The state of play in Iowa: What you need to know about the GOP presidential caucuses
Iowa voters are about to cast their ballots, and we’re back, ready to guide you through what promises to be an election year like no other.
I’m Lisa Lerer, the founder of On Politics. As you might expect this time of year, I’m writing to you from cold Des Moines, where I just beat a big snowstorm to cover the last week before the caucuses.
Typically, this is a period in the political calendar known for its drama. Candidates are running across the state, attack ads are flooding local television and so is Casey’s store fast business in breakfast pizza.
This year, that’s not exactly. Donald Trump leads the polls by more than 30 points despite rarely visiting the state compared to his rivals. His huge lead has turned the Iowa caucuses into a battle for second place. If none of Trump’s five rivals erase his lead, the caucuses could look more like an early coronation.
But Iowa likes to surprise. Just ask former President Barack Obama, who delivered a crucial blow to Hillary Clinton in 2008. Or Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who showed up during the December holidays to win the competition that same year. Naturally, things didn’t work out so well for Huckabee, who lost the nomination to Senator John McCain.
In fact, Iowa has a poor record when it comes to choosing the Republican Party’s nominee. In the seven contested Republican races since 1980, the winner of Iowa has clinched the party’s nomination only twice: Senator Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996 and Governor George W. Bush of Texas in 2000. Even in competitive years, voters typically vote fewer than 200,000. Iowans part. in their party’s caucuses. That number could be even lower this year, given the forecast below-freezing temperatures for next Monday evening.
The race for second place
As is often the case in Iowa, the stakes this year go beyond a simple victory. For Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, a strong second-place finish would catapult her campaign into the New Hampshire primary with that most coveted of political narratives: momentum.
For Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose standing in the race has fallen, this is a make or break situation. If he doesn’t come close to Haley or Trump, it will become increasingly difficult for DeSantis to justify his bid for the Republican nomination.
Trump’s speeches focused on how he expects to outright defeat President Biden in November. But in recent days he has targeted Haley, accusing her of being “in the pocket” of “establishment donors” and being a “globalist,” my colleague Shane Goldmacher reported this weekend.
Haley threatens not only to displace DeSantis for second place in Iowa, but also to compete with Trump in New Hampshire, where independent voters are giving her a lift in a state with open primaries. Trump’s new line of attack suggests his campaign sees Haley as a possible roadblock to his goal of quickly securing the nomination.
From Wilmington, Del., you’re watching the Biden campaign. Publicly, Biden aides say they are preparing to run against one of the Republicans in the field. But privately, they are quite confident that Trump will once again be their opponent in the general election. Their argument reflects their position four years ago, which framed the election as a referendum on American democracy and basic freedoms such as the right to abortion.
Today in Charleston, Biden tried to rally support among black voters with a fiery speech from the pulpit of the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. My colleague Peter Baker reports that Biden linked Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election to the country’s history of white supremacy, which he called “the old ghost in new clothes.”
One certainty of presidential politics: Past victories are no guarantee of future results. And this race promises to be a doozy. Biden, who will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee, would be the oldest presidential candidate in history. He is widely unpopular, even among some key members of his own coalition. The likely Republican nominee faces 91 felony charges and is expected to spend much of the election year playing ping-pong, from the campaign trail to the courthouse.
We are here to help you make sense of it all. Three times a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – you will hear your dose of political news from a rotating team of top political reporters from The New York Times. Over the coming months, I will share this newsletter with my colleagues in the political bureau, including Reid Epstein, Adam Nagourney, and Katie Glueck.
Before we close this very first newsletter of 2024, I would like to remember Blake Hounshell, our irrepressible and brilliant colleague who last provided this newsletter and passed away last year at the age of 44. We miss him very much, and know that he is as passionate about this campaign as we are.
With that, dear readers, I invite you to join us on this journey. Get ready: it’s going to be a rough ride.
A different kind of evangelical voter
White evangelical Christian voters have supported Republican candidates for decades. But evangelicals aren’t exactly who they used to be anymore.
Today, being evangelical is often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are viewed as a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically, and Donald Trump lurks.
“Politics has become the most important identity,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor. “Everything else is behind partisanship.”
The Republican caucuses in Iowa will be a test of how fully Trump continues to own that identity. Of his rivals, Ron DeSantis has invested the most in courting Iowa evangelicals, securing the support of prominent leaders and emphasizing his hard line on abortion. Trump had a 25-point lead over DeSantis among evangelical voters in early December, according to a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom report. Iowa Poll.
Karen Johnson identifies as an evangelical Christian, but does not believe that going to church is necessary. “I have my own little thing with the Lord,” she says.
Johnson’s thing involves podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss politics and “what’s happening in the world” from a right-wing, and sometimes Christian, worldview. No one plays a more central role in her perspective than Trump. She believes he can defeat the Democrats, who, she is sure, are destroying the country.
“Trump is our David and our Goliath,” Johnson said recently as she waited outside an eastern Iowa hotel to hear the former president speak. – Ruth Graham and Charles Homans
Read the full story here.
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The scan
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