(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump is yearning for a blowout victory in Monday’s Iowa Republican caucus as Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis aim to get close enough to the frontrunner to prolong their 2024 presidential bids.
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Old man winter has emerged as an obstacle for all three.
Caucus-time temperatures on Monday are forecast to be as low as -17F (-27C), which would be the coldest ever for the event, which has kicked off the Republican nominating calendar for more than four decades.
The elements will test the capacity of campaigns to get their supporters to vote in a caucus process that doesn’t allow for latecomers or absentee voting. And they’re already putting a chill on the ability of candidates to campaign in the final weekend, a critical time period for famously late-deciding Iowa caucus-goers.
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Haley moved Friday’s events online, while Never Back Down, a super PAC allied with DeSantis, postponed its events for the day. DeSantis’s campaign held an event Friday morning that brought in 75-100 people, according to deputy campaign manager David Polyansky. Candidates have not yet decided whether to continue Saturday’s events.
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Trump, the frontrunner by a wide margin in polls, aims to see that translated into votes. Haley and DeSantis are dueling for a strong runner-up performance — or even an upset — using any momentum they can generate from the caucuses as a launchpad to New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 primary.
The winter weather might post the biggest challenge for the Trump campaign. His support is strongest among older voters who might be more easily discouraged.
“I would reject any assertion by any campaign that bad turnout is going to impact one campaign or the other,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign at a Bloomberg roundtable on Friday.
“I’d much rather be where we are than where the other campaigns are,” he added. “You guys have seen the lines that people have stood just to go to a rally and what time it starts. I’m not worried about lines at a caucus site.”
Trump lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016 to Ted Cruz and faced only token opposition in 2020, so many of his supporters are new to the process.
“There’s also a first-time caucus-goer issue with Trump. The best predictor of caucus attendance is prior caucus attendance.” said David Kochel, a Republican Iowa strategist who’s a veteran of the Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander presidential campaigns.
Faith & Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, a group influential with Iowa evangelical Christians, said he’s “just not buying it.”
“If you’ve lived in Iowa for more than six months, there’s nothing really particularly surprising about a cold snap,” Reed said.
In downtown Des Moines on Friday, a small parade of snowplows rumbled through the streets amid blizzard-like conditions. Many flights in and out of Des Moines International Airport were canceled.
Nicole Schlinger, an Iowa Republican strategist who worked on the Romney and Cruz campaigns, said the weather could have an impact on rural caucus-goers.
“I think it will play an unequal role geographically,” she said. “If you have to drive 20 miles to your caucus site and half of that is on gravel, that’s going to have a different impact on turnout than the western suburbs of Des Moines.”
“That being said, Iowans are hearty people,” Schlinger said.
–With assistance from Mario Parker, Hadriana Lowenkron, Laura Davison and Skylar Woodhouse.
(Updates with comments from Trump campaign in paragraphs 8-9)
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