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Iowa Precinct Map: Detailed Results From the G.O.P. Caucuses
Trump 0.0% Haley 0.0% DeSantis 0.0% Ramaswamy 0.0% Other 0.0% Trump 0.0% Haley 0.0% DeSantis 0.0% Ramaswamy 0.0% Other 0.0% More
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Donald Trump Wins the Iowa GOP Caucuses
Donald J. Trump won the Iowa caucuses on Monday, a crucial first step in his bid to reclaim the Republican nomination for the third consecutive election as voters braved the bitter cold, looked past his mounting legal jeopardy and embraced his vision of vengeful disruption.The victory, called by The Associated Press on Monday night only 31 minutes after the caucuses had begun, accelerated Mr. Trump’s momentum toward a historic potential rematch in November with President Biden that could play out on both the campaign trail and in the courtroom.In a state that had rejected him in the caucuses eight years ago, Mr. Trump finished ahead of two of his main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who were locked in a race for second place. It was unclear who had won second and who had won third. The result was a setback for both Republicans, who had spent as much time and money battling each other in Iowa as they had spent on the front-runner. Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, had previously predicted victory in Iowa, and both he and Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, have argued that a strong second-place finish would better position them as Mr. Trump’s chief rival going forward.Mr. Trump is the first former president in the modern era who has sought to return to the White House. On Monday, he was hoping to shatter the Republican record for the largest victory ever in a contested caucus, which was just under 13 percentage points. Despite the quick declaration of Mr. Trump as the winner, it was not yet clear if he would win an outright majority of more than 50 percent, a critical psychological barrier for those in the party still hoping to stop him.A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, said in a statement that the early declaration of Mr. Trump’s victory was “absolutely outrageous.” He borrowed a phrase from Mr. Trump to accuse the news media of participating “in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? More
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Un gran año electoral no debe distraer del deterioro democrático
Hay que prestar atención al declive institucional.No tengo idea de cómo llegué a mi oficina esta mañana. Quiero decir, sí lo sé: caminé a la estación del metro que está cerca de mi casa, me subí a un tren, unas paradas después transbordé a otro, me bajé cerca de mi oficina y luego entré al edificio, aunque antes fui rápido a una cafetería para comprar un sándwich para el desayuno.Pero esa lista de pasos describe el límite de mi conocimiento. No tengo ni idea de quién abrió la estación de metro ni de lo que se necesita para mantenerla en funcionamiento. (O, como fue el caso, por qué uno de los torniquetes estaba atascado a medio abrir y zumbaba a nadie en particular una quejumbrosa alarma sobre su situación). No sé conducir un tren y, desde luego, no sé cómo es su mantenimiento. Y estoy segura de que los londinenses están muy agradecidos de que yo nunca haya tenido que plantearme cómo excavar un túnel de metro o instalar una línea de tren.Y, sin embargo, si esas cosas no hubieran sucedido en el orden correcto, tal como las diseñaron los expertos y las llevaron a cabo los profesionales, Londres se paralizaría. De hecho, la semana pasada estuvo a punto de producirse ese colapso, debido a una huelga de transportes que se suspendió en el último momento.Lo mágico de las instituciones es esto: existen para que los procesos complejos puedan automatizarse, para que grandes grupos de personas puedan colaborar sin tener que crear nuevos sistemas para hacerlo y para que personas como yo podamos confiar en su pericia sin poseer ni un ápice de esa experiencia.Pero como las instituciones suelen funcionar en segundo plano, sin que se note, a veces es difícil determinar el momento en que empiezan a desmoronarse. Y, lo que es frustrante para mí, es que es aún más difícil escribir sobre el declive progresivo sin que suene tremendamente aburrido.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? More
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How the Iowa Caucuses Work: A Guide to the Process
