The latest on the Iowa caucuses and 2024 primary campaign

Former President Donald Trump won 98 of 99 Iowa counties in the Iowa caucuses Monday and outperformed his 2016 results. He heads into next week’s New Hampshire primary having claimed more than 50% of the vote, the biggest win in caucus history.

Crowded candidate fields often narrow rapidly following Iowa and New Hampshire, which have long been the first two contests on the presidential nominating calendar. In 2016, out of the 11 major Republican candidates who competed in Iowa, it was just over 90 days before Trump was the only one left standing. (CNN is defining major candidates as those receiving more than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus. By this standard, Asa Hutchinson, who suspended his campaign on Tuesday after securing only 161 votes, isn’t included in this chart.)

In 2020, the Democratic presidential field quickly narrowed in the weeks after Iowa and New Hampshire: Andrew Yang left the race after the New Hampshire primary; Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar exited in advance of Super Tuesday; and Elizabeth Warren left after a disappointing Super Tuesday.

Eventual nominee Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders remained the final two candidates until April, when Sanders dropped out. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who finished second and third in Iowa with 21.2% and 19.7% of the vote, need strong showings to stay in the race.

An event for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Claremont, New Hampshire, hosted by the super PAC Never Back Down, has been canceled due to weather and unsafe driving conditions, according to a PAC spokesperson.

Reporters, including those from CNN, had already arrived at the event – where DeSantis was scheduled to be – when the cancelation was confirmed. The attendees who showed up are being notified.

DeSantis is in New Hampshire and will be at the CNN town hall at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa on Tuesday would not say whether she would endorse former President Donald Trump after he won the Iowa caucuses Monday night by a wide margin. 

“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that President Joe Biden does not occupy the White House,” she told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday. 

When asked about Trump’s viability given the criminal allegations against him, she said: “You know he did pretty darn well in Iowa. And I think you might see that continue. So, here we go. Get ready.” 

Earlier this week, the Republican senator said she’d been courted by nearly all the candidates for her coveted endorsement but did not rule out endorsing Trump if he won the nomination, though she said she was bothered by Trump’s use of the word “hostages” to describe people jailed for their role in the January 6 insurrection.

ABC News has officially canceled their debate scheduled for Thursday in New Hampshire. The network had set a 5 p.m. ET deadline for Donald Trump and Nikki Haley to respond.

“Our intent was to host a debate coming out of the Iowa caucuses, but we always knew that would be contingent on the candidates and the outcome of the race. As a result, while our robust election coverage will continue, ABC News and WMUR-TV will not be moving forward with Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement.

ABC News and WMUR-TV had planned to host the debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The news of the debate’s cancelation comes after Haley said Tuesday morning that the next debate she will participate will be either with Trump or President Biden.

Ron DeSantis has accepted invitations to participate in ABC’s debate and a CNN debate, scheduled for January 21 at New England College.

CNN’s Ali Main contributed reporting to this post.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, one of former President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies on Capitol Hill, is called on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to drop out of the presidential race Tuesday after Trump’s landslide victory in Iowa.

“I am calling on every other candidate — all of whom have no chance to win — to drop out so we can unify and immediately rally behind President Trump so that we can focus 100% of our resources on defeating Joe Biden to Save America,” Stefanik said in a statement.

In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, Stefanik – the first member of GOP leadership to endorse Trump – had been lobbying her colleagues to back Trump, as CNN previously reported.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is getting right back to work Tuesday, a day after his second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses, making his case to voters at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire tonight at 9 p.m. ET after a brief stopover in South Carolina.

Here are four things to watch for in his CNN town hall:

Read more about things to watch for in DeSantis’ CNN town hall.

Donald Trump’s campaign is shifting focus to New Hampshire and sharpening its attacks on GOP rival Nikki Haley as it seeks to combat her recent rise in the polls, which has been fueled largely by support from independent and moderate voters.

In recent weeks, Trump’s campaign launched a series of television ads attacking the former South Carolina governor on immigration, something Trump’s team views as a top issue for Republicans in New Hampshire. 

“One reason was to instill a ceiling with Republicans and right leaning independents,” a senior Trump adviser said of the ads. 

The campaign also released ads hitting Haley on her calls to reform social security and Medicare, with the intention of reaching independent and left-leaning voters.

According to the adviser, Trump’s team believes that potential Haley voters in the state are moderate to left-leaning independents who are able to vote in the primary. A recent CNN poll had Haley trimming Trump’s lead down to single digits, winning 55% of self-identified moderate voters, while Trump secured 60% of those who identified as conservative. 

Advisers to Trump insist the former president will win the New Hampshire primary, however, they have expressed some concern over Haley’s recent poll performance. Originally, Trump was only slated to do a few events in New Hampshire between the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary, but he has now added events almost every day before the ballots are set to be cast on January 23.

Trump advisers also said that they believe that Vivek Ramaswamy’s exit from the primary race can only benefit Trump.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed the US has “never been a racist county” during an interview with Fox News Tuesday. 

Haley’s remarks were in response to MSNBC Joy Reid’s comments on whether Haley could win the GOP nomination as a woman of color. Haley suggested Reid “lives in a different America than I do,” pointing to her own rise as the daughter of immigrants to governor and UN ambassador.

“I mean, yes, I’m a brown girl that grew up in a small rural town in South Carolina who became the first female minority governor in history, who became an UN ambassador and who is now running for president. If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is. You can sit there and give me all the reasons why you think I can’t do this. I will continue to defy everybody on why we can do this. And we will get it done,” Haley said.


When asked by “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade if the GOP is a racist party, Haley made a broader point that the US have “never been a racist country.”

“We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No. But our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can,” Haley said. 

“I know, I faced racism when I was growing up. But I can tell you, today is a lot better than it was then. Our goal is to lift up everybody. Not go and divide people on race or gender or party or anything else. We’ve had enough of that in America,” she added.

A Haley campaign spokesperson looked to clarify those comments later Tuesday, saying “America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country. The liberal media always fails to get that distinction. It can throw a fit, but that doesn’t change Nikki’s belief that America is special because its people are always striving to do better and live up to our founding ideals of freedom and equality.”

More context: Haley had previously faced criticism for failing to mention slavery when initially asked by a voter about the cause of the Civil War during a town hall last month. Following mounting backlash, Haley said “of course” slavery was the cause of the Civil War, adding she assumed it was a “given.” The former South Carolina governor on Tuesday said her motivation for running for president is to prove gender or race don’t act as a deterrent. CNN has reach out to Haley’s campaign for comment.

CNN is tracking the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of voters who live in key places or are part of critical swing voting blocs. Four members of our Iowa group settled on Nikki Haley for the Iowa caucuses and were disappointed by the results.

Betsy Sarcone is a single mom and real estate agent in the Des Moines suburbs.

When we first met last summer, she groaned at the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch but said this: “That’s really hard. But I’d have to go Biden, honestly, I just, I can’t put my rubber stamp on Trump having more influence over this country.”

Now, though, a switch.

“Ugh. I’d have to go with Trump,” Sarcone texted Tuesday morning. “Biden in my opinion is far worse than he was when we first spoke six months ago. I can’t even imagine where he will be six months from now.”

“I expected a Trump landslide,” said Shanen Ebersole, a cattle farmer who was among the few in conservative Ringgold County who voted for Haley. As the campaign moves on from Iowa, this was her hope: “The real question is who can beat Biden. That’s what Republicans need to focus on.”

Here’s what else these voters had to say after the Iowa caucuses.

Former President Donald Trump’s commanding victory in the Iowa Republican caucuses confirmed the writing on the wall — a committed core of the party will follow him into the freezing cold or anywhere else.

Voters braved wind chill that reached the negative 30s to appear at their caucus sites. However, the turnout, according to uncertified results, was down by about 41% from 2016 — the last time Trump faced a crowded field of rivals. The drop was reflected in all of the state’s 99 counties.

Trump pursued an incumbent’s strategy of staying above the fray of the campaign in Iowa. While he made appearances in the state, he skipped debates and appearances with other candidates.

The decision paid off. He ran more strongly among most demographic groups of Iowa caucus-goers than he did in 2016 – men, women, college graduates, non-college graduates, White evangelicals and conservatives. They all turned out for him.

Here’s a look at his performance:

Keep reading for more analysis of Iowa entrance polls.

After finishing second in Iowa, Ron DeSantis made a campaign stop in Greenville, South Carolina, on Tuesday morning.

CNN spoke to some voters present at the event. Here’s what they said:

Billy Cash said he arrived as an undecided voter, but after hearing the Florida governor, he may be inclined to vote for him. “I was really impressed by DeSantis,” Cash said. “My main issues are the border and getting rid of people from the administration in there now.”

“Trump did good the first time but I don’t know if he can do as good the second time around,” he added. “I don’t trust Nikki (Haley); she has too much support from Democrats.”

Zhe Little said he showed up to see the candidate he already planned to vote for in the primary next month. “I feel he actually talks a lot about what matters to the South Carolina voter. We’ve seen what he’s done for Florida and his policies. I believe he can do it on a federal level,” Little said.

Bill Burgess told CNN he and his wife are leaning toward DeSantis right now, and the Florida governor’s military experience appealed to him. “He’s the only candidate that was in the military. I was in the military and I have an affinity for folks that were in the military,” he said. “I think they have a different level of consciousness than the regular candidates.”

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, reacting to former President Donald Trump’s landslide Iowa victory, said he wouldn’t run on a third-party ticket if it would help elect Trump — but also said voters are clamoring for an alternative as he warned President Joe Biden to shift his policies to the ideological center.

“I will never be a spoiler, if I saw that spoiling to one side or the other,” Manchin told CNN’s Manu Raju. “I’m very much concerned. I’ve been very clear. I love my country too much to ever support or vote for Donald Trump. … It’s not personal, it’s just what I’ve seen, what I’ve observed and what would happen to our country. And on the other hand, I would like to see the Democratic Party and our president move more to the center. I think it’s going to be very challenging staying in the left.”

Manchin acknowledged it would be “extremely tough” to win as a third-party candidate but that “you’ve never had this many percentage of people within their own party structure that are looking for something different.”

He said there’s time for him or another independent to run since there is no primary campaign for a third-party candidate. He expects a final decision would be made after Super Tuesday on March 5 when millions of Americans cast their votes.

Manchin also said that Monday’s results in Iowa show Trump’s base is “pretty much immovable” and “no matter what he does, no matter how egregious it is to our society or to our country, it seems to embolden him.”

Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to brush off concerns that President Joe Biden’s campaign is struggling to win Black voters, a key constituency behind his 2020 election win, but said the campaign will look to communicate policies championed by the Biden administration to those voters.

“We’ve done really good work; our challenge will be to let people know who (brought) it to them,” Harris told ABC News in an interview airing Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn told CNN he was “very concerned” about Biden’s standing with Black voters, acknowledging in an interview that the Biden campaign has not “been able to break through that MAGA wall in order to get to people exactly what this president has done.” 

Harris acknowledged that communicating that message to Black voters who might be inclined to sit out 2024 would pose a challenge.

“You’ve got to earn the votes, and the votes are going to be earned based on, one, in a reelect: have you actually responded to the needs of the community?” she said. “We have done the work that has been about bringing down unemployment, Black unemployment, to some of the lowest numbers we’ve ever seen,” also citing the administration’s student loan debt actions. “We have a responsibility to communicate,” she added.

She also hinted that the campaign will likely go on the offensive against former President Donald Trump as the 2024 general election ramps up in the coming weeks.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday said South Carolina is an important state and and blasted former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for “not competing” in Nevada.

“She’s just not going to win any delegates in Nevada. We’re competing, we’re going to win delegates in Nevada, but I think we haven’t had a chance to get here this year. We wanted to be here,” DeSantis said at a South Carolina event.

Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses will be held next month, weeks before the South Carolina GOP primary.

“(South Carolina) is her home state; if she can’t win this, then I don’t see, you know, how she can say she’s going to win … on Super Tuesday or any of those other states,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis said he would “work really hard” in South Carolina, a state where he acknowledges his campaign hasn’t spent a lot of money yet.  

“We’ve got a good footprint, But I think you’re gonna see us be present more, not just in terms of me being in the state more, but also terms of paid media, where we’re going to be able to tell our story,” he later told reporters in Columbia, South Carolina.

He argued that there’s “a lot of real estate between now and the South Carolina primary in terms of political time” that will allow narrative shifts in the race.

View the 2024 election events calendar.

Hours before former President Donald Trump returns to New Hampshire, a line is already starting to form outside Atkinson Resort & Country Club.

Some people were lined up just before 11 a.m. ET, and within an hour, that number had already grown to a few dozen.

Supporters are bundled up as they wait to enter the venue. Temperatures have remained below freezing throughout the morning with a steady stream of snow, although temperatures are not nearly as record-breaking as they were in Iowa.

Trump is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m. ET in his first visit to the Granite State after winning the Iowa caucuses on Monday night and making a stop in New York Tuesday to attend the opening of his second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial.

In his first campaign appearance post-Iowa, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized 2024 opponent Nikki Haley in her home state for failing to commit to a debate in New Hampshire – a state he says she won’t win – though he wouldn’t explicitly say if he would beat her in South Carolina.

DeSantis said the Iowa caucuses prove he is “the alternative” for voters seeking a different option than Donald Trump, not Haley, who he says won’t appeal to core conservative voters.

“Well, I’m the alternative,” he said. “The reality is half the Republicans do want another choice and maybe more in some other states. But you have to be somebody that appeals to conservative voters.”

DeSantis said this is something Haley can’t do.

Claiming Haley doesn’t gaggle with press or take questions from voters, DeSantis said, “They basically have her hermetically sealed, because, you know, she’s got this problem with ballistic podiatry, shooting herself in the foot all the time.”

Haley does take voter questions, though she does not gaggle as regularly as DeSantis on the trail.  

“That’s just not going to fly. We’re supposed to have a debate on WMUR on Thursday night. I committed to it. She now is saying she’s not going to debate, and I understand why,” DeSantis said. 

After coming in third in the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is looking ahead to New Hampshire — where her support has grown dramatically — and arguing that she is a better candidate than former President Donald Trump because America “can’t go through four more years of chaos.”

“I don’t want my kids to live like this,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash. “People are tired of the division and the chaos. We can’t go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”

She said reelecting Trump or President Joe Biden would mean America has “more of the same,” citing their age and investigations “that are distractions.”

Haley also said she intends to accept debate invitations if Trump is on the stage. Earlier Tuesday, she said that the next debate she will participate in will be either with Trump or Biden.

“There is nobody else I need to debate,” she said. “I have had five strong debates and have done plenty of them. He can’t hide forever. At some point, he’s got to get on a debate stage.”

The Biden campaign on Tuesday starkly framed former President Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in Iowa as a “threat to our democracy” looking to “consolidate his power.”

The communications director for the Biden campaign, Michael Tyler, told CNN Tuesday that the Biden campaign will “have the message necessary to defeat Donald Trump,” pointing to abortion, health care, as well as the former president’s dictator comments.

Asked to dig into the campaign’s takeaways on CNN entrance polling that suggested 65% of GOP caucus-goers in Iowa would still vote for Trump if convicted of a crime, and 31% would not, Tyler suggested it reflected both low turnout and Trump’s consolidation of his base. 

“Turnout wasn’t that high in Iowa, and what you saw was Donald Trump consolidates the extreme MAGA base in Iowa. The fact of the matter is, he is running, and all these candidates are running on an agenda that’s as dangerous as it is unpopular,” he said. 

He pointed to the 2022 midterm elections and 2023 off-year election results as evidence of Americans rejecting that agenda.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Tuesday he is suspending his presidential campaign after a weak showing in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.

“I congratulate Donald J. Trump for his win last night in Iowa and to the other candidates who competed and garnered delegate support. Today, I am suspending my campaign for President and driving back to Arkansas,” he said in a statement.

“My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the current front runner did not sell in Iowa. I stand by the campaign I ran. I answered every question, sounded the warning to the GOP about the risks in 2024 and presented hope for our country’s future. Susan and I are blessed beyond measure, and we are grateful for the opportunity to have fought in the political arena for America,” he added.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on Tuesday downplayed Nikki Haley’s third-place finish in Iowa and laid out an expectation for a “strong second” in New Hampshire — suggesting she could even surpass that and clinch the GOP primary on January 23.

Sununu, who endorsed Haley last month, told Fox News in an interview he didn’t think there was any “higher expectation” than Haley’s third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

“She was challenging Ron (DeSantis) for second when Ron put everything he had into Iowa. Ron hasn’t been in New Hampshire in a month,” he said. He added that Haley is “challenging to actually beat Donald Trump” in the Granite State, where he claimed she was “within single digits.”

As Haley has tried to consolidate a broad anti-Trump coalition in New Hampshire, where undeclared voters can vote in the GOP primary, Sununu concurred that the number of Democrats who had changed their party registration by the October 6 deadline to be able to vote for a Republican was “not significant at all.”

Winning individual primaries and caucuses is just one step in the long path to winning a party’s presidential nomination.

How does the Republican Party pick a presidential candidate, in a nutshell? Both parties hold conventions in the summer where delegates technically select the nominee. The process and rules are different for each party, but the primaries are about winning enough delegates to secure the nomination. There are different kinds of nominating contests and different kinds of delegates in a calendar that stretches from January to June, so keeping track of the delegate math can get complicated.

What is a delegate? Performing well in primaries and caucuses equals delegates, and the larger goal is amassing the magic number of delegates to secure a nomination before delegate voting at the party convention.

How many delegates are there? Whoever wins the GOP nomination needs to win at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process. In years without an incumbent, like Republicans are experiencing in 2024, the winner frequently does not hit the magic number until May or even June. In 2016, in his first of three White House runs, Donald Trump hit the magic number on May 26.

But if Trump’s lead in polls holds up during early primaries, he could wrap things up much earlier.

Keep reading here about how Republicans select their nominee.

After coming in third place in the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is looking ahead to New Hampshire, where she argues she’s a “stone’s throw away” from front-runner Donald Trump.

Haley implied she wouldn’t make any major changes in her approach to campaigning, saying she would continue “doing what we’ve done for 11 months.”

“It’s paid off. It’s why we’re a stone’s throw away from Trump,” in New Hampshire, she said.

The former South Carolina governor called her campaign the “last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare.”

“Both are caught up in their grievances and investigations and Americans want to move forward with a new generational leader,” she said, adding, “Everybody’s talking about the election of 2024 and what they do know is they don’t want a couple of 80-year-olds to be their choices.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said on Tuesday that the next debate she will participate in will be either with former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden, suggesting she will not accept invitations to either of the New Hampshire debates this week. 

“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it,” Haley said in a statement.

ABC News is set to hold a GOP primary debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 18, followed by CNN’s debate on January 21 at New England College in Henniker.

Trump and Haley’s campaigns were given a 5 p.m. deadline Tuesday to commit to the January 18 debate, according to an ABC News spokesperson.

“We will update our plans accordingly,” the spokesperson said.

Haley previously said during a tele-town hall that she would make a decision on her participation on the New Hampshire debate stage following the Iowa results.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has accepted invitations to participate in both ABC and CNN’s debates.

CNN’s Ali Main contributed reporting.

Donald Trump demonstrated Monday night that it’s still his Republican Party. The former president won the Iowa Republican caucuses by an unprecedented margin, kickstarting his bid to win his party’s third consecutive presidential nomination. He did so despite skipping the GOP primary debates and eschewing the retail politicking grind typically demanded by Hawkeye State voters.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis edged out former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for a distant second-place finish — though the nominating contest now shifts to New Hampshire, where polls show Haley in a much stronger position in next week’s primary.

Here are some key takeaways from the Iowa GOP caucuses:

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley released a new ad Tuesday in New Hampshire, pitching herself as the better alternative candidate to both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

The ad, named “Better Choice,” features the former South Carolina governor again emphasizing the need for “a new generation of conservative leadership.” 

“I have a different style and approach. I’ll fix our economy, close our border, and strengthen the cause of freedom,” Haley says in the ad.

The 30-second slot echoes Haley’s speech on caucus night, in which she told the crowd she is “the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden rematch.”

The ad will run statewide on broadcast, cable and digital platforms.

“Trump and Biden are the two most-disliked politicians in the country” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a press release. “There’s a better choice, and that choice is Nikki Haley.”

The Republican presidential candidates are all vying to take on President Joe Biden in November 2024. But first, they’re competing in the GOP primaries and caucuses, which begin in January, to emerge as the party’s nominee.

The first event of the Republican primary calendar —the Iowa caucuses — took place Monday. Next up, is the New Hampshire primary.

Here’s a look at upcoming key primary dates:

January:

February:

March:

Access the full 2024 election calendar.

The Iowa caucuses, the first on the presidential primary calendar, serve as a test for a candidate’s electability after months on the campaign trail. A strong showing can give a campaign momentum — or stall it out.

Still, recent history shows that winning the Iowa caucuses does not guarantee success during the rest of the primaries, or in the general election in November. The last few candidates to win Iowa ultimately did not become president.

Former President Donald Trump’s huge win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday enshrines one of the most astonishing comebacks in American political history.

Losing one-term presidents almost never mount subsequent successful primary campaigns, much less pull off landslides that demonstrate utter dominance of their party. Trump transformed the GOP in his populist, nationalist, nihilistic image in 2016. By claiming 50% of the vote in the biggest win in caucus history, putting him on course to his third consecutive nomination, he showed that eight years after his outsider presidential victory, the current GOP is entirely his party.

“The big night is going to be in November, when we take back our country,” Trump told his first proper victory party since he shocked the world by winning the 2016 election. His MAGA-hat wearing crowd greeted him with chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” beneath two vast screens reading “Trump wins Iowa!”

But the ex-president’s rebound is more stunning for another reason. He won despite 91 criminal charges and other legal entanglements that threaten his freedom and his fortune. In a head-spinning snapshot of the unprecedented times, he’s expected to show up in a courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday morning for the opening of a defamation trial.

Read more about Trump’s astonishing Iowa victory.

Before Americans pick a president in November, they get to pick the candidates in a series of primaries and caucuses. It’s a wonky process that has evolved over the course of the country’s history and continues to evolve today.

Here’s what to know about the process:

What is a primary? It’s an election to select candidates, usually for a particular political party, to appear on the general election ballot.

Who is running in the primaries? For Democrats, Joe Biden is the sitting president and he’s running for reelection, which makes him the incumbent candidate. Incumbents rarely face serious competition. There are some Democrats challenging him in the Democratic primaries, including Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and author Marianne Williamson. But they have not yet generated much support, at least in opinion polls.

For Republicans, former President Donald Trump has long been the front-runner, meaning he appears in polling to have a lead over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — who are still in the race.

Who can vote in a presidential primary? It varies by state. Primaries are generally conducted in polling places like any other election. But some states have “open primaries,” meaning any registered voter can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. Other states have “closed primaries,” meaning only people registered in a particular political party – usually Republicans or Democrats – can vote in that party’s primary. Others offer voting day registration, which essentially opens the primaries to most registered voters.

When will we know which candidate has enough delegates to be the party’s nominee? We will have to see how the primaries play out. Keep an eye on Super Tuesday, March 5. While there won’t yet be enough delegates on the table to clinch the nomination, that is the night with the largest pot of delegates, where Republicans in 16 states and territories will vote for president. It might take until May or June for one candidate to secure enough votes to win his or her party’s nomination. The last presidential primaries occur on June 4.

Learn more about the primary process.

Former President Donald Trump’s commanding victory in the Iowa Republican caucuses confirmed the writing on the wall — that the party has followed him.

Nearly half of Republican voters (44%) in CNN’s entrance polls said they considered themselves to be part of the MAGA movement. Two-thirds of Republican voters don’t think President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory was legitimate, despite all evidence to the contrary. Most don’t see a criminal conviction, if there is one, as something that should disqualify Trump from office.

It is almost as if his 2020 loss has been erased in the minds of many Republicans who still view Trump, running for retribution, as their president.

That gives him the unique distinction of running simultaneously as an “incumbent” who Republicans have already seen as president and an insurgent trying to topple Biden.

A series of pro-Trump, GOP House members told CNN on Monday that former President Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa should send a clear signal to his Republican rivals: It’s time to drop out.  

 “It’s been real. You know, tip your waitresses on the way out, but this primary is over,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN at Trump’s watch party in Des Moines on Monday night. 
“This race is over. Donald Trump has consolidated the Republican Party. Ron DeSantis was getting his mail forwarded here. Like he had moved here. What is his argument to continue this campaign?” Gaetz said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene echoed that sentiment. “They should drop out,” the Georgia Republican said. “I think donor money is really important. And political consultants are pretty good at talking candidates into staying in races way longer than they actually should.” 

Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas told CNN he thinks Iowa is a turning point for the race, and hopes more of his GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill will now fall in line behind the former president and endorse him.

“It’s inevitable in my mind that he’s gonna be the nominee. And I just want to see my friends and colleagues get on board,” Jackson said.

Gaetz, Greene and Jackson were part of a broader group of Trump surrogates who flocked to Iowa to rally the former president’s supporters.

Donald Trump didn’t want to be embarrassed a second time in the Iowa caucuses.

When State Sen. Brad Zaun, one of his top allies in Iowa, told the former president during a summer visit to the Iowa State Fair that he could lose Iowa, Trump took the message seriously and agreed to take it more seriously. By fall, he had dramatically escalated his visits – but not just to big rallies, to far smaller events than the former president had ever held.

Trump’s motorcade passed through even smaller towns, with Trump often calling local officials and supporters along the way.

So while he didn’t visit the state nearly as much as Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, Trump campaigned far more aggressively than he intended to – and built a robust organization.

Brad Boustead, a loyal Trump supporter who supported Ted Cruz in 2016, marveled at Trump’s commitment to the ground game.

“They did an extra measure of anything I’ve ever seen,” Boustead said.

President Joe Biden told his supporters the 2024 election “was always going to be you and me vs. extreme MAGA Republicans” after former President Donald Trump’s projected win in Iowa on Monday.

In a post on social media, Biden called Trump “the clear front-runner on the other side at this point” and urged supporters to donate to his campaign. 

Earlier on Monday, the Biden campaign sent out an email fundraising off of the former president’s win.

Former President Donald Trump remains the clear favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive election. 

But, his attempt to go back to the White House after losing reelection in 2020 is not unprecedented in US history.

The Grover Cleveland example: Only one president, Grover Cleveland, has gone from losing in one election to winning a rematch in the next. Cleveland was a Democratic president from New York. He lost the election of 1888 in the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote. There were allegations of vote tampering and fraud, and by the next election, when Cleveland won the first and only nonconsecutive reelection in US history, the country was just beginning to experiment with secret ballot voting.

Herbert Hoover failed to get his party’s nomination: Former President Herbert Hoover tried in 1940 to get a rematch with Franklin D. Roosevelt, but in that era, before voters had a direct say in the primary process, Hoover could not get support at the nominating convention. Ulysses S. Grant tried to run a third time for president four years after leaving the White House, but he too failed to get his party’s nomination in 1880.

Third-party failures: More common have been former presidents who broke with their party to run again as a third-party candidate. Most famously, Theodore Roosevelt left the White House in 1909 on his own terms after serving two terms. He became disillusioned with his handpicked successor William Howard Taft. But Roosevelt failed to dislodge Taft from the Republican nomination in 1912, so he ran as the nominee of the progressive Bull Moose Party.

He lost the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, but Roosevelt got more votes than Taft. It’s the only time a third-party candidate has outperformed one of the two major parties. Former Presidents Martin van Buren and Millard Fillmore also failed in their third-party comebacks.

Here is the CNN delegate Estimate from Iowa as of 12:25 a.m. ET. 

Remember: Forty GOP delegates are up for grabs in Iowa. Whoever wins the GOP nomination needs to win at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process.

Read more about the GOP presidential nomination and delegates.

This post has been updated with the latest delegate estimate.

Gary Leffler, a Trump campaign caucus captain, told CNN he thinks Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa “is going to send a clear message” to the rest of the early-voting states and help close out the primary season. 

“Maybe this primary caucus season will go on through South Carolina, and then I think it’s a wrap,” Leffler said at Trump’s watch party in Des Moines on Monday.

Leffler, who donned a white “Trump caucus captain” hat, said he has caucused at his precinct in West Des Moines for several years and was impressed with Monday’s turnout.

Asked what motivated him to get so involved in Trump’s Iowa strategy, Leffler said: “I think the fact that he didn’t participate in the debates, and he just let DeSantis and Haley just whack out each other. I think he was smart and just said, ‘Hey, I’m going to do my own town hall. I’m going to do my own meeting.’ … He really acted presidential and he really acted as the frontrunner by doing that.”

Former President Donald Trump is projected to win the Iowa caucuses after securing more than 50% of the vote.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former ambassador Nikki Haley are projected to finish at a close second and third, respectively. DeSantis clinched more than 21% of the vote with Haley coming in with 19% of the vote.

Where voting stands: About 94% of the votes have been released so far. You can track caucus results in real time here.

The latest on delegates: With the results that have been recorded, CNN estimates that Trump will receive 20 of Iowa’s 40 delegates. DeSantis is estimated to get eight delegates, Haley to get seven delegates and Vivek Ramaswamy will receive two delegates. There are 3 delegates unallocated.

Here’s what the candidates said:

Meantime: Biden’s campaign is fundraising off of Trump’s projected caucus win, warning of “vile attacks, endless lies, and massive spending” if Trump secures the Republican nomination for president.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis remains adamant – for now – that he is staying in the race and his campaign is quickly moving staff to New Hampshire and South Carolina, where he plans to campaign aggressively over the next month.

DeSantis has told advisers he believes that cracks have formed in the candidacy of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley of late under the pressure of increased scrutiny. He also expects that former President Donald Trump’s upcoming trials could present a seismic flashpoint in the race but only someone still in the race could benefit, according to multiple people with knowledge of his thinking.

In closed-door meetings with his closest advisers, DeSantis has remained defiant that he would fight on and dismissed the political ramifications. In one recent meeting, political advisers presented DeSantis with every possible outcome for Monday’s caucuses and potential next steps for his campaign. In the event of a third-place finish, advisers pitched that he could bow out. He rejected the idea outright.

Whether he has the financial resources to proceed remains an area of concern. A source with knowledge of his fundraising efforts told CNN that his campaign held back some money to sustain a campaign through the early nominating states but acknowledged reinforcements will be needed. Fundraisers for DeSantis – including many who traveled to Iowa – will begin dialing for dollars first thing Tuesday morning, making the case to donors that DeSantis remains viable despite Monday’s result.

The pitch is this, one fundraiser said: “Second place and it’s a marathon. We need to stick it out until Nikki gets out after South Carolina, making it a two-man race.”

Multiple advisers stressed that any decision about DeSantis’ future will come from two people: the governor himself and his wife and closest adviser, Casey.

As President Donald Trump spoke following his projected Iowa caucus win, a Biden campaign adviser told CNN the results tonight cement the idea that the GOP is the party of MAGA and the MAGA agenda – and that they fully expect the GOP to double down on all things Trump going forward.

In the first email sent by the Biden campaign since Trump was projected the winner of the GOP Iowa caucuses, the president says in a fundraising note: “If Donald Trump is our opponent, we can expect vile attacks, endless lies, and massive spending.” 

The Biden campaign has been fully preparing to face off against Trump in the fall, and tonight’s results bring them one major step towards that likelihood.

Almost to a person, Biden’s senior-most campaign advisers, White House officials and other supporters and allies of the president have told CNN in recent weeks that they expect the president’s re-election fight in the fall to be very close – and very tough.

Notably, they acknowledge that their economic message is still not breaking through.

But at the same time, senior Biden advisers have stressed repeatedly that even in the new calendar year, voters are not yet paying close attention to the 2024 race and that it could be a while before they do.

In other words – yes, the campaign is fully aware of how tough the recent polls have been on Biden. But until many more voters realize that Trump is likely to be back on the ballot, prompting a reset of sorts across the country, so much of what they’re seeing now is “just noise,” one senior Biden adviser insisted to CNN.

After finishing third in the Iowa caucuses, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley looked forward to the next races on the primary election calendar.

“When you look at how we’re doing in New Hampshire, in South Carolina and beyond, I can safely say tonight, I will make this Republican primary a two-person race,” Haley said.

CNN projects Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will finish second in the Iowa caucuses, slightly ahead of Haley.

The former South Carolina governor said she plans to go back to New Hampshire tonight and called on voters to answer: “Do you want more of the same or do you want a new generation of conservative leadership?”

New Hampshire will hold its primary contest next week.

Haley attacked both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, saying they embody “more of the same” and argued that most Americans don’t want another election with Trump and Biden as the nominees.

She also attacked their’s age and said they are “both consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendettas, by grievances.” Trump is 77 and the president is 81.
“The majority disprove of both of them,” Haley said. “Trump and Biden are both about 80 years old. Trump and Biden both put our country deeper in debt and our kids will never forgive them for it. Both Trump and Biden lack a vision for our country’s future because both are consumed by the past.”

The post was updated with more of Haley’s remarks.

As Nikki Haley currently trails Ron DeSantis in the Iowa caucuses vote, the pressure is building on her to deliver a victory in next week’s New Hampshire primary, sources close to her campaign tell CNN.

The former South Carolina’s governor’s campaign – which has remained tight-lipped all night – would not weigh in on the assessment from supporters.

Haley’s camp has consistently said she will be competitive in New Hampshire where recent polls have showed her closing the gap with former President Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded Iowa voters for helping drive him to a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

He said that he learned on the campaign trail that people want hope for the future of the country — and that’s what his campaign represented.

“They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us,” DeSantis said. “They even called the election before people even got a chance to vote,” he added, to boos from the crowd.
“Because of your support, in spite of all of that they threw at us, everyone against us, we got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” the governor said.

With about 90% of votes being reported, DeSantis narrowly beat out former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for second place by winning more than 21% of the vote.

DeSantis found his stride in recent weeks on the campaign trail — dropping his frequent references to culture wars, showing his affability in interviews with mainstream news outlets he ignored for most of the race and honing in on a closing message.

Ron DeSantis edges Nikki Haley to win second place behind Donald Trump in the Iowa GOP caucuses, CNN projects. 

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced he is suspending his presidential campaign at his campaign’s watch party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday

“I will stick to the truth tonight. The first hard truth and this was hard for me, I gotta admit this, but we’ve looked at it every which way. And I think it is true that we did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight,” he said.

“As of this moment, we are going to suspend this presidential campaign,” he added.

Ramaswamy endorsed former President Donald Trump for president after suspending his campaign.

“Earlier tonight I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulate him on his victory. And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency,” he said.

Ramaswamy said he plans to travel to New Hampshire to campaign for Trump at a rally tomorrow ahead of the state’s primary next week.

“Tomorrow we’re likely — I’m going to appear with Donald Trump at a rally in New Hampshire to lay out what I see and what we see for the future of the country,” he said.

Campaign staff at Ramaswamy’s watch party in Des Moines were comforting each other, with some becoming visibly emotional, following the announcement. Some staffers were seen tearing up and embracing each other in the moments following his remarks.

Former President Donald Trump gave a shorter and gentler speech than usual on Monday night after CNN and other media outlets projected that he was the winner of the Iowa caucuses. But Trump nonetheless repeated a smattering of claims that are not true or that are unsupported by evidence. A brief fact check:

Terrorist attacks Trump touted the travel ban he imposed as president on people from certain countries, most of which have predominantly Muslim populations, and claimed that “for four years, we had no terror.” 

Facts First: This is false. There were multiple terrorist attacks during Trump’s presidency, including some by Islamic extremists. Trump has made this false claim on numerous occasions. You can read a full fact check on it here.

The border wall Trump claimed that during his presidency, “we built over 500 miles of wall” on the border with Mexico.

Facts First: This “over 500 miles” claim is false, an exaggeration. Official federal figures show that 458 miles of border wall were built under Trump — and that most of this construction occurred in parts of the border that already had some kind of barrier.  You can read a full fact check on this claim here.

Migrants and mental institutions Decrying the influx of migrants under President Joe Biden, Trump claimed that some of them are “coming from mental institutions and insane asylums that are being emptied out into our country.”

Facts First: This claim is unsupported by evidence. In fact, when CNN inquired in April about Trump’s repeated assertions that foreign countries were emptying out mental health facilities to allow patients to enter the US as migrants, Trump’s own campaign was unable to find any evidence. You can read a full fact check from April here.

Jimmy Carter and mail-in ballots Trump said that “we have to get rid of mail-in ballots, because once you have mail-in ballots you have crooked elections – actually, Jimmy Carter’s commission said that a long time ago.”

Facts First: This claim is untrue in two ways. 

The use of mail-in ballots does not make elections crooked. While elections experts say the occurrence of fraud is relatively higher with mail-in ballots than with in-person voting, they also say that fraud of any kind in American state and federal elections represents a miniscule percentage of total votes cast.  

And while a commission that Carter co-chaired was generally skeptical of mail-in ballots, writing in a 2005 report that absentee voting is vulnerable to abuse in various ways, it did not say that elections in which mail-in ballots are used are always crooked. In fact, the commission’s report highlighted an example of a state it said had successfully conducted all-mail elections — and it did not call for a ban on mail-in voting, instead offering recommendations for making this voting more secure. You can read a full fact check here.

Former President Donald Trump spoke from his campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, following his projected win in the state’s caucuses.

See photos from the event:

A spokesperson for Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign expressed dismay at tonight’s result and said the campaign is “digesting and determining” as it looks ahead to the next stage.

Tricia McLaughlin, Ramaswamy campaign senior adviser and communications director, said the campaign is disappointed in returns from the Iowa caucuses on Monday, in which former President Donald Trump is projected to win, despite Ramaswamy predicting he would bring a “shock to the system” with a strong performance. 

“We left it all on the field,” McLaughlin said. “We’re obviously disappointed in the result, but Vivek, he’s tough.” 
“Our data said something very different,” McLaughlin said of the campaign’s expectations in Iowa. 

When asked if Ramaswamy would continue to stay in the race through the New Hampshire primary, McLaughlin said the campaign is still processing tonight’s results. 

 “We’ll see what comes after,” McLaughlin said. 

Ramaswamy has previously announced campaign events in New Hampshire starting Tuesday and continuing every day until the New Hampshire primary on January 23. McLaughlin confirmed that he will campaign in New Hampshire this week, but said his schedule of events may change, citing logistical complications with maintaining the campaign’s high-intensity pace in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses. 

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said that Donald Trump’s decision to thank his GOP rivals and strike a more unifying tone “speaks to how he feels after this victory tonight.”

“I also think this is the speech that he’s giving after he has not had any wins in several years,” Collins said, noting she hasn’t heard a speech like this from Trump in “probably years.”

“He lost the 2020 election, he’s facing 91 criminal counts. He’s going to be in a New York courtroom tomorrow for a trial, where a jury will determine how much he owes E. Jean Carroll for defaming her, something they’ve already decided,” she said.

Collins said she was struck by his notion of a united country, given the polarized environment.

“It’s also because he has not had a win like that in so long. He is only dealing with criminal charges and civil suits in trials,” she said.

Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with Gov. Ron DeSantis, is still evaluating how successful its much-touted ground game was tonight, according to CEO and chairman Scott Wagner. 

 He did not offer specifics when asked how the ground operation performed tonight only saying anyone who asked for help getting to caucus sites was accommodated. 

The campaign was relying heavily on the organization put in place by Never Back Down to help the final vote totals during the caucuses.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will remain in the 2024 race, a senior campaign official told CNN, saying he “earned his ticket out of Iowa.”

“They threw everything at Ron DeSantis,” the official said. “They couldn’t kill him. He is not only still standing, but he’s now earned his ticket out of Iowa. This is going to be a long battle ahead, but that is what this campaign is built for. The stakes are too high for this nation and we will not back down.”

Former President Donald Trump is speaking from his campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, following his projected win in the state’s caucuses.

“Most importantly we want to thank the great people of Iowa,” Trump said.
“I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together,” he added. “We want to come together, whether it is Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative.”

Earlier this evening, CNN projected Trump winning the caucuses, solidifying his place as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination as he attempts a historic political comeback nearly three years after leaving the White House in disgrace.

Trump’s victory in this, his first election since losing to Joe Biden in 2020, put to bed any lingering questions about his hold over the GOP, the potency of his right-wing message and whether his legal troubles would hobble him with primary voters.

Monday’s result also puts new pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ahead of next week’s contest in New Hampshire, where Haley is hoping to impress among a more ideologically diverse electorate. 

In his remarks, Trump congratulated his opponents, saying he thought DeSantis and Haley “both did very well.” He also praised Vivek Ramaswamy for doing a “hell of a job.”

“They are very smart, very smart people, very capable people,” Trump said of his opponents.

Read more about Trump’s victory in Iowa.

CNN’s Gregory Krieg and Kristen Holmes contributed reporting to this post.

This post was updated with Trump’s comments tonight in Des Moines.

With more than 80% of the vote in, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are in a tight race for second in the Iowa caucuses.

DeSantis is currently in the second place spot with 21.2% of the vote. Haley is not far behind, with 19% of the vote.

“At the moment, at least, they are lumped together,” CNN’s John King said of DeSantis and Haley. “Neither one of them can raise their hand and say, ‘Iowa says I should be the person to take on Trump. Everyone else, get out.’”

As results pour in from the precincts across Iowa showing Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis battling for number two in Iowa, Haley’s campaign feels like things are pretty much where they expected them to be right now, according to a source close to the campaign.

While Haley is huddling at her campaign headquarters in West Des Moines, the campaign is officially keeping tight lipped. They are not saying anything about the numbers that are coming in, or the CNN projection that former President Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses.

After visiting multiple caucus locations, Haley was complimentary of the process underway, tweeting: “We’re getting to see democracy in action tonight!”

There are no televisions inside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ caucus night watch party as supporters enjoy beer and wine and mingle amiably as country hits blare over the sound system.

But at the West Des Moines Sheraton hotel bar, where some of his top advisers and allies are sipping stiffer adult beverages watching results trickle in on a local television station, the mood is more dour.

“It’s not good,” one close adviser said.

There are two numbers they are closely watching: The first is whether Donald Trump remains above 50%. If he does, it eliminates a narrative that a majority of Iowa Republicans wanted someone other than Trump.

The other number is the margin between DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. A percentage point or two of separation — even if DeSantis comes in second — will make it difficult to convince donors of his path forward.

Former President Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses, CNN projected on Monday, solidifying his place as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination.

CNN’s projection was based on entrance polls conducted for the National Election Pool by Edison Research. These polls are carried out at a scientifically random sample of caucus sites across the state among voters who have shown up to participate. 

As of 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET, doors at caucus sites had closed and no one else would be allowed inside to participate, and entrance poll interviewing was complete. 

At the time of CNN’s projection, at 7:30 p.m. CT/8:30 p.m. ET, the former president’s broad lead in the entrance poll’s representative sample was statistically significant. By that time, votes had been reported in multiple counties and from several sample precincts, which also suggested a broad Trump lead.

Other major national news organizations projected Trump as the winner at roughly the same time as CNN.

It happened again.

That’s the feeling of many Iowa Republicans who are watching Donald Trump’s decisive victory tonight who were hoping the state would slow his steady march to the nomination.

GOP candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are locked in a fierce battle for second place, but if the overwhelming margin of victory holds, Trump is the biggest benefactor of the divided vote.

“Does it even matter?” a top Iowa Republican told CNN. “Tonight is a Trump coronation.”

Even with a far lower Iowa turnout than projected, Trump’s decision to amplify his Iowa investment is paying great dividends.

Iowa played its traditional role of winnowing the field. And perhaps crowning the Republican nominee. Trump is on his way to crushing two records: the 41% winning figure by George W. Bush and Bob Dole’s 13-point victory in 1988.

In remarks before Donald Trump’s projected win in Iowa, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy notably softened his recent rhetoric differentiating himself from the former president in a pitch to the state’s voters at a caucus site tonight as he directly followed Trump onstage.

Ramaswamy attempted to portray himself as the voice of a new generation to voters from three precincts gathered at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, where Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also spoke. Ramaswamy notably did not mention Trump by name during his brief remarks but did say he plans to “respect my predecessor” as president.

“I honor those who have come before me; I respect the heck out of them. I will respect their legacies and build on it because it’s the right thing to do for this country,” Ramaswamy, 38, told those gathered at the caucus site.

In recent days, Ramaswamy has offered a much sharper contrast to Trump, arguing the former president’s legal exposure and the intense political opposition he inspires makes his candidacy vulnerable. Those sharp distinctions drew Trump’s ire in the form a social media post in which he labeled Ramaswamy’s campaign “deceitful” and “very sly,” marking the first attacks toward Ramaswamy by Trump in the campaign.

Ramaswamy has largely been Trump’s most prominent defender throughout the campaign. He’s called Trump “the greatest president of the 21st century” and repeatedly defended the former president amid the multiple criminal indictments and ballot access challenges he faces.

With 34% of the Iowa caucus votes counted, former President Donald Trump continues to hold a commanding lead with 51.9% of the vote.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps his second place spot with 20.7% of the vote, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley holds on to third place with 19% of the caucus vote.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has 7.7% of the vote, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has 0.2% of the vote.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is fundraising off of former President Donald Trump’s projected Iowa caucus win, warning of “vile attacks, endless lies, and massive spending” if Trump secures the Republican nomination for president.

“The Iowa results are in, and it’s clear: Donald Trump is the official frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination,” an email to supporters Monday evening said. “We need to work even harder now.”

Earlier Monday, the Biden campaign announced raising $97 million over the fourth quarter of 2023, with $117 million cash on hand.

“It means the Biden-Harris campaign is entering the election year with more cash on hand than any Democratic candidate in history at this point in the cycle and a significantly more cash than the $100 million Republicans have just hemorrhaged in Iowa alone fighting to out-MAGA one another,” Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg told reporters in Des Moines on Monday.

Former President Donald Trump said he was “invigorated” and “greatly honored” after CNN projected he would win the Iowa caucuses.

“I feel great,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “I am greatly honored by such an early call.

“It really is an honor that, minutes after, they’ve announced I’ve won — against very credible competition — great competition, actually,” Trump said.

The former president said, “It is a tremendous thing and a tremendous feeling.”

The leading candidates in the Iowa caucuses held public events in the state more than 620 times in the last year.

They went where one might expect: The state’s population centers, according to a tally kept by the Des Moines Register.

The candidates held more than 110 events in Polk County, for example, which is home to Des Moines, the state’s most populous city and its capital.

Others topping the list were Linn (Cedar Rapids) and Scott (Davenport) counties. Donald Trump, the projected winner in Iowa, attended the least amount of public events in the state. This map shows the breakdown of all the events by county since January last year:

In the final hours before the Iowa caucuses opened, the three leading Republican presidential campaigns were fielding calls from supporters who voiced concern about being able to make it to their voting precincts tonight.

Snow-covered highways in southern Iowa — along with slick roads in some cul-de-sacs —were causing alarm.

Those calls were animating the concern that Iowa Republican officials expressed earlier tonight to CNN about a lower-than-expected turnout. The projections are now far closer to the 2012 Iowa caucus turnout of 121,000 than the 186,000 tally from the 2016 campaign.

Former President Donald Trump is huddled with his senior campaign aides at his team’s headquarters in Des Moines, watching the Iowa caucus results come in on CNN and Fox News, two campaign advisers told CNN. 

One of his aides, Margo Martin, posted a photo of Trump to social media, showing the former president standing before two large TVs displaying the networks’ live coverage.

“WINNING!!! ” Martin wrote on X. 

Trump, who will claim victory in the Iowa caucuses during his expected remarks at his watch party later Monday, according to one of the advisers, is planning to wait until more results come in before delivering his speech.

Former President Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses, CNN projects, but the margin of his victory in the state will help determine his strength as a candidate, CNN’s John King said during the network’s special coverage.

If Trump ends up winning by 50% or more, and the votes split beneath him between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, “then essentially Donald Trump wins twice because he wins the race and his opposition is fractured and way behind him,” King noted.

King went on to say that the next couple of hours are important for the Republican Party because it will be a glimpse into how strong Trump is — and how strong the other candidates beneath him are.

Here is the CNN delegate estimate from Iowa as of 9:27 p.m. ET:

Remember: Forty GOP delegates are up for grabs in Iowa. Whoever wins the GOP nomination needs to win at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process.

Read more about the GOP presidential nomination and delegates.

With just 6% of votes counted for the Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump is in the lead with about 49.5% of the vote.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in second place with 22.4%.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley isn’t too far behind in third with 20.6%.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has 7.1% of the vote and rounding out the last place spot is former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with 0.2% of the vote.

Former President Donald Trump is projected to win the Iowa Republican caucuses, marking an early victory in his quest for his party’s nomination. 

Trump was the front-runner in the state leading up to the caucuses.

While Trump has been concerned that the weather and supporter complacency due to his high poll numbers would affect turnout, his team has insisted that his base will show up. 

Where voting stands: About 4% of the results have been released so far. You can track caucus results in real time here.

The latest on delegates: With the results that have been recorded, CNN estimates that Trump will receive 16 of Iowa’s 40 delegates. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are estimated to get four delegates each so far. There are 16 delegates unallocated.

Remember: Performing well in primaries and caucuses equals delegates, and the larger goal is amassing the magic number of delegates to secure a nomination before delegate voting at the party convention. Whoever wins the GOP nomination needs to win at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded.

What other candidates are saying:

The weather: Iowa is colder than Alaska right now. Wind chills in the minus 30s are starting to pop up in the northwestern part of the state. By the time the votes are tallied, minus 40 is possible. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated former President Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa on Monday.

“His decisive and historic victory tonight should move our Party closer to uniting so we can achieve the ultimate victory in November,” Johnson said in a statement.

Earlier this evening, CNN projected that Trump will win the state’s caucuses.

The version of American democracy on display at the Iowa caucuses is decidedly low-tech.

CNN viewers watching video from inside caucus sites saw workers pulling ballots from a Ziploc bag in Cedar Rapids and reading off individual votes to someone keeping track on a piece of paper.

At a caucus site in Council Bluffs, the votes were read from folded pieces of paper in a popcorn bucket.

At some locations, voters wrote their choice on a brightly colored 3x5 card.

At another site, a CNN reporter watched as workers ran out of ballots and were handing out pieces of yellow legal paper for voters to record their choice.

Important to note: Caucuses are party meetings rather than official elections. The caucuses are run by the Iowa Republican Party, not the state government. Every precinct conducts the vote in its own way. There’s no official ballot or list of authorized candidates.

Most states, by the way, have moved away from party caucuses to official primaries that look more like what Americans are used to seeing.

When it comes to income in Iowa…

And for education…

Former President Donald Trump stopped by a caucus site in Clive, Iowa, on Monday to urge Iowans to cast their vote for him. 

“If you would, get out and vote. You’re the beginning. This is the beginning. Right now, it’s starting. And this is the beginning of something very important. I think it’s the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump told the crowd. The former president addressed Iowans before CNN projected him win the caucuses.

Trump made brief remarks, touting his wins in Iowa in the general election in 2016 and 2020 and criticizing President Joe Biden and his presidency.  

“I call him Crooked Joe Biden, he’s the worst president in the history of our country. He’s the most incompetent and he’s the most corrupt president in the history of our country and it’s not even close,” Trump said.

When the Iowa caucuses convened earlier this evening, Republican caucusgoers had the opportunity to listen to optional speeches from candidate representatives and voted for their preferred presidential candidate.

CNN projected earlier this evening that former President Donald Trump will win the race, and some caucus sites continue to tabulate the votes.

Here are key things to know about that vote — and how it works:

Check out our voter guide to find out what the rules are, where you are.

Former President Donald Trump has been pressing members of Congress to fall in line and offer their endorsement in a bid to show a wave of support on his march to the nomination.

And behind the scenes, Trump has been in talks with Sen. Tim Scott, the former presidential candidate and South Carolina senator about winning his endorsement, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the talks. 

One GOP source told CNN that Scott is leaning toward endorsing Trump before next month’s South Carolina primary. But another source familiar with the matter said that Scott “hasn’t decided who to endorse yet” or “whether he’s going to endorse at all.” 

If Scott endorses Trump, it would be a blow of sorts to his fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, who appointed him to his Senate seat in 2012, and another sign of Trump’s commanding presence on top of the party.

As Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign awaits the Iowa caucuses results, it is confident the former South Carolina governor will perform better in the more populous precincts in the state, according to a campaign official.

It is also expecting Haley will do well in those areas because she has “broad appeal,” which means she could turn out a range of voters, including independents, conservatives, and Democrats who decide to register as Republicans, the official said.

Historically, Republicans and Democrats in Iowa have carried out their caucuses on the same night. But that is not the case tonight. While the Republican nominating process is officially launched in Iowa tonight, Democrats are not holding a presidential nominating contest. Instead, the party moved South Carolina to the front of the nominating calendar. Does that mean that Democrats in Iowa could decide to register as Republicans and caucus for Haley in a more pronounced way?

“We will see,” the official said.

According to early entrance polls, 16% of caucusgoers Monday night identified as independents while just 2% said they were Democrats.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley made a final pitch to caucusgoers in Des Moines, telling the Iowans that America needs a “new generational leader.”

“The only way we’re going to win the majority of Americans is if we have a new generational leader that leaves the negativity and chaos of the past and moves forward with new solutions for the future,” Haley told those gathered at Franklin Jr. High School.

As she fought microphone issues, Haley briefly mentioned her time as governor of South Carolina and her service as US ambassador to the United Nations and delivered a condensed version of her stump speech.

Haley argued that she’s the candidate who can beat President Joe Biden in a matchup.

“In every one of those head-to-head polls against Biden. I defeat Biden by double digits,” she said. “If you bless me with your vote tonight, I promise you, I will spend every day trying to make you proud in the process,” Haley added.

CNN has projected that former President Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses. The result puts added pressure on Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of next week’s contest in New Hampshire.

With Donald Trump now projected to win the Iowa caucuses, the groundwork for any serious challenge is already being laid for the next contest in New Hampshire. After Chris Christie exited the race for president last week, many voters CNN spoke to said they were willing to throw their weight behind Nikki Haley.

“I’ll definitely throw my support to her for sure,” Jon Dickinson, a Christie supporter, told CNN. However, he still has worries. “My concern with her is her ability to actually move the needle in Washington,” he said, as he also painted a crucial bottom line that came to define many Christie supporters: “I’m never gonna vote for Trump.”

With recent CNN polling in New Hampshire showing 65% of Christie supporters would back Haley as their second choice, his former backers represent a sliver of potentially critical support for Haley.

But not everyone is sold. 

New Hampshire state Rep. Wayne MacDonald, who served as Christie’s campaign chairman in the Granite State, said it might take until election day for him to make his decision but firmly declared last week, “I’m not going with Nikki Haley.”

Here is the first CNN delegate estimate from Iowa as of 8:40 p.m. ET:

Remember: Forty GOP delegates are up for grabs in Iowa. Whoever wins the GOP nomination needs to win at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process.

Read more about the GOP presidential nomination and delegates.

Former President Donald Trump wins the Iowa Republican caucuses, CNN projects, receiving the most votes from GOP caucusgoers. This marks an early victory in his quest for his party’s nomination. 

Trump was the frontrunner in the state leading up to the caucuses. The outcome of the contest will help set the tone – and the duration – of the race going forward.  

Trump launched his bid to reclaim the White House in November 2022, aiming to become only the second commander-in-chief to win two nonconsecutive terms.

How CNN made this projection: CNN’s projection in the Iowa caucuses was based on entrance polls conducted for the National Election Pool by Edison Research. These polls are carried out at a scientifically random sample of caucus sites across the state among voters who have shown up to participate. 

As of 7:00 p.m. CT/8:00 p.m. ET, doors at caucus sites had closed and no one else would be allowed inside to participate, and entrance poll interviewing was complete. 

At the time of CNN’s projection, at 7:30 p.m. CT/8:30 p.m. ET, Trump’s broad lead in the entrance poll’s representative sample was statistically significant. By that time, votes had been reported in multiple counties and from several sample precincts, which also suggested a broad Trump lead.

Other major national news organizations projected Trump as the winner at roughly the same time as CNN.

This post has been updated with additional information about how CNN made this projection.

Iowa’s Republican caucuses are underway across the state. 

A caucus is essentially a political meeting where people gather to indicate their choice for president, pick delegates to county party conventions and conduct other state party business.

See photos from some of the caucus sites.

As the Iowa Republican caucuses are underway, initial results from CNN’s early entrance poll highlight a warning President Joe Biden’s campaign has been sounding the alarm on: that Americans’ trust in elections, and by extent democracy itself, is under siege.

Sixty-six percent of GOP caucusgoers said they do not believe Biden legitimately won the election over Donald Trump did, while just 30% said they do.

Biden has made restoring faith in democratic institutions a cornerstone of his presidency and reelection campaign.

He kicked off the new year with a campaign speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, warning that democracy is at risk in 2024.

Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Biden said in a radio interview today that Trump was the “most anti-democratic” president in American history, describing the former president’s public comments as “off the wall” and “outrageous.”

With questions swirling around what comes next for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis depending on how he performs in tonight’s caucuses, his campaign is actively making plans for the coming days on the campaign trail. 

After speaking tonight in West Des Moines, Iowa, DeSantis plans to fly to Greenville, South Carolina, immediately afterward for an event tomorrow morning before traveling on to New Hampshire, according to a source familiar with his plans. 

Some context: DeSantis has poured millions of dollars and spent an enormous amount of time in Iowa, hoping a strong finish here would allow him to emerge as an alternative to former President Donald Trump. If he fails to finish first or a strong second, there are questions about how he would proceed, though DeSantis has said repeatedly he’s “in it for the long haul.” 

The Iowa caucuses are officially underway. As results trickle in throughout the night, we’re tracking where CNN estimates show votes are left to be counted across Iowa.

Circle size is proportional to the share of total remaining votes estimated to be counted in each county. Data will be updated every 30 seconds. Follow along throughout the night here.

Former President Donald Trump dodged questions about his plans to attend the start of his trial Tuesday in New York, where a jury will determine how much he will pay in damages for defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll.

“We’ll see,” Trump told reporters when asked whether he plans to sit in on the opening of the trial in Manhattan federal court.

Trump’s comments came as he was departing the Hotel Fort Des Moines to visit a caucus site in Des Moines, just minutes before Iowans began caucusing.

Several of Trump’s advisers, including his top aides Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller, Steven Cheung and Brian Jack, accompanied the former president as he departed in his motorcade.

Earlier, a person familiar with the former president’s plans told CNN that Trump was expected to attend the opening of the trial.

The person said the former president will head to New York tonight after the caucuses.

Trump is slated to go to New Hampshire on Tuesday for an event, and will be in the state for more events throughout the week. His plans could shift depending on how the Iowa caucuses go, one person told CNN.

Imagine this: It’s time to cast your vote. You park your car, pop open the door and a stiff wind stings your face. It’s minus 4 degrees out, but it feels much more painful — like it’s minus 24. Your boot crunches on the compacted snow in the parking lot as you set foot out of the door and break into a stride. It hurts to breathe, sucking in this arctic air, so you pick up the pace.

No, you’re not in Fairbanks, Alaska. It’s 11 degrees there, feels like 1. Anchorage, Alaska? Nope, it’s a balmy 16 degrees. It’s Des Moines, Iowa, on caucus night and the temperature keeps plunging. The trip back out will be even colder.

Iowa is colder than Alaska right now. Even America’s northernmost town, Utqiaġvik, Alaska, 3,000 miles to the northwest in the Arctic circle, is warmer than Des Moines at this hour.

And Des Moines isn’t even the coldest spot in Iowa as the caucuses are underway. Wind chills in the minus 30s are starting to pop up in the northwestern part of the state. By the time the votes are tallied, minus 40 is possible. Bundle up.

Just past 8 p.m. ET, caucuses across Iowa are underway. At the largest caucus site in Clive, Iowa, proceedings were starting with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer.

The weather had an impact on turnout at a caucus site in Des Moines. This is officially the closest Iowa caucuses on record.

CNN’s Boris Sanchez reported that the organizers there were expecting about 200 people, but only about 50 showed up. In a show of hands, about 10-15 of the voters said this was their first caucus.

At a site in Ames, two Iowa State students, said they plan to caucus for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying they like how he “has communicated and what he’s done in Florida sounds pretty good.”

“I really appreciate how he is respectful and the way he treats people and interacts. I really respect that and I want that in my leader,” the voter said, adding that she learned about DeSantis from her parents.

US President Joe Biden’s campaign co-chair and mega-donor Jeffrey Katzenberg was upbeat and bullish in front of reporters Monday.

Katzenberg is one of several top advisers that the Biden campaign dispatched to Iowa for an afternoon news conference ahead of the Republican Iowa caucuses

As he touted the campaign’s $97 million fundraising haul last quarter and the robust cash-on-hand that the campaign entered 2024 with, Katzenberg went as far as to say that once the GOP primary – or, the “race for the MAGA base,” as he put it – had wrapped up, “it’s just going to be too late” for the eventual Republican nominee to compete with the Biden re-elect campaign.

But the battle ahead is far more complicated than those rosy talking points. Almost to a person, Biden’s senior-most campaign advisers, White House officials and other supporters and allies of the president have told CNN in recent weeks that they expect the re-election fight in the fall to be very close – and very tough.

Notably, they acknowledge that their economic message is still not breaking through. 

But at the same time, senior advisers have stressed repeatedly that even in the new calendar year, voters are not yet paying close attention to the 2024 race and that it could be a while before they do. 

In other words – yes, the campaign is fully aware of how tough the recent polls have been on Biden. But until many more voters realize that Trump is likely to be back on the ballot, prompting a reset of sorts across the country, much of what they’re seeing now is “just noise,” one senior Biden adviser insisted to CNN.

If Nikki Haley can come in second, it’s a clear springboard into New Hampshire – but it’s been a late rise here in Iowa and her supporters aren’t as enthusiastic as others.

I happened on a Haley event today in Iowa, and a few things were clear:

If Haley comes in second – look at DeSantis donors in California to jump ship en masse this week, per one Republican who’s plugged in with that community. Haley already has two California fundraisers scheduled (Bay Area on February 6 and SoCal on February 7) so there’s an easy place for them to go.

BUT BUT BUT – if Haley comes in second and if Trump is super dominant, a group of these people could go straight to Trump, this person says. It would be an acknowledgment that the search for an alternative to Trump (what many of them were looking for in backing DeSantis in the first place) has been a failure.

Several Republicans have also reached out to openly speculate about how quickly DeSantis will drop out should he come in third place here.

Former President Donald Trump and his campaign are banking on the enthusiasm of Trump supporters to help carry him to victory in Iowa, Trump advisers tell CNN.

While Trump himself has been concerned that the weather and supporter complacency due to the high poll numbers would affect turnout, his team has insisted that his base will show up.

Both internal and public polling has indicated that Trump’s supporters have an enormous amount of enthusiasm and motivation going into tonight’s caucuses.

However, Trump’s team also has noted that they do not think he is the only candidate who will benefit from enthusiasm. One senior adviser conceded that their polling indicates that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also has very enthusiastic and motivated supporters heading into the caucuses.

President Joe Biden’s campaign advisers say ahead of tonight’s Republican Iowa caucuses that they are fully preparing to face off against Donald Trump in the fall — and they are simply waiting to learn whether Biden’s opponent will be the original Donald Trump or one of Trump’s “mini-me’s.”

That was the description used by one of the campaign’s top surrogates, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Monday afternoon at a campaign news conference in Des Moines to characterize GOP candidates like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

The fact that the Biden campaign is so set on insisting the candidates in the GOP field are the same – all “MAGA” Republicans – shows how much the campaign believes contrast is essential to paving a path to victory.

Whether it’s on the issue of defending democracy or abortion rights or the economy, Biden and his team believe success will overwhelmingly hinge on convincing voters – and that includes plenty who are not exactly thrilled with Biden’s record, including on the economy –how unacceptable the alternative to the president is.

To that end, Pritzker said the GOP field includes candidates who are “espousing Adolf Hitler’s ideas, denying that the Civil War was about slavery, or demonizing and discounting the rights of large groups of Americans.”

It is 8 p.m. ET, and Iowa’s Republican caucuses are now underway across the state.

The first event of the party primary calendar for the past half century, the caucuses will provide an initial moment of truth for former President Donald Trump’s comeback bid and could help Republicans tired of Trump decide which of his challengers to rally behind.

A caucus is essentially a political meeting where people gather to indicate their choice for president, pick delegates to county party conventions and conduct other state party business.

Here are key things to know about how the voting process works in GOP caucuses:

CNN’s Ethan Cohen, Molly English and Zachary B. Wolf contributed reporting to this post.

More voters are showing up at Kirn Middle School in Council Bluffs, Iowa, than the caucus organizers anticipated.

They have run out of ballots and are now handing people sheets of yellow paper from small legal pads to put their votes on. They’ll also have had to set up more chairs.

Mary Ann Hanusa, who’s running logistics at the site, said anyone in line when the caucus is supposed to be called to order will be allowed to check in and they will delay the start of the caucus to get those people checked in and into the caucus room.

Caucuses across the state start at 8 p.m. ET.

Winning individual primaries and caucuses is just one step in the long path to winning a party’s presidential nomination. And it starts with tonight in Iowa.

Performing well in primaries and caucuses equals delegates, and the larger goal is amassing the magic number of delegates to secure a nomination before delegate voting at the party convention.

When will delegates be secured in 2024? See our graphic for the breakdown by primary or caucus date.

Read more on the delegates’ process here.

More than half of Republican caucusgoers in Iowa identify with the “MAGA movement,” and few are willing to acknowledge President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory as legitimate, according to the initial results of CNN’s entrance poll for the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses.

The results provide a glimpse of the type of voters turning out to participate in the first contest of the 2024 campaign. Slightly about half identify themselves as part of the MAGA movement, “referring to the Make America Great Again” slogan popularized by former president Donald Trump in 2016. And about two-thirds say they do not believe that Biden’s victory over Trump four years ago was legitimate. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Few GOP caucusgoers express concerns about the criminal charges Trump currently faces. Roughly 6 in 10 say that they’ll consider Trump fit for the presidency if he were to be convicted of a crime, with only about one-third saying they wouldn’t see him as fit in that circumstance.

Entrance polls are a valuable tool to help us understand caucusgoers’ demographic profile and political views. Like all surveys, however, entrance polls are estimates, not precise measurements of the electorate. That’s particularly true for the preliminary set of entrance poll numbers, which don’t yet reflect the views of those who arrive later, and which haven’t yet been weighted to match the final results of the caucus. More enthusiastic and committed caucusgoers tend to show up earlier in the night, meaning that they may not be fully reflective of the overall electorate.

The entrance poll for Iowa’s Republican presidential caucus was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. It includes 311 interviews with Republican caucus participants across 45 different caucus locations. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

Sawyer Elementary School in Ames is home, at least for this evening, to three Story County caucus precincts.

Caucusgoers from Ames 12, 22 and 23 will gather in the school’s cafeteria and gymnasium to vote on their preferred candidate.

The caucus chair has voter registration files on hand, same-day registration forms on hand and also colored index cards which are the critical tool of the night. Each voter will get a blank colored index card (ranging in color from blue to yellow to pink) after they check-in. The precinct captain says this is the best way to make sure there’s no funny business. One vote per colored card and anything else doesn’t get counted.

Ames, about 35 miles north of Des Moines, is a college town — home to Iowa State University. Ames Republicans are a mix of students and professionals. And more broadly, Story County Republicans are more moderate relative to outlying Iowa counties, according to the co-chair of the Story County GOP.

Marco Rubio won the caucus in Story County in 2016. Donald Trump finished a distant 3rd.

What does that mean for Trump, DeSantis and Haley this time? We will soon find out.

If polls are accurate and former President Donald Trump wins Iowa by a historic margin Monday night, it will be largely in part due to the robust ground game that his team deployed in the Hawkeye State.

Unlike the seat-of-the-pants operation of Trump’s 2016 campaign in the state when he lost to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, his current operation has built out a sophisticated system meant to expand the electorate to favor the former president.

Using data collected since his first trip to Iowa in 2015, Trump’s campaign contacted hundreds of thousands of Iowans, many of whom supported him in general elections but did not take part in the caucuses.

The Trump campaign recruited and trained roughly 2,000 volunteer caucus captains across the state – assigning several to the largest voting locations. Each agreed to get commitments from 10 first-time voters in the Iowa caucuses from a list of 25 prospective supporters the campaign had identified in their neighborhoods from their data. 

They have held more than 300 caucus trainings and placed a special emphasis on educating supporters about how the caucus process works, including sending explainers in the mail, over text and by email. His team has started showing a two-minute video at every Iowa campaign event teaching people how to caucus.

This ground game strategy was a test run for a general election strategy should Trump be the nominee. 

Iowa Republican officials are sounding the alarm about the prospect of lower-than-expected turnout at tonight’s caucuses, with snow- and ice-covered roads across southern Iowa and parts of eastern Iowa that could diminish participation.

One top GOP adviser tells CNN that the turnout of 2016 — 186,000 — “will almost certainly not be reached.” Fresh projections are closer to the 2012 campaign cycle turnout of 121,000.

In 28 of Iowa’s 99 counties, there is only one caucus locations, which means some voters will have to drive considerable distances. Tonight, Iowa’s geography will come into play, as the Trump campaign is hoping for a broad-based showing in rural areas, while Nikki Haley is focusing on suburban communities, with far less driving distance involved. Ron DeSantis is working toward a hybrid of both, putting his yearlong organization to a critical test.

In several conversations with Republicans today, it’s clear the over/under for former President Donald Trump is 50%.

In Pottawattamie County, there is concern about the turnout of caucusgoers from the rural areas due to the bitterly cold weather. 

Pottawattamie County Caucus Chair Mary Ann Hanusa said she’s gotten calls from a few folks in rural parts who might be having trouble getting to the 40 precincts in the county. 

She spoke to one woman in her 80s who can’t make it off her street because of the snow drifts – and is heartbroken that she’ll miss the first caucus of her life. Hanusa told CNN that organizers are trying to network, to offer people rides, but they’re not sure how much of that they’ll be able to facilitate. 

When it comes time to collect the votes, organizers will use two yellow popcorn buckets.

The doors are opening at Iowa caucus sites around the state as Iowans prepare to cast a vote for their choice to be the Republican party’s nominee for president.

“I think it’s more important now than ever to just speak out and make your voice heard. It’s hard times, and we need to make sure we have a good leader in office,” one voter told CNN’s Dana Bash. The voter said she plans to caucus for Donald Trump.

Another voter, Karen, 65, said she has attended the Iowa caucuses every year since she was 18. Karen, who said she is “an anti-vaxxer,” said she plans to vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis because she agreed with his response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Asked about why she came to caucus in record-cold temperatures, she said, “This is saving our nation right now.“

“We need to make decisions in regard to the average working family to get ahead financially,” she said.

At caucus sites housed inside Grand View University’s Viking Theater and a nearby lecture hall, an estimated 300 Iowans are set to gather to cast their ballots in the first presidential contest of 2024. 

The two precincts voting here are part of Polk County, which saw then-first-time candidate Trump take third. A prominent Iowa Republican said that if Nikki Haley has a shot to win any county in Iowa, it’s this one. 

Here’s one moment from inside the caucus site:

At around 5 p.m. local time, a woman donning a “NIKKI” hat walked through the doors carrying a Haley campaign yard sign and shared that she actually just made it Iowa after a 34-hour journey from where she lives in Washington, DC.
She’s not from the Hawkeye state, but she’s been volunteering with the campaign and is excited to get as many caucusgoers on board as possible in Des Moines’ third precinct. She previewed her speech that highlighted her disappointment in the current state of the economy — namely inflation. She also cited Haley’s foreign policy experience as a reason she wants to see her in the White House come next January. She also expressed concerns about the state of democracy in the US and around the world. 

Winning the Iowa caucuses is an important marker and test of a candidate’s ability to organize. But it’s far from a guarantee of future success. Otherwise Pete Buttigieg, who won Iowa in 2020 in the Democratic caucuses, would be president instead of Joe Biden’s secretary of transportation. Or Ted Cruz, who won Iowa in the 2016 Republican caucuses, might be wrapping up his second term in the White House instead of running for reelection to the US Senate.

Neither Cruz nor Buttigieg won their party’s nomination, much less the White House. The same is true of 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses winner Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won in 2008. Both Huckabee and Santorum ran for president again in 2016, but neither could recreate their Iowa wins.

On the Republican side, Iowa caucusgoers have frequently rewarded candidates who appealed to socially conservative evangelical voters. Such socially conservative candidates have struggled in the next date on the election calendar: the New Hampshire primary.

In primaries, winning all of the early contests does not necessarily bode well in the general election, as former Vice President Al Gore and former President Gerald Ford found.

Win or lose, Nikki Haley’s campaign feels it has met its goals for Iowa, according to three sources close to the former South Carolina governor’s campaign.

If Haley comes in No. 2 in Iowa, she will have exceeded expectations, the sources said. But if she comes in No. 3, the campaign does not see that as damaging because it did not substantially invest in the state compared with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump.

By contrast, the Haley campaign believes that both Trump and DeSantis have a tremendous amount on the line tonight.

When it comes to DeSantis, the campaign points out that Iowa was as strong as it got for the Florida governor: He had the support of the state’s governor, one of Iowa’s most influential evangelical leaders, and the time to build a 99-county organization. When it comes to Trump, the campaign points out that he has promised to win the state by 60 points.

And beyond Iowa, the Haley campaign also feels it is in a strong position in New Hampshire and South Carolina, while DeSantis cannot say the same. 

Vice President Kamala Harris told ABC News on Monday that she’s confident President Joe Biden’s campaign can beat whichever Republican candidate emerges from tonight’s Iowa Republican caucuses — be it former President Donald Trump or one of the other GOP candidates vying for the nomination.

Asked while traveling in South Carolina whether she believes Trump — who holds a commanding lead in the polls — is a foregone conclusion, Harris told ABC, “I don’t know — but look, if it is Donald Trump, we’ve beaten him before, and we’ll beat him again.”

The vice president was also asked for her response to comments from Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley hitting at Biden’s age and suggesting that a GOP candidate is really running against the prospect of a possible Harris presidency.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted how people who have served or are currently serving in his administration have paid their way to Iowa to knock on doors on his behalf — something he says Donald Trump hasn’t matched.

“Donald Trump was president for four years. How many people that served in his administration are lining up to endorse him this time around or be willing to come here and knock on doors in subfreezing temperatures? Not very many,” DeSantis said at his final campaign event before the Iowa caucuses kickoff.

Applying that to his leadership, DeSantis assured Iowans they could trust him to build a strong administration to enact his vision if he becomes president.

“Having the humility as a leader means you know it’s a team effort,” DeSantis said. “You need good people around you to put this into practice.”

“Just seeing what’s happened in Iowa, you can have confidence that we’re going to be able to inspire people from all across this country because I’m not just going to recycle people from with inside Washington, DC, to be in these important positions,” DeSantis said.

Despite a series of polls that have former President Donald Trump leading by around 30 points, Trump’s team has spent the last few weeks tamping down expectations, insisting that a win with any margin over 12 points is worthy of celebration. 

For months advisers have quietly said that they believe while Trump is going to win, the margins are likely closer than public poll numbers show; they have expressed concern that anything below 20 points will be viewed as disappointing at a time they are trying to build momentum heading into the primary season. 

