been outspoken in her support for providing arms to Ukraine as a check against both Russian and Chinese aggression.
She also frequently speaks to traditional mainstream conservative issues like stopping wasteful spending and deficits. Seemingly with an eye to November, she speaks of her opposition to abortion in more moderate terms than her opponents.
The backing of some wealthy donors, including a super PAC tied to billionaire Charles Koch, in recent weeks has given Haley more TV ad time in Iowa than any of the other candidates — including Trump.
She recently has taken some mild shots at the former president, including blaming him for adding $8 trillion to the nation’s $34 trillion national debt. Her ads also speak to leaving political “chaos and drama” in the past.
“I think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies, but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him,” she said in a telephone town hall with western Iowa voters Friday night. “All of you know it. We can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos.”
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rose to national prominence over the last five years by enacting one of the most conservative agendas in the country: targeting LGBTQ issues in schools, barring public universities from spending on diversity, equity and inclusion, waging an “anti-woke” war against Disney and signing a strict abortion ban.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, backed by Iowa’s governor, says he has the proven ability to enact a conservative agenda into law.
“To me, leadership is not about showmanship, it’s not about entertainment,” he said recently in Council Bluffs, alluding to Trump. “It’s about producing results. Every single thing I promised to voters in Florida I would do, I delivered on.”
But his highly anticipated, big-spending national campaign fell flat when it rolled out last year, and he’s been trying to right it ever since.
Like Trump, DeSantis vows as president to crack down on illegal immigration and ramp up oil and gas production. Unlike Trump, he says, he’s not out seeking retribution for perceived wrongs.
“In this iteration of Trump, in 2016, it was a lot of ‘America First,’ ” DeSantis said. ”Now, I think it’s more about ‘Trump First’ and Trump’s personal stuff.”
In a campaign swing with DeSantis last week, Iowa Gov. Reynolds praised her fellow governor’s handling of COVID-19. Florida was among the first states to reopen after the lockdowns.
“I had so much respect for not only the courage but the resolve that he had to bring experts to the table to listen, to put his constituents first and do the right thing,” she said.
The 45-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer and military veteran also enjoys the backing of more Iowa state legislators than any other candidate, plus evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, long influential in Iowa presidential politics.
Vander Plaats, who backed the winner in the past three contested GOP caucuses, has said the message he’s hearing from Republicans is that “they like what (Trump) did, but it’s time to turn the page.”
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Vivek Ramaswamy may be more familiar with Iowa’s VFW halls, main street diners and Pizza Ranch locations than any other presidential hopeful. His campaign claims he became the first candidate in history to visit all the state’s 99 counties twice in a year’s time.
Vivek Ramaswamy echoes Donald Trump with his billionaire businessman background and anti-establishment views.
A charismatic 38-year-old billionaire, Ramaswamy has some things in common with Trump, and he often sounds like him, too. The son of Indian immigrants, he calls for the end of birthright citizenship, making English the national language, and shutting down “the deep state.”
Carter Lake resident Steve McAlpine, who was recently impressed by Ramaswamy on the stump, said the candidate is a kind of “Donald Trump lite.”
“He has a lot of the same ideas and qualities that made Donald Trump attractive,” the 60-year-old said. “I think an alternative candidate could go a long way to close the rifts that have developed.”
Ramaswamy has also vowed to shut down numerous federal agencies, including the FBI, FDA and IRS, which he accuses of acting as a fourth branch of government.
While a political novice, he says his background in business and his anti-establishment, outsider mentality make him especially prepared to take on the nation’s challenges.
“The sad reality is that we have a system that is baked by the establishment that I don’t think is serving the people of this country,” he said recently.
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Asa Hutchinson brought his “Asa’s Normal Express” to Council Bluffs on a snowy night last week, with a message that he offers a return to political norms compared to Trump. He offered as examples Trump’s lack of respect for American allies and the disrespect he’s shown military veterans.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he’s the only GOP contender who hasn’t promised to pardon Donald Trump.
“That’s a bad look for America,” he said. “I want a president that reflects the character of the United States.”
A 73-year-old who served eight years as Arkansas governor and formerly headed the Drug Enforcement Administration under President George W. Bush, Hutchinson also said he’s the only Republican candidate who has not promised to pardon Trump should he get elected.
But whether it was the weather or a lifeless campaign, only a half dozen people showed up that night, half of them Nebraska voters from across the river who could not caucus for him.
Hutchinson joked that he’s been working hard to keep expectations low for his campaign, and been successful. But with Trump polling at just over 50% in Iowa, he said, that means almost half of the voters are looking for someone else.
“And so it is wide open there, and I think that there’ll be surprises on caucus night,” Hutchinson said in an interview. “I don’t expect (Trump’s) margin of victory to be as large as everybody anticipates. And I think you’re going to see a number of the candidates like myself who might be polling low, that will move up.”
This story includes material from the Quad Cities Times, Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Sioux City Journal and Associated Press.
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cordes@owh.com, 402-444-1130, twitter.com/henrycordes
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Omaha drivers deal with snow and wind
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador under President Donald Trump, has been rising in the polls.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, backed by Iowa’s governor, says he has the proven ability to enact a conservative agenda into law.
Former President Donald Trump arrives for a Fox News town hall last week, an event he held in lieu of debating his rivals.
Vivek Ramaswamy echoes Donald Trump with his billionaire businessman background and anti-establishment views.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he’s the only GOP contender who hasn’t promised to pardon Donald Trump.
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