To people accustomed to voting in primaries by walking into a polling site, privately completing a ballot and walking out — which is to say, most of the country — caucuses may seem bewildering.They certainly did to Mary Doyle when she went to her first caucus more than 20 years ago, after moving to Iowa from Illinois. “I had no clue what was going on,” she said. “It was all brand-new. These people get up and talk, and everybody’s talking, and I didn’t know anybody.”Like many Iowans, Ms. Doyle — who will be a precinct captain for former President Donald J. Trump at a caucus site in western Des Moines on Monday night — came to love the caucus process, with its open expression of candidate preferences and attempts at last-minute persuasion.Caucuses also have their critics, who note that the process makes voting inaccessible for some people and tends to lead to lower turnout than primaries. But love them or hate them, they are still happening. At 7 p.m. Central time, caucusgoers will gather — if they are not deterred by the bitter cold — in schools, community centers and other sites across the state.Here is a step-by-step guide to how the caucuses will work.ArrivalVoters will arrive at their designated caucus site and sign in. Workers will check each person’s ID and voter registration. While only registered Republicans can participate, people are allowed to register or change their party affiliation on the spot.If the campaigns are well organized, each candidate will have a captain on site at each precinct, and that captain may hand out stickers, hats or other swag to supporters as they arrive — a sort of visual display of the strength of that candidate’s support.MinglingAs people wait for the caucus to formally begin, caucusgoers can talk among themselves. Especially in small communities, many of them will know each other, and many of them will start discussing their candidate preferences. They may try to persuade one another if they see an opening.Cody Hoefert, a precinct captain in Rock Rapids for Ron DeSantis who has served as a captain in many election cycles and is a former co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said he would be striking up conversations, looking for people who were undecided or not firmly committed to their choice, and giving them his pitch for Mr. DeSantis.Proceedings beginThe caucus will be called to order, and the caucusgoers’ first order of official business will be to elect a chair to oversee the proceedings.SpeechesA representative for each candidate — generally, precinct captains chosen in advance by the campaigns — will have a chance to give a short speech. Time restrictions can vary from site to site, generally from two to five minutes.This is the part of the process that most distinguishes caucuses from primaries: Participants are, up until the very last moment, actively trying to recruit more people to their side. While most voters are likely to have made up their minds, some may wait to make a final decision until they hear the speeches, and — you never know — some may be leaning toward one candidate but be swayed by a particularly persuasive speech.VotingPaper ballots will be distributed, and people will cast their votes.The votes will be counted on-site right away. The captains will observe the counting process and flag any problems that they see, and regular caucusgoers are allowed to watch as well. The results will be announced out loud and then sent to the state party.The state party will tabulate results from all the precincts and release the statewide totals to the public. More
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The Needle Returns for the Iowa Caucus. Here’s How It Works.
In addition to estimating the final result, our live election model will also look at who is likeliest to take second place.Once Iowa caucus results start coming in after 8 p.m. Eastern tonight, The Times will start publishing a live estimate of the final result, better known as the Needle.How to watch the Needle tonightWith Donald J. Trump leading in polls by a wide margin and with much of the focus on the race for second place, our results pages will feature graphics designed to help you understand how multiple candidates are faring rather than just having a single needle displaying who is most likely to win the race.This hypothetical chart below shows how our live estimates of the Iowa caucuses will work. Our best estimate for each candidate’s final vote share will be shown along with a range of estimates for where things might end up. More
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Pritzker Is Among Democrats Making Case for Biden in Iowa
All the political action in Iowa may be among Republicans, but President Biden’s campaign sought on Monday to get a piece of the action, sending three top surrogates to Des Moines to promote his agenda and trash his potential opponents.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood megadonor and a campaign co-chairman, all made their case for re-electing Mr. Biden before a dozen TV cameras and a gaggle of journalists in a conference room at the Iowa Events Center.Mr. Pritzker said there was no difference between former President Donald J. Trump and his G.O.P. rivals, Ms. Smith warned that Republicans would ban abortion nationwide if they won back the White House and Mr. Katzenberg did a victory lap on the campaign’s latest fund-raising announcement.