The big questions looming in the Iowa caucuses: Here’s what to expect

It may seem like there is little suspense about who is likely to win the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa on Monday.

But in Iowa, the unexpected can be the expected, and a win isn’t always a win. The outcome could shape the future of the Republican Party in a time of transition, and the future of the Iowa caucuses after a difficult decade. It could help determine whether Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador, poses a serious obstacle to Donald J. Trump’s return to power — or whether Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, will be forced out of the race.

Here’s a guide to some possible outcomes and what they mean for the contenders:

A Trump victory

All the assumptions about a big Trump night mean that the former president’s biggest opponent could turn out to be the expectations — and not his two main rivals on the ballot, Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Trump and his campaign have set the bar high. Mr. Trump has run for office as an incumbent without even debating his opponents. His aides say they believe he can set an open race record by at least 12 points ahead of his nearest rival.

And for Mr. Trump, that could be a problem.

“Trump is polling at about 50 percent plus or minus,” said Dennis J. Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University in Des Moines. “If he came in at 40, that’s a flashing yellow light. That indicates weaknesses and insecurity.”

Two forces could complicate Trump’s hopes for tonight. Those same polls showing him on his way to victory, the polls he brags about at almost every rally he makes in Iowa, could fuel complacency among his supporters. Why come out and caucus – Caucus Daytime temperatures are expected to a high zero degrees in some places – if Mr Trump is going to win anyway?

And unlike the Democrats’ caucuses, this is a secret ballot; Republicans don’t need to stand up and announce their votes to their neighbors. That could matter if there really is some hidden anti-Trump sentiment that Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have been banking on.

Of course, these are just what-if questions. It appears Trump has learned a lesson from 2016, when, after taking the lead in the polls, he lost the presidential race to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. This time he has deployed a massive field organization and traveled across Iowa to spur his own supporters to vote. “He comes back to the state again and again,” said Jeff Angelo, a former Republican senator who now hosts a conservative talk show on WHO-AM. “This time they won’t take it for granted.”

A weak performance by Mr. DeSantis

The governor of Florida was once seen as Trump’s biggest threat and Iowa was the state where he could seize the mantle of the Trump alternative. But Mr. DeSantis has not lived up to his expectations, and Ms. Haley’s rise has forced him to the edge of the stage.

The test for Mr. DeSantis earlier this campaign season was whether he could use Iowa to create a two-way race with Mr. Trump. Now he’s struggling to make sure he scores at least what he always expected: a strong second-place finish.

Mr. DeSantis’s supporters say they are still confident he will come in second place — and perhaps even upset Mr. Trump. “If you believe in polls, hopefully he comes in a close second,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis. “If you believe the ground game, there’s a possibility he could upend the former president in Iowa. He has by far the best on-site operation I have ever seen.”

“A lot of people are waiting for DeSantis’ obituary to be written,” he said. “I just see DeSantis having a good night on caucus night.”

Coming in second could propel the DeSantis campaign to New Hampshire. But a weak second-place finish — if he narrowly trails Ms. Haley, or if the results are still in question when he leaves Iowa — could confirm Republican concerns about his political appeal and force him out crochet. And come third?

“Look, he told all of us he’s all set for Iowa,” Mr. Angelo said. “You finish third in Iowa, I don’t see how you’re going to continue.”

But even with a second-place finish — what his campaign would call a win — it’s hard to see how Mr. DeSantis can build on that. He is leading in most public and private polls in New Hampshire. In fact, Mr. DeSantis is not competitive in any of the emerging states. In a recent interview on NBC News, he said declined to name other states where he might win. He doesn’t put much effort into any other state, in terms of spending or ground game. It appears his best hope is that Mr. Vander Plaats is right and that he somehow pulls off an upset victory over Mr. Trump.

A strong performance from Ms. Haley

If Ms. Haley comes in a close second, this will be a different race. She would head to New Hampshire with the wind at her back, a state where she has strong institutional support, even after a few weeks marked by stumbles on the campaign trail. She could present herself as a real alternative to Republicans who are looking for another candidate besides Mr. Trump to lead the party in November.

And her supporters would almost certainly increase pressure on Mr. DeSantis to step aside so the party could coalesce around her. “That will be the story of the caucus,” said Jimmy Centers, a longtime Republican consultant from Iowa. “She will be the alternative to former President Trump. And then I think the chorus is going to say, it’s time for the field to winnow so they can compete against each other.

If Ms. Haley finishes in third place, Mr. DeSantis will likely try to push her out of the race. But why should she leave? She will only move into more politically friendly territory as the campaign moves first to New Hampshire and then to her home state of South Carolina.

If Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley continue their fights in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump will be the beneficiary. “If you don’t have a clear second person who can claim the mantle of where the ‘non-Trump’ vote goes in the next states, I don’t see where Trump faces challenges in the future,” Gentry Collins said. , a longtime Republican leader in Iowa.

Another tough night for Iowa?

This has been a tough decade for the Iowa caucuses. In 2012, Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, was declared the winner of the Republican caucus, but sixteen days later the state’s Republican Party, struggling to count the missing votes, said Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania , was actually finished. First.

The 2020 Democratic caucus turned into a debacle, full of miscounts and glitches, and the brigade of reporters that descended on Iowa left before the final results were known. (Quick Quiz: Who Won the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus?)

When there is already so much distrust of the voting system, fueled by Mr. Trump, the last thing Iowa needs is another messy caucus count. That would be demonstrably bad for Iowa, as well as for the nation.

“What I worry about is that you could have a repeat of 2012,” said David Yepsen, the former chief political correspondent for The Des Moines Register, who predicted in 2020 that the meltdown – which Pete Buttigieg is off the momentum of his narrow victory – would spell the end for the Democratic caucus in Iowa.

“You have 180,000 people voting in a few thousand precincts on little pieces of paper that are tabulated by hand,” he said. “The worst case scenario is that they have problems with their tables. With all this talk about rigged voting, I think the country will feel confused if Republicans in Iowa don’t get this right.”