“A win is a win,” one senior campaign adviser told CNN. However, in this case, not all wins are equal. Trump’s team is banking on a definitive win that not only sets the tone for the primary season, but curbs any momentum Trump’s GOP rivals, namely Nikki Haley, are experiencing ahead of New Hampshire. His advisers have been closely watching her rise in the polls and the campaign and super PAC are spending millions of dollars in the state on attack ads against the former South Carolina governor. 

Trump has privately expressed concern that weather will impact turnout on Monday night — and focused his final messaging on urging supporters not to get complacent and to show up no matter what. 

“You can’t sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, you say ‘Darling, I gotta make it.’ Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it,” Trump said during his final rally in Indianola, Iowa. “If you’re just so sick … Get up, get up. You get up, you’re voting.”

Trump’s campaign has said they are not worried about turnout — their internal polling mirrors public surveys that show Trump’s supporters have an enormous amount of enthusiasm and motivation going into Monday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will speak at two caucus sites in Dubuque, Iowa, tonight, a reminder that in politics — like real estate — location, location, location is always critical.

Dubuque County, in the northeast part of Iowa along the Mississippi River, will be a telling place to watch as the results come in.

Iowa has more counties that voted for Barack Obama and switched to Donald Trump than any other state. Dubuque County is one of those. In fact, Trump is the first Republican nominee to win the county in a presidential race since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. 

So tonight, the strength of Trump in Dubuque County — and the potential opening for his rivals – could be instructive to the outcome of the Iowa caucuses. 

As voters bundle up and head to their precincts in Iowa, Donald Trump’s allies and operatives have fanned out across the state to make their case for the former president. 

While Iowans could impact the size of the GOP field, Trump’s orbit is hoping tonight’s result will keep Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley fighting for second place. 

That’s a predicament several of them told CNN that they’d like to see continue to play out on the campaign trail, fearing that a poor showing by DeSantis and a strong one from Haley would help consolidate an alternative to Trump going into New Hampshire. 

Without DeSantis, Haley turns into the clear alternative to him, one ally noted.

One 20-plus year veteran of the Iowa caucuses said he uses a barometer of how much the brutal cold will depress voter turnout: Sunday church attendance.

“Our church attendance was down 50% yesterday,” said Steve Grubbs, a former Iowa state Republican Party chairman. “I don’t think that is a 1:1 correlation to caucus attendance, but many of the same people attend both.”

A rural pastor who keeps in touch with a network of colleagues across Iowa agreed church attendance was down a fair amount on Sunday. Evangelical turnout and candidate choice will be giant factors.

Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz split a lot of this vote in 2016, and if Ron DeSantis is to run strong tonight, he will need to compete for evangelicals.

Pastor Joseph Brown of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington County is trying to help.

“We were down in attendance but still a good number made it out,” Brown said of his Sunday services.

Tonight, Brown said he plans to caucus for DeSantis, adding in a text message, “There seems to be a lot of excitement for him in our area.”

“I really am praying for a better choice than Donald Trump. Many of us truly believe he is an embarrassment and a shame to Bible Christianity,” he said.

Iowa is an organizational test for campaigns, and all the more so this cycle because of the weather. One Nikki Haley supporter who CNN has tracked for months said she is worried.

Priscilla Forsyth is an attorney in Sioux City who caucused for Trump in 2016 but thinks the party needs new blood and has agreed to speak for the former South Carolina governor at her caucus Monday night.

She is among the Iowa Republicans participating in a 2024 voter project called “All Over the Map” to follow the campaign through the eyes and experiences of voters. 

“I’m sorry to see how unorganized they are,” she said of the Haley campaign. “I had to call to get my caucus speech, call to get the items promised in the caucus guide …This does not bode well. It may be they don’t have anyone in this part of the state, but it eats away my confidence in her campaign.”

Iowa’s caucuses are officially the coldest on record as Hawkeye State Republicans get ready to head their precincts. Temperatures are falling from today’s earlier highs and will continue to drop as the caucuses begin. 

The last coldest caucus was in 2004 when Des Moines had a low temperature of 2 degrees and a high temperature of 16 degrees. Des Moines’ high temperature hit only 1 degree today, and high temperatures across Iowa were some 25 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year. 

There’s no chance of notable snow this evening, so the focus is on the cold and lingering slick roads from back-to-back storms that whacked the state with blizzard conditions and record-setting snow in the week leading up to the caucuses. 

Evening temperatures across Iowa will range from minus 2 degrees with a minus 20 wind chill in southeast Iowa to minus 13 degrees with a minus 35-degree wind chill across northern and western Iowa. These wind chill values can produce frostbite in 10 to 30 minutes on exposed skin. 

All of Iowa, save for far northeastern Iowa, is under a wind chill warning. These are issued when wind, combined with brutally cold temperatures reach “dangerous” levels. The alert warns people to “Avoid outside activities if possible. If outside, make sure you wear appropriate clothing, layers, a hat, and gloves.” Far northeastern Iowa is under a wind chill advisory.

Sen. Marco Rubio may have endorsed Donald Trump for president, but it’s Nikki Haley whose campaign most resembles his own from eight years ago, when the Florida Republican worked suburban and metro voters hard in Iowa – especially college-educated voters in the Des Moines area. 

Entrance polls from the 2016 caucuses confirmed that Rubio won among voters who hail from cities of more than 50,000 people. He beat Trump among suburban voters, but fell short to Ted Cruz in that category. Rubio won 28% of the vote among self-described Iowa moderates, trouncing every other GOP candidate — other than Trump himself.

Fast forward to 2024: In the new Iowa poll from the Des Moines Register:

Haley, however, hopes her campaign ends better than Rubio’s, given that the Florida senator secured a third-place finish in Iowa and later dropped out of the primary after losing his home state of Florida.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, reflecting on his campaign ahead of the Iowa caucuses tonight, said he’d be in a stronger position in the polls if he had started with the team he had now but he expects to deliver a “shock to the system.”

Speaking with reporters after his final campaign event in Iowa, Ramaswamy acknowledged that while it took “some iterations,” he’s proud of the campaign staff he’s built.

“We were building the plane as we were flying it early on, when I didn’t go through the kind of process that I would normally go through for building a company. I only decided firmly to run in January, and by February we were in the race. But with some iterations we got to a team that I am very proud of,” the entrepreneur said.

Ramaswamy said he feels if he’d started with the team he has now, he’d be in a stronger position in the campaign. A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll released Saturday shows Ramaswamy trailing former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among likely caucusgoers in Iowa.

“I have no doubt in my mind that … if this were February of last year, and we were starting with the machine that we have now, this would be a landslide for us,” he said. “But that’s part of being an outsider, and I think that that’s part of the beauty and the opportunity of being an outsider too.

“All that said, I’m hopeful that we deliver a massive surprise tonight. I expect that we will. But regardless, I’m grateful to all the Iowans who have gotten us to the point where we are, and I hope we deliver the shock to the system that I expect,” Ramaswamy added.

Sioux City, Iowa, resident Stephen Wendel told CNN he has not made up his mind about who he will caucus for tonight — but he intends to back someone other than former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner.

While he waited in Sergeant Bluff for Ron DeSantis to make his campaign stop, Wendel said he is torn between the Florida governor, Texas pastor Ryan Binkley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. He said he will probably make up his mind as he sits in the caucus meeting tonight and listens to surrogates for candidates make their pitches.

What’s certain is that he will go to caucus despite the subzero temperatures.

Iowa voter Lon Zimmerman said he decided months ago that he’s going to caucus for Ron DeSantis, arguing the Florida governor has the youth, experience, and prior military service that sets him apart.

“He’s the right kind of guy. I think he’s somebody I can depend on,” he said, adding that DeSantis is “honest without alienating people. He’s not arrogant, comes off as a more diplomatic kind of person to get things done.”

The 80-year-old said he caucused for former President Donald Trump in 2016 but said he prefers DeSantis now because the former president ”inspires so much hatred from the other side, that there’s nobody crossing lines to help try to come up with some kind of agreement.”

Another reason Zimmerman is backing the Florida governor: If DeSantis wins, he would be eligible to serve two terms. Trump is limited to serve only one term and doesn’t have the “extra years of time it’s going to take to unscrew this mess,” Zimmerman told CNN on Monday while waiting for DeSantis to stop by his hometown of Sergeant Bluff.

Zimmerman said he would back whoever the Republican nominee is, arguing that any of the GOP candidates is “far superior to what we have now” in the White House.

President Joe Biden’s campaign cast the Republican field as “extreme” during a Des Moines news conference ahead of the Iowa caucuses Monday.

“We’ve gathered here today, because tonight, Republican primary voters will, for the very first time in this election cycle, choose who they want to be the Republican nominee for president,” Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters Monday.

Pritzker, a Biden campaign advisory board member, joked that President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis all back the same policies: “Tonight’s contest is simply a question of whether you like your MAGA-Trump agenda wrapped in the original packaging, or with high heels or lifts in their boots.”

“Instead, the real decision will be made in the general election, where the stakes couldn’t be higher,” he added.

Pritzker was joined by Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, who spent the bulk of her remarks focusing on Republicans’ anti-abortion stance.

“Tonight, the Republican candidates for president will face their first real contest, but regardless of who wins and regardless of who comes in second, we know one thing for sure: Every one of these extremist candidates is attacking women’s freedom to make their own decisions about abortion,” Smith said. “These extreme Republican candidates want a national ban on abortion.”

Pritzker followed up by adding, “All I can say is that this campaign is ready, willing and able to take on any of those MAGA Republican candidates and beat them.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign on Monday responded to former President Donald Trump’s criticism that she doesn’t “have MAGA” by pointing out that a pro-Trump super PAC has noted Haley’s support for Trump’s agenda. 

“The other day, Trump’s super PAC sent the following mailer to New Hampshire households, declaring, ‘Nikki Haley is a BIG Supporter of Trump’s MAGA Agenda.’ According to the mailer, Haley supports Trump’s policies, including building the wall and opposing amnesty,” Haley’s campaign said in a statement. 

The mailer, paid for by MAGA Inc., was targeted at former supporters of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, in an apparent attempt to dissuade those voters from backing Haley. 

“Donald Trump knows Nikki Haley is a strong conservative who he praises repeatedly for her toughness at the United Nations,” said Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas. “Now that Nikki is surging and Trump is dropping, his campaign is flinging phony, contradictory attacks. Don’t believe the fake news from Trump world – they don’t believe it themselves.” 

The Ron DeSantis campaign has put all hands on deck for the final push in Iowa. At the campaign headquarters, people are working the phones to get DeSantis supporters out to the caucuses to vote. The nervous tension is palpable.

No one will say it — no one will even hint at it — but the reality of what this day means to their effort is abundantly clear. If DeSantis doesn’t perform tonight, his argument for continuing – and for voters and for donors whom he needs to keep his candidacy viable – is in peril.

In an interview, the Florida governor insisted he will do well, but sidestepped the question on defining “well.” He claimed undecided voters are trying to choose between him and former President Donald Trump. When asked about voters trying to decide between him and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, he made the case for why they should choose him.

“Ultimately, you know, Nikki Haley could not possibly beat Donald Trump,” he said, repeating his most pointed warnings about Haley in his closing arguments – that she appeals to too many independents and Democrats to win a Republican presidential nomination.

Haley, on the other hand, has owned the criticism, saying her broader appeal in the general election is why she should be the GOP nominee. “Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That’s nothing to be proud of. We should want to win the majority of Americans,” she told me at a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday acknowledged that Iowa’s brutally cold temperatures may impact turnout, and urged his supporters to go to the caucuses for him so he can fight for them for “the next eight years.”

“If you’re willing to go out there, in this temperature and dedicate a few hours of your life to do in the Iowa caucus, you know, and you’re supporting me … I’m gonna be fighting for you for the next eight years, and we’re going to turn this country around. Now’s the time to do it,” he said at one of his final campaign stops in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.

He added that it’s “meaningful” if voters caucus for him in such cold temperatures.

The Florida governor argued that his supporters are more committed than former President Donald Trump’s backers, noting that some of his supporters flew to Iowa on their own dime to volunteer. 

“You don’t have other candidates where people are willing to do that for. You know, the former president, how many people that served that his administration are even willing to publicly support him — much less come in negative temperatures to go door to door? Not a lot. Whereas with us, this is, this is what they want to do,” he said. 

There have been “no systematic issues” with caucus locations or precincts ahead of tonight’s Iowa caucuses as the state battles dangerously low temperatures, according to the Iowa Republican Party. 

The “show’s still on as planned,” Kush Desai, spokesperson for the Iowa GOP, told CNN when asked if weather has impacted any caucus sites.

Frigid forecast: Parts of Iowa were hit with a blizzard over the weekend and temperatures were in the negatives in some parts of the state this morning. Temperatures across the state this evening will range from -2 degrees Fahrenheit in the southeast to -13 degrees Fahrenheit across northern and western areas. The wind chill will range from -20 Fahrenheit in the southeast to as cold as -35 degrees Fahrenheit in northwestern portions of the state.

CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward contributed reporting to this post.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Monday she has not been able to communicate with her husband on one of the most important days of her political career as he remains deployed in Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard. 

“These things happen. Throughout the deployment when they’re working on certain things they go without communication,” Haley told CNN’s Kylie Atwood at a campaign stop in Pella, Iowa. “And so, what I know is you say an extra prayer and I know that once he’s back online, he’ll let me know.”

Haley said she was still hoping to hear from her husband, who is part of a brigade that deployed to Africa last summer in support of the United States Africa Command. 

“He’s in the middle of a lot of stuff, as you know the world is on fire, so hasn’t had access to communication for a few days,” Haley said.

“Even today?” Atwood asked. 

“No. And so, you know, our hope is that we’re going to hear from him, and I just pray that he comes home to us safely. But I know that he’s proud of me and I’m proud of him and we’re going to push through and continue on just like every other military family does,” Haley said.

Former President Donald Trump, stopping briefly to speak to reporters as he departed the Hotel Fort Des Moines on Monday, said he predicts his campaign will “have a tremendous night” just hours before Iowa Republicans begin caucusing. 

“We won it twice as you know, two elections, and I think we’re going to have a tremendous night tonight. The people are fantastic and I’ve never seen spirit like they have, country wise, but in Iowa,” Trump said.

John Palmer, a retired Iowa pastor and faith leader who, with other faith leaders, has personally prayed for and supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at prior debates and town halls, says he will instead caucus tonight for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“I believe this is the right decision for me,” he said to CNN Monday afternoon, adding, “I believe the competency factor in Governor Haley is stronger and her ability to bring people together.”

A major moment came for Palmer when he was watching the CNN debate in the audience at Drake University last week shortly after praying for DeSantis in a private room in the building with five or six other pastors before the event. 

Palmer hosted Pat Robertson at his home when Robertson was a presidential candidate in 1988. Since then, he has been asked to be part of a number of faith focused events with Republican presidential candidates over the years. 

Palmer served as senior pastor of First Assembly of God, Des Moines, Iowa, from 1985-2006. George W. Bush made several stops at the church during his campaigns for president. 

Palmer characterizes DeSantis as a “good man” but adds he doesn’t excite or inspire him.

Palmer will caucus tonight at Oakview Middle School in Grimes, Iowa.

Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison dismissed the Republican candidates for president as too extreme, arguing their campaigns won’t be be viable in a general election with a broader electorate.

“Democrats have been saying it from the start: Republican primary candidates have staked their campaigns on a race for the extreme MAGA base – and they’ll live to regret it come November,” said Harrison in a memo released today.

The memo details Republican policy positions on abortion, the Affordable Care Act and Social Security, and Harrison argued the positions will serve as a liability in a general matchup against President Joe Biden.

But former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — who is polling second to former President Donald Trump in Iowa, according to the final Des Moines Register poll before the caucuses — is attracting independent and Democratic voters to her campaign. Nearly half of her supporters, 43%, say they’d vote for Biden over Trump, according to the poll.

Des Moines, Iowa, reached zero degrees Fahrenheit at 1 p.m. local time, and it will likely be the high temperature for the day.

During the late afternoon and evening, the temperature will drop back below zero.

By 7 p.m. local time, the temperature in Des Moines will be around -4 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind chill will be close to -25 degrees Fahrenheit. By late evening, the temperature will be -8 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill approaching -30 degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures across the state this evening will range from -2 degrees Fahrenheit in the southeast to -13 degrees Fahrenheit across northern and western areas. The wind chill will range from -20 Fahrenheit in the southeast to as cold as -35 degrees Fahrenheit in northwestern portions of the state.

Here’s a look at the forecast in Des Moines:

Iowa has traditionally been the first state every four years to hold a presidential nominating contest of any kind. On Monday night, Republican Iowans will gather to cast their presidential preference vote — but several other things also happen when caucuses convene.

A precinct caucus can be broken down into four main proceedings:

Republicans are kicking off the primary election with the Iowa caucuses on Monday, but Democrats won’t be casting their votes for their preferred presidential candidate the same way in the Hawkeye State due to changes in the party’s nominating calendar.

Just like Republicans, they’ll gather to conduct party business at precinct caucuses later this week. They’ll elect delegates to county conventions and county central committee members and discuss platform resolutions on January 15.

However, Democratic caucusgoers will not cast votes for president at those meetings. Instead, Iowa Democrats will cast votes by mail using presidential preference cards. The party began mailing the cards out on Friday, and voters will have until February 19 to request a card. Any cards that are postmarked by March 5, 2024, will be counted. .

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu downplayed Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on him and accused the former President of being scared of Nikki Haley, whom he endorsed.

“It’s about connectivity. It’s about getting out there not just coming in flying in doing a big rally and flying out, right. It’s connecting with voters, right. And that’s what Nikki’s doing,” he continued, accusing Trump of being “scared.”

Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday morning, bashing Sununu, calling him “the now very unpopular Governor of New Hampshire who endorsed Nikki ‘Birdbrain.’”

“He wouldn’t be writing any of that if he wasn’t scared to death about the fact he’s looking at his own internal numbers. He knows how close this race is getting. He was told by the whole world in the press that he was going to run away with Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and especially here in New Hampshire,” he said. 

Sununu, who has been managing expectations for Haley’s performance in the first-in-the-nation nominating contests, said to “potentially” beat Trump and defy expectations is “a long shot, to be sure,” but said Haley’s support is “rising every single day.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign will be offering rides to Iowa caucusgoers Monday, as bitter cold temperatures hit the area, according to a senior campaign official.

The rides – in trucks, vans and SUVS – will be offered across the state by the campaign, volunteers and many of their more than 1,700 precinct captains, the official tells CNN. 

To access a ride, voters can contact DeSantis precinct captains or the campaign. 

Yesterday in Dubuque, Iowa, DeSantis said yes and gave reporters a thumbs up when asked if his campaign would be providing rides to voters. 

Temperatures in Iowa on Monday have reached the minus 10s with wind chills as low as minus 40. With wind chills this extreme, frostbite is possible on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

The Iowa caucuses are the official kickoff of the battle for the presidential nomination.

This year, the first-in-the-nation contest will look a bit different. While Republicans will hold traditional caucuses where Iowans get to vote for their preferred candidate, Democrats will only use caucus night to conduct party business. Their vote for presidential preference will take place by mail.

Here are key details you should know about this year’s caucuses :

Read more about what a caucus is and how the process works.

Volunteers for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign have made 40,000 Iowa get-out-the-vote calls going into the Iowa caucuses, according to a source close to the campaign.

With the frigid temperatures and blizzards in recent days, Haley volunteers in Iowa continued to knock on doors, but the campaign also gave those supporters the option to hit the phones.

The most recent NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll found Haley with 20% of support when voters were asked who their first choice would be, behind former President Donald Trump who got 48% and narrowly ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 16% support.

Meanwhile, officials with Americans for Prosperity Action, a political arm of the influential network associated with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, say they expect to have hit on a total of 200,000 doors in Iowa by the end of Monday as they encourage Hawkeye State residents to caucus for Haley. The deep-pocketed group, which endorsed Haley in late November, has advertised heavily against former President Donald Trump and has deployed its grassroots army of conservative activists to work on Haley’s behalf in key states.

Former President Donald Trump is spending the morning of the Iowa caucuses calling caucus captains to thank them and encourage them to bring as many people as possible to caucus tonight, two sources tell CNN.

He is also expected to do at least one interview, one source familiar with Trump’s plans said.

Who is a caucus captain? They are surrogates for candidates and give final pitches after the caucuses get underway. After their speeches, paper ballots are distributed to caucusgoers.

Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann on Monday said he’s “confident” in the integrity of Iowa caucuses, assuring that Iowa Republicans have the “most transparent process.” 

“We count the votes in the room where they’re cast. We report the votes in the room where we cast. And then after they’re reported, people in the room that cast the votes can take a look at it on our site. And you’re going to see results in near real time. If that’s not enough, we got a paper trail for every single solitary precinct,” he told CNN. 

“I have never been able to come up with a scenario where our process tonight could be questioned in terms of its integrity and transparency,” he added. “That’s how confident I am.” 

The Republican chair said that despite the cold temperatures and even though former President Donald Trump has been the frontrunner in the polls, these caucuses feel like the 2016 Iowa caucuses. 

“The enthusiasm, the passion, the level of activity, the crowds that are showing up, you would think that this has been a polling horse race for the last three months. From the Republican point of view, I mean this is going to be an amazing organizational effort on our part. But I have not seen that slow, and I really think it’s going to translate into a really robust attendance despite the temperatures,” he told CNN. 

Kaufmann said he believes there will be a lot of first-time caucusgoers tonight. And while some caucusgoers are zeroed in on a candidate whom they are “passionate about,” Kaufmann said that there’s several Iowans who “want a different direction.”

“A lot of Republicans that may not vote for Donald Trump tonight still like Donald Trump’s policies. I think people are conflicted,” Kaufmann told CNN. 

“This is the reason why that we absolutely need to have a caucus starting this process. Because like tonight, if somebody’s undecided, they got a shot listening to the” surrogate speeches, he added.

Iowa Republican strategist David Kochel said a week ago, he had estimated that about 150,000 voters would show up in Iowa caucuses. But as Iowa experiences brutally cold temperatures, he thinks the turnout is going to be lower.

“In rural counties where, you know, they don’t get plowed as quickly, you know you go in the ditch — your car’s not coming out; your battery might be dead,” he explained.

In this scenario, the Iowa caucuses may “produce a surprise” result, he said.

Watch the interview:

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01:05 - Source: cnn

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told CNN that he doesn’t regret previously supporting former President Donald Trump, who endorsed him ahead of his first run for governor.

“When he was president, I supported his policies. He was under assault from the left and the media,” DeSantis told CNN. “I was happy to do that, because he was our chance to get things done in a positive direction.” 

But, DeSantis said, it’s different now. “When you’re in a primary situation, I want Republicans to do well. If someone’s endorsed me, great. If they haven’t, if they’re doing a good job, I’m happy for that. I want our party to do well. Donald Trump is not that way. He wants to trash Gov. (Kim) Reynolds who is gold here in Iowa, simply because she’s on my team,” DeSantis said. 

He touted the endorsements he received from state legislators in Iowa and Reynolds.

“The Washington folks, they’re scared of Donald Trump primarying for them or whatever he’s going to do. The state folks, they’re concerned about the top of the ticket,” DeSantis said, adding that he represents a “change agent in Washington, DC,” while Trump represents “the party of the Washington, DC establishment,” which has “lined up behind him.”

While voters in Iowa prepare to caucus, the ad wars in New Hampshire are heating up, as Nikki Haley’s political network launched two new ads there Monday, including the first from the Haley campaign going directly at former President Donald Trump. 

The new ad from the Haley campaign features a blunt open, telling voters, “The two most disliked politicians in America? Trump and Biden.” 

The ad’s narrator continues, “Both are consumed by chaos, negativity and grievances of the past. The better choice for a better America, Nikki Haley.” 

The ad reflects a notable shift in the campaign’s advertising, which up to this point has mostly focused on touting Haley’s biography and record, her electability, and the endorsement of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. It’s the first spot from her own campaign featuring explicit criticism of Trump. 

And it comes as Haley has begun to face attacks from Trump’s political network. The super PAC supporting his campaign, MAGA Inc., has spent over $1 million airing an ad in New Hampshire media markets since December, highlighting her record on the gas tax as governor of South Carolina. The super PAC is also up with an ad criticizing Haley’s commitment to stopping illegal immigration. 

Since the start of 2023, Haley and her allies have spent nearly $28.6 million advertising in New Hampshire, while Trump and his allies have spent about $14.4 million advertising there. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis, spent about $8 million advertising in New Hampshire, but has been dark in the state since mid-November. 

In recent weeks, the gap between Haley and Trump’s advertising has narrowed. Since the start of the new year, Haley and her allies have combined to spend about $9 million in New Hampshire, while Trump and his allies have spent about $8.5 million. 

A dangerous Arctic blast has settled in across much of the US, which will bring Iowa their coldest caucuses on record. Des Moines, Sioux City and Cedar Rapids are under will chill warnings.

The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

Here’s a snapshot of temperatures across Iowa:

Des Moines:

Sioux City

Cedar Rapids

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy thanked Iowa voters ahead of Monday night’s caucuses for providing the most “memorable experience” of his life as he prepares to move on to New Hampshire.

Ramaswamy joked with the packed crowd at the Machine Shed restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa, on Monday he’s been regularly humbled by voters at the hundreds of campaign events he’s held across the state — many of which have taken place at the regional casual dining chain Pizza Ranch. 

“It has been the most humbling experience of my lifetime. I understand why Iowa goes first, because this is a job interview. You got to see it that way. Sometimes presidential candidates forget that when you’re talking to the media all the time. Go to 100 Pizza Ranches and it’ll put you in your place,” Ramaswamy said. 

“Been to more of those than probably would have been great for my health. We started with the deep dish, went to the thin crust. Now I’m at the salad bar by the time we leave Iowa,” he said, drawing laughs from the crowd. 

Ramaswamy said he’s become a strong advocate for Iowa hosting the first nominating contest on the calendar after meeting with Iowans at so many events. Ramaswamy estimated he’s hosted over 300 events in Iowa since the start of his campaign, a testament to his to commitment to performing well in the state and the full-throttle energy with which he’s approached the campaign. 

Ramaswamy told voters in Urbandale he’ll fondly remember his visits to the Hawkeye State dating back to the middle of last year and pledged to return to the state ahead of the general election should he win the nomination. 

“It’s been the most humbling but fulfilling and memorable experience of our lives. Even tonight, late tonight, when we begin to make our way to New Hampshire, however late in the night that is, we’re gonna miss this place. We’re going to miss all of you. We’re going to miss this year.”

Nathan and Olivia Becker of Beaverton, Oregon, made it to Iowa just in time to attend Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ final event on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, where he rallied supporters crowded into a packed event space in Ankeny.

The Oregon GOP primary isn’t until May 21, but the Beckers wanted to do what they could to boost support for the Florida governor ahead of the first nominating contest. So late last week, the couple and their two kids – ages three and eight months – traveled from their home outside Portland to Des Moines to volunteer for DeSantis ahead of caucus day. 

Nathan, 37, said he’d been following DeSantis since he was first elected governor in 2018 and thought he was the most qualified candidate. He said he’s never voted for former President Donald Trump, whose behavior he finds “despicable.” 

“It’s just been really not something that we want to see or condone in any way,” he said. The couple said they hoped to avoid a rematch between President Joe Biden and Trump.

It was not an easy trip. The journey, complicated by winter weather, resembled the plot of the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” Nathan said. They spent a night in Denver with a relative after the second leg of their trip, to Des Moines, was canceled, then flew to Kansas City and drove three hours. Their luggage, with most of their winter clothing, went missing. After the Ankeny event they planned to head to Target. 

But it was all worth it to help DeSantis, they said. 

“Nathan is viewing it as an investment,” Olivia said. “Hopefully, if DeSantis wins, interest rates will go down and we can buy a bigger house. And some school choice would be nice.”

Nathan said he would spend caucus day phone banking and doing whatever else the campaign needed. In the evening, he planned to drive his sister, who is eight and a half months pregnant, to her caucus site near Waterloo, Iowa. 

Asked about polling showing DeSantis fighting for a distant second place against Trump, Nathan said he was optimistic based on what he was hearing from people on the ground, the unpredictability of the turnout and what he knew about the strength of the campaign’s ground game. Olivia said that DeSantis winning would send an important message that Trump’s nomination isn’t inevitable. 

“We are hopeful,” she said. “I have not voted for a president since 2008, but I would vote for Ron DeSantis.” 

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Monday argued Americans want to talk about the economy, not “whether somebody’s MAGA or not,” after former President Donald Trump accused her and fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of not being part of his Make America Great Again movement. 

“This is not what Americans want to be talking about. They’re wanting to know why economy’s high, why inflation’s high, why everything’s more expensive, they want to know why we aren’t focused on getting our kids reading again, they want to know how we’re allowing the lawlessness at the border, it’s out of control, not whether somebody’s MAGA or not,” Haley said at Drake Diner in Des Moines, Iowa, as she kicked off Iowa caucuses day.

Haley continued, “That’s the whole problem with where we are in this country, it’s become too personal. Politics is not personal, it should be about policy.

Trump said at a rally on Sunday that Haley was “really not much of a Republican,” and was “certainly not MAGA.” The former president also attacked Ramaswamy and said, “Vivek is not MAGA.”  

Former President Donald Trump spent the morning ahead of Iowa caucuses attacking his GOP rivals on social media.

In a series of posts, Trump claimed that he was beating President Joe Biden in recent polls, while his opponents were “losing badly” to Biden, and alleged that the media was trying to promote Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ahead of the caucuses.

Trump also once again went after entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, saying a “vote for Vivek is a wasted vote” and accusing Ramaswamy of playing it “too cute” with Trump’s team.

Privately and publicly, Trump has been concerned about turnout Monday night, asking allies if they thought the weather would affect his ability to win by a definitive margin. Trump’s team, however, continues to insist that their internal data shows Trump’s base is motivated to turnout, no matter the conditions.

It’s the Iowa caucuses – not the Iowa caucus.

Tonight, voters will gather in 1,657 separate precincts across Iowa for neighborhood meetings – or caucuses – to express their preference in the Republican presidential race. These gatherings are organized by the GOP, rather than state election officials, and will be held in about 730 different venues like schools, churches, community centers and libraries. 

Those two figures – 1,657 precincts, but 730 locations – are interesting and potentially important. Why? This year, many of the precinct meetings will be held in the same larger location – different rooms of a high school, for example – in consolidated super sites.

In 28 counties, of Iowa’s 99, there is only one caucus location. That means some voters will have to drive many miles to reach their destination. In rural Iowa, for example, a caucus site is likely to be much farther away than in the city or suburban areas. 

As the dean of the Iowa press corps, O. Kay Henderson from Radio Iowa explained, those super sites could be significant.

We will find out tonight if those longer drives impacts turnout, given the frigid wind chills and snowy road conditions for much of the state. 

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Monday morning responded to criticism from former President Donald Trump, who called his campaign “deceitful.” 

Ramaswamy, when asked by Fox News host Steve Doocy about Trump attacking his campaign Saturday, said, “Well I’ll tell you this is, you know, I took it in a lighthearted way. But the truth is, people have to have their head stuck in the snow not to see what’s happening on the ground here.” 

Trump issued his first criticism of Ramaswamy in a Truth Social post Saturday, saying Ramaswamy “started his campaign as a great supporter, ‘the best President in generations,’ etc. Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks.”

Ramaswamy told Doocy, “I know the mainstream media is ignoring it, but there has been a massive surge here late in the process. A number of endorsers who were widely expected to go to Donald Trump – legends in Iowa like former Congressman Steve King, widely expected to go for Trump, came for me, a number of the strongest constitutionalist conservatives have switched from the other candidates in the last 72 hours to me.”

He continued, “Steve Holt came from Ron DeSantis. And so, I think people who are actually on the ground are not blind to that reality. And I think the mainstream media, largely, for better or for worse, has been, which means I think we’re going to see a shock tonight.”

Ramaswamy also responded to praise from billionaire Elon Musk, saying, “I think he’s a smart guy, and look we’ll see what happens tonight. But one of the things is, I think the polls are dramatically off. Many of our supporters are first time caucus-goers, people who may have come from younger generations.” 

And he nodded to the frigid conditions facing Iowa voters tonight, “I think a lot of our supporters – we don’t have lukewarm supporters, Steve, we have diehard supporters. And I think that’s what’s going to be rewarded tonight as well.” 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the result from tonight’s Iowa caucuses will create a clear, binary choice for voters in the Republican primary.

“I think people are going to say there’s only two possible nominees: Donald Trump or Governor DeSantis,” DeSantis told CNN’s Dana Bash at his campaign headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa.

“We’re the only ones that have strong support amongst bedrock Republican conservative voters, and to win a Republican nomination, you have got to be able to do that. I think Iowa will show that very clearly,” he said.

“A lot of these voters that are still undecided, it’s almost all decided between Trump or me in terms of what they’re doing, and I think that’s just kind of where the party is and I think that will be apparent,” DeSantis continued. 

In the latest Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sits in between Trump and DeSantis at 20%. 

DeSantis urged voters considering Haley to caucus for him, arguing “Nikki Haley could not possibly beat Donald Trump. She doesn’t have enough support amongst core conservatives.”

Donald Trump’s biggest competition on Monday entering the Iowa caucuses may be his own expectations, with the final Des Moines Register poll showing the former president with a 28-point lead over his nearest rival.

Advisers to the former president have tried to temper expectations in the days leading up to the caucuses, suggesting anything topping Bob Dole’s 1988 record-setting margin of nearly 13 points would be a major victory. Trump, however, faces a different standard. He’s a former president who has held a commanding lead from start-to-finish in Iowa and approached the nominating fight like an incumbent.

The final Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll before the caucuses found that, overall, 48% of likely caucusgoers say Trump would be their first choice, while 20% name former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and 16% Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with the rest of the field below 10%.

The combination of Trump’s dominance in the polls and the dire weather forecast across Iowa also raises concerns about complacency on the part of the former president’s supporters. During one speech Sunday, Trump warned his supporters that, “even if you think we’re winning by a lot, it doesn’t matter, you have to get out and vote.”

At another event in Indianola, Trump said, “You can’t sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it.’ Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley expressed confidence on Monday that Iowans would turn out and caucus for her today, despite the record breaking cold weather.

“Iowans are not deterred by this. From everything we’ve seen, they plan on getting out, they plan on caucusing. And we’re not deterred either. We’re going to be out there in the snow until the very last second trying to earn every vote,” she said on Fox and Friends.

She said she’s hearing from her team on the ground that “people are determined to get out and vote,” despite the cold weather.

Addressing recent polling that shows her beating President Joe Biden outside of the margin of error in a hypothetical general election matchup, Haley implied she would have “a double digit mandate going into DC.”

“We can’t have a nail biter of election next November. If you elect me in this caucus today, I’ll be the one that defeats Joe Biden and we’ll get our country back on track,” she said.

Teresa Garman has attended decades worth of Iowa caucuses, but views Monday’s meeting as the most consequential.

Despite forecasts predicting negative temperatures, the 86-year-old Ames resident said the cold wouldn’t deter her from showing up to back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – even if she doesn’t think he’ll beat former President Donald Trump.

“I think Trump is probably going to win the Iowa caucus and hopefully DeSantis will be next,” Garman, a former Iowa state representative, said ahead of a DeSantis event here. She said she hoped the Florida governor would come in second “just in case Trump isn’t able to run.”

Trump – and his myriad legal troubles – have loomed large over the GOP presidential primary, especially as Republicans in the Hawkeye State make their final decision on who to back in Monday night’s caucuses. Polls have shown the former president with a commanding lead over the field both in Iowa and nationally, even as he faces four indictments and awaits a Supreme Court decision over efforts to remove him from the ballot in Colorado.

In interviews, Iowans expressed an array of opinions on Trump’s legal problems, from anger over what they say they believe is a “witch hunt,” echoing the former president’s criticism, to a desire to move on and focus on issues plaguing the country.

Trump’s rivals have taken different approaches to manage those views. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley refers to the “chaos” that follows the former president. DeSantis, who often says Trump “is running for his issues” while he runs on voters’ issues, has also argued the legal challenges would be a distraction in a general election.

Read more about what Iowa voters are saying about Trump’s legal woes.

The Biden campaign is looking ahead to a general election matchup with former President Donald Trump as the GOP primary season begins in earnest Monday.

Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said the campaign was “excited for the fight ahead” and would be “watching closely to see what emerges here tonight in Iowa, ready to provide the American people with the stark contrast between the president, who’s fighting for more freedom and more democracy, and these MAGA extremists led by Donald Trump, who want to tear down the fabric of American democracy.”

Speaking during an appearance on “CNN This Morning” from Des Moines, Iowa, Tyler also echoed Biden and other top officials in casting the 2024 election as existential to the future of democracy, saying his team was “absolutely ready” to take on Trump if he wins as Republican nominee.

“We’ve been gearing up for that fight since launch in April 2023, and we’re scaling up our operation right now, to meet the moment meet the challenge presented by Donald Trump and the threat that he represents to American democracy.” 

Tyler downplayed any anxiety when pressed by CNN’s Kasie Hunt on the write-in campaign in New Hampshire, where Biden’s name is not physically on the primary ballot next week due to his efforts to shift the Democratic calendar to place South Carolina first. 

“This campaign has made very clear that we’re gonna follow the rules put in place by the Democratic National Committee,” he said.

Republican candidates and their allies have bombarded Iowa residents with more than $123 million in advertising, breaking the pace set during the 2020 caucuses.

The three leading Republican presidential candidates – Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis – and their allied super PACs account for more than 70% of all the ad spending in Iowa since the start of 2023, which amounts to more than $90 million.

The $123 million in ad spending far outpaces the $84 million that campaigns and groups had spent on advertising ahead of the 2020 Iowa caucuses, when Democrats were battling to become their party’s standard-bearer.

In recent weeks, Haley and DeSantis – who are jockeying to emerge as the leading alternative to Trump, the Iowa polling front-runner – have pummeled one another on the airwaves with blistering ads that accuse their opponent of failing to confront the economic and national security threat posed by China and attacking their records as governor.

All the while, they’ve largely steered clear of targeting Trump.

Read more about how Republicans and allies have bombarded Iowa residents with more than $123 million in advertising.

The storied history of the Iowa caucuses has never seen anything like this.

A fateful election year likely to put the country’s institutions to an extreme test opens Monday as the first-in-the-nation state shivers under a blast of perishing polar weather.

But it’s not stopping Donald Trump from telling his voters to go out and caucus even if they’re “sick as a dog,” while urging them to punish enemies he branded “cheaters” and “liars.” The former president, who left office in disgrace in January 2021, is seeking a bumper win to set him on the road to a third straight GOP nomination — and a possible return to the White House.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley wants a jolt of momentum ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary – her best bet for a shock win over Trump. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is battling to keep his campaign alive.

But after months of polls, multimillion-dollar ad blitzes and a collision between an election and Trump’s legal morass, Iowans’ voices are the only ones that matter, although the weather may influence which of them is able to show up.

Read more about Collinson’s analysis of the Iowa caucuses.

Iowa Republicans who are willing to brave record-low temperatures are set to kick off the party’s 2024 presidential nominating process with Monday night’s caucuses.

The Arctic cold largely froze the field in the race’s final days, with former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others shortening their lists of scheduled events.

Now, Iowa voters will render the first verdict of the 2024 election, weighing in on which Republican should take on President Joe Biden in November.

Will Trump top 50%?

The race for second place

Does Iowa narrow the field?

Here’s what else to watch in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses.

Former President Donald Trump holds a wide lead over his Republican presidential competitors among likely GOP caucusgoers in Iowa, the final Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom  before Monday’s caucuses found.

Overall:

Trump stood at 51% in the December DMR/NBC poll and 43% in October, with his chief rivals in the teens in both of those prior polls.

Haley’s numerical move to second place is within the margin of error. Neither her support nor DeSantis’ has changed significantly since the December poll, when DeSantis stood at 19% to Haley’s 16% in a survey with a 4.4 point error margin.

Here’s what else to know about polling in Iowa.

Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann on Sunday predicted that despite the forecasted subzero temperatures and parts of Iowa hit by a blizzard over the weekend, there will be a “robust turnout” on Monday night’s caucuses.

“Temperatures are the least of my concern in terms of depressing turnout. Iowans know how to dress for that,” Kaufmann said, speaking to reporters at an event hosted Bloomberg in Des Moines.

“From what I’m hearing, and what I’m seeing in the rallies…I think it’s going to be a robust turnout,” he added.

Kaufmann, who has not endorsed a candidate, said “complacency” is the “number one worry.”

Candidates – including frontrunner former President Donald Trump – have urged their supporters to brave the cold and caucus for them.

“Even if we did not have a poll where we have one of the one of the candidates way ahead, we always have to guard against complacency,” he said.

The severe weather conditions over the weekend forced the presidential hopefuls to either cancel events or switch to tele-town halls, creating a missed opportunity for candidates to connect in-person and deliver their closing message to undecided voters.

Iowa will have their coldest caucuses ever on Monday, as a dangerous Arctic blast dives into the central US this weekend and last through early next week. Monday is expected to be the coldest January day for Iowa in at least five years, with wind chills as low as minus 40 Fahrenheit.

Iowans will wake up to temperatures more than 15 degrees below zero on Monday morning. Nearly the entire state will fail to climb above zero degrees Monday afternoon, the exception being the far southeastern portion of the state that may reach a degree or two above zero. This would be the first time since February of 2021 that the high temperature in Des Moines fails to reach zero degrees.

Add winds to this bitter cold and wind chill will reach life-threatening levels at minus 20 to minus 40 degrees for the entire day.

The forecast average daily temperature for Des Moines on Monday is minus 9.5 degrees, nearly 20 degrees colder than the previous coldest caucus night on January 19, 2004, when the average temperature was 9 degrees, according to CNN analysis of NWS data for Iowa caucuses. Iowa has held caucuses every four years since 1972 in either January or February.

Record-shattering cold caucuses will be in store for the rest of the state as well. Sioux City is forecast to average minus 10 degrees on Monday, more than 20 degrees colder than the 11 degree average for the caucus in 2004. Cedar Rapids is forecast to average minus 9 degrees and Davenport minus 8 degrees on Monday. Previous coldest caucuses there averaged 5.5 and 8 degrees respectively on January 24, 2000.

The Iowa caucus on Monday will provide the first test of whether Donald Trump’s secret weapon in the 2016 GOP presidential nomination contest – his strong support among blue-collar evangelical Christians – is still working for him in 2024.

All signs suggest the answer is: yes.

The biggest surprise in Trump’s march to the nomination in 2016 was how many White evangelical Christians voted for a thrice-married casino-owning New Yorker who had previously expressed liberal views on social issues such as abortion. The key to Trump’s breakthrough among evangelical Christians was his commanding support among the members of that community without a college degree, who supported him then in much greater numbers than those with advanced education.

This time, the former president is running better in national polling than in the 2016 contest among virtually every major demographic group across the party. But blue-collar evangelicals could once again prove a crucial line of defense for Trump in the early states, including Iowa, where voters are more engaged in the race and the results will determine whether his remaining rivals can seriously threaten him for the nomination.

As Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did when he ran against Trump in the 2016 race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pinned his hopes this year largely on mobilizing Iowa’s large number of evangelical Christian conservatives. Like Cruz, DeSantis has staked out the far right flank on virtually every cultural issue in the race and made the case to evangelicals that they can’t trust Trump to deliver on the issues they care most about, including banning abortion and restricting options for transgender young people to participate in school sports or receive gender-affirming care. Late Friday night, DeSantis’ campaign announced he had obtained endorsements from 150 “faith leaders” across Iowa; many of the state’s most prominent social conservatives have rallied around him.

Keep reading about Trump’s lead among evangelicals.

The Republican presidential candidates are all vying to take on President Joe Biden in November. But first, they’re competing in the GOP primaries and caucuses to emerge as the party’s nominee. 

Tonight’s Iowa caucuses are the first test of the primary season — and an initial opportunity for Republicans to weigh in on whether they want former President Donald Trump to continue leading their party.

Here are the 2024 Republican presidential candidates:

Read more about the GOP candidates vying for the nomination.

In November, Americans will once again be filling out ballots to decide who will lead the country for the next four years. These ballots will have a single presidential candidate for each of the major parties, selected earlier in the year by a series of primary elections held in each state.

Today, Iowa Republicans will kick off the season by holding their version of a primary election – the Iowa caucuses.

Iowa has traditionally been the first state every four years to hold a presidential nominating contest of any kind. Here are some key things to know about a caucus:

Can anyone go to a caucus? Just like with primary elections, some states allow voters to come regardless of party affiliation, some require you to have been a registered party member beforehand, and some use a mix of the two. Iowa Republicans, for example, allow you to sign up to become a party member on the night of the caucuses. Check with your state’s party organization to find out how it will work for you.

Is a caucus the same as a primary? Yes and no. A caucus is put on by a political party as part of the presidential nominating process, but it’s not exactly the same as a primary election. Primary elections are held throughout the day and always use a private ballot. While the form caucuses take varies from state to state, caucuses are typically held at a specific time and often give voters an opportunity to listen to prospective candidate representatives before registering support for their candidate of choice.

Why does Iowa matter? Iowa represents the first major test of a campaign’s ability to communicate with voters on the national stage. As the first state in each cycle to have their primary, it catches candidates while their campaign funds are full and their energy is fresh. As a small state, Iowa also pitches itself as an opportunity for less well-funded candidates to have success campaigning on the ground. Despite the spotlight, the results of the Iowa caucuses have not consistently predicted who will eventually become the party’s nominee.

Read more about the Iowa caucuses here.