“Tonight’s contest is simply a contest of whether you like MAGA in its original packaging or in high heels or with lifts in their boots,” Mr. Pritzker said, jabbing at Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who quipped during a debate about wearing heels, and at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has been suspected of wearing lifts in his shoes.Beyond cracks about the Republican candidates’ footwear, the Biden surrogates did not share much new information about the re-election campaign or the president’s thinking. Mr. Pritzker fended off questions about immigration policy and the Supreme Court case concerning Mr. Trump’s eligibility to be on the ballot, while Mr. Katzenberg declined to engage in a debate over whether the Biden campaign is too focused on coastal supporters.Instead, they sought to convey their argument that the future of the nation would be at risk if Mr. Trump were re-elected.“The campaign is running an operation like our democracy depends on it,” Mr. Katzenberg said. “Because in some respect it does.” More
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My Iowa: Covering the Caucuses as a Native or a Newcomer
One of our reporters grew up in Iowa City and was inspired to become a journalist after witnessing the caucuses in action. Another touched down here for the first time two months ago. They compared notes.KELLEN BROWNING If you were trying to think of a city that feels like the polar opposite of San Francisco, Des Moines would be a pretty good bet.When I learned in November that I had two weeks to pack up my life in the Bay Area and move to Iowa for the winter to report on the Iowa caucuses, I called up Sydney Ember, a colleague who drew this assignment four years ago, for advice. She reassured me that driving in the snow would be easy, and said she had almost died only three times on the icy roads during her time in Iowa covering the 2020 Democratic primary race.Armed with that comforting knowledge — and some new coats — I took off for Des Moines. In just six short weeks, I’ve driven more than 3,400 miles in my rental car, attended rallies for all of the leading candidates and spoken with dozens of voters. But while I was moonlighting as an Iowan, one of my colleagues on staff is the real thing.Anjali Huynh, a politics reporter who grew up in Iowa City, has watched all of us reporters try to become Iowa experts, and — I can only imagine — rolled her eyes at our inability to blend in with the locals. As I prepared to wrap up my stint here, I wanted to chat with a real Iowan about her state, and share some of what I have learned.Here’s our conversation.ANJALI HUYNH What was your reaction when you first heard that you were going to be sent to Des Moines, somewhere you haven’t been before?KELLEN I have not spent time in the Midwest, so I was looking forward to it, but I also just had no idea what to expect. In my head I had visions of cornfields and flat terrain, a stark contrast to the slopes of San Francisco. When I first got out here, my first impression of downtown Des Moines was: “Wow, it’s so quiet. I guess people are just at home because it’s kind of cold out.” But Iowa is simply a much more sparsely populated state, and I soon came to realize that’s just how it was.ANJALI How cold was it?KELLEN It was like 40 degrees, which I now view as warm. But, I’m curious: What has it been like for you, who grew up in Iowa City, seeing people like me parachute in?ANJALI It’s been very odd. Part of why I got into journalism was because of the caucuses. In 2016, the first event I ever attended was for Senator Bernie Sanders in my hometown, because I heard that Josh Hutcherson, the guy who plays Peeta in “The Hunger Games,” was going to campaign alongside him.I was 14. I remember being in awe of how many people were there, all to see this guy from Vermont. That was the first time I realized the power that Iowa had in drawing all these candidates here.Campaign signs in Des Moines, where Asa Hutchinson, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate, spoke over the weekend. Hilary Swift for The New York TimesSo in 2020, ahead of the Democratic primary, I persuaded a local newsmagazine to let me follow the candidates. I went to the Iowa State Fair for them, and while covering the candidates, I remember seeing all the national journalists and the way they were talking about and ramming past fairgoers, and just feeling frustrated. I knew that if I made it to some sort of a national stage, I wanted to do it better, to talk about Iowans not just using tropes, but making sure I actually understood why they believed what they believed.KELLEN That’s something I have tried to do by having the opportunity to be on the ground here for six weeks. ANJALI Is there anything that surprised you about Iowa?KELLEN I truly did not realize the whole “Iowa Nice” thing was real. Campaign operatives or strategists who have been doing this for a long time have asked me, “Oh, did you bring mittens? Do you need them?”But Anjali, I wanted to ask what you’re expecting from the caucuses today. What do you make of the process in general?ANJALI I’m still talking to a lot of voters who are undecided. I’ve been covering Vivek Ramaswamy over the last week, and I’ve encountered so many people at his events who say they’re between him and any number of other candidates. Many Iowans wait until the last second to decide whom they’re going to support, so those final pitches do matter.There are a lot of issues with the caucuses; the fact that they’re at a very set time, on a certain day, in person, does make them inaccessible to some people.But there’s a certain beauty about seeing the process unfold, seeing neighbors who really value this process come together and convince one another to support a particular candidate. Iowa has a more diverse array of perspectives than it gets credit for — there aren’t just farmers here — and you can especially see that during the caucuses.Vivek Ramaswamy at an event last week in Des Moines. Hilary Swift for The New York TimesKELLEN My biggest takeaway is that I’ve really enjoyed talking to voters face-to-face who take this very seriously and take their civic responsibility very seriously. And they’re willing to talk to the media.I was speaking with these two couples in Sioux Center the other day after a Trump rally, and they said: “You know, we don’t really like The New York Times very much. We don’t trust it.” We had a 20-minute conversation. I was explaining where the media was coming from: We report the truth. Our stories are accurate. And they said, essentially, “The media has lost the trust of people” and they’re relying more on what they see around them, and on alternative news sources, like Tucker Carlson.There’s this divide now in the country about what is factual, and that makes it very hard to get through to people. But I appreciate that we were able to talk face-to-face about this rather than through a screen.ANJALI Do you have any funny moments from the trail?KELLEN The funniest moment for me was a question from a 10-year-old girl from Nebraska who asked Vivek Ramaswamy, if he became president, whether he would ask China’s leader, Xi Jinping, for a giant panda for her zoo. And he said he would try.ANJALI What about general Iowa highlights?KELLEN Going for runs around Gray’s Lake in Des Moines. There are some incredible sunsets in Iowa. There are several great bridges in Des Moines that light up at night. Some of the food has been really good.A bridge over Gray’s Lake in Des Moines, where Kellen Browning went on runs during his stint in Iowa.Kellen Browning/The New York TimesEven when campaign events took me to rural parts of the state, I found them charming. The Fruited Plain Café in downtown Sioux Center, for instance, is a cozy place to take refuge from the cold. And at one point, I accidentally drove into Nebraska. Anjali, what’s your favorite place in Iowa that’s not Iowa City?ANJALI Dubuque in the fall is beautiful. Last time I went, they had a winter market going on.KELLEN I’ll have to come back at a time when it’s not negative 18 degrees outside. More
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The Joy of Defeat in the Iowa Caucuses
Coming in second can be a win in early-state contests. One thing is certain in tonight’s Iowa caucuses: The loser will make a triumphant victory speech.That’s how it works in early-state presidential politics. It’s the rare contest where coming in second is … a win? The runner-up, whether it’s Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, will claim the Republican mantle of the chief alternative to Donald Trump heading into New Hampshire’s primary.The dynamic has created some hilarious and slightly mind-bending moments in the annals of presidential politics. Eight years ago, a triumphant Marco Rubio declared: “This is the moment they said would never happen.” He was in third place.There’s a long history of candidates turning second place into a rhetorical victory. In 1992, Bill Clinton placed second in New Hampshire and declared himself “the comeback kid.” Trump is the exception here. In 2016 when he placed second in Iowa, he claimed fraud and asked for the results to be thrown out.To learn about the joys of being a runner-up, I called Jessie Diggins, a cross-country skier from Minnesota who knows all about the gap between first and second. She won the first U.S. cross-country skiing gold medal in U.S. history at the 2018 Olympics and then took a silver and a bronze in 2022 — and did it in brutal weather similar to the subzero temperatures that have descended upon Iowa.This is what a real first-place celebration looks like.Lars Baron/Getty Images“The difference between a gold and silver is it will change your life — or it won’t,” she told me from a ski camp in the Italian Alps, where she said she had learned to make tortellini while taking a break from the World Cup circuit.When Diggins won gold in South Korea, NBC’s announcer nearly hyperventilated on the air. “Here comes Diggins! Here comes Diggins!” he screamed as she moved into first place just ahead of the finish line, followed by “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! — Gold!” When Diggins won two more medