As the Iowa caucuses unfold Monday night, Republicans face an unprecedented situation in which a virtual presidential incumbent will be competing in a contest that typically favors upstart candidates who have effectively relocated their lives to the Hawkeye State for the better part of the previous year.
However, Donald Trump, who has mostly dominated Iowa polling, needed no such introduction to the state's highly conservative, heavily evangelical voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by contrast, eventually dedicated most of his resources to winning the state, despite his original game plan of running an expansive 18-state ground offensive.
Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has spent significant time in Iowa but left her biggest footprint in New Hampshire, where polling and the recent exit of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggest she has an outside chance of upsetting Trump.
All of these factors will converge today to attach significantly more meaning to Monday’s outcome than the numbers might reveal. Here are five things to look for as the results of the Republican Party's Iowa caucuses take shape.
No single speech can win a primary, but Haley could give herself a boost with the right framing. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin took a jaunty shot at a speech that would make waves while making Trump pretty stabby in the process.
If Haley has the chops to make this GOP primary competitive, her first big opportunity to prove it will be how she spins the results of the first contest.
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However, Donald Trump, who has mostly dominated Iowa polling, needed no such introduction to the state's highly conservative, heavily evangelical voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by contrast, eventually dedicated most of his resources to winning the state, despite his original game plan of running an expansive 18-state ground offensive.
Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has spent significant time in Iowa but left her biggest footprint in New Hampshire, where polling and the recent exit of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggest she has an outside chance of upsetting Trump.
All of these factors will converge today to attach significantly more meaning to Monday’s outcome than the numbers might reveal. Here are five things to look for as the results of the Republican Party's Iowa caucuses take shape.
- Expectations: Iowa is nothing if not an expectations game. In some ways, where a candidate finishes isn't nearly as significant as where they finish relative to expectations. So the final results should all be judged through that lens.
- Does Trump break 50%? Trump will almost surely win the raw numbers battle, but he could still fall short of expectations that he will dominate the field. In 538's tracking of the aggregate, Trump has hovered either just above or below 50% in six of the nine polls conducted since Dec. 1. A sub-50 finish for an incumbent running in a friendly state would render Trump vulnerable from the standpoint of basic 50-plus-1 electoral math, and the media will likely feast on it.
- Does DeSantis take second? There's a reason the DeSantis campaign redirected so many resources toward Iowa: It's essential he has a good showing there. DeSantis' path to victory nearly disappears after Iowa. He's polling in single-digits in New Hampshire and a distant third in South Carolina. In the early days of his campaign, DeSantis enjoyed high national name recognition while running second in multiple early states. Since then DeSantis has done nothing but sink, so he's almost fated to underdeliver in Iowa. But a third-place finish could be a knock-out punch if donors drop DeSantis like a hot rock.
- Does Haley beat expectations? No one expected much of anything from Haley at the outset of her campaign, so her steady ascent in early-state polling has already beaten expectations in some respects. In Iowa, Haley could probably turn in anything from a strong third-place finish to a second-place stunner and get a momentum boost into New Hampshire. It's the Granite State that will determine Haley's staying power, particularly in the absence of Christie, whose voters are mostly likely to transfer to her.
- What kind of speech will Haley deliver? In many ways, a strong finish is all in the framing. In 1992 Bill Clinton dubbed himself the "Comeback Kid" after his second-place finish in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, and the rest was history.
No single speech can win a primary, but Haley could give herself a boost with the right framing. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin took a jaunty shot at a speech that would make waves while making Trump pretty stabby in the process.
If Haley has the chops to make this GOP primary competitive, her first big opportunity to prove it will be how she spins the results of the first contest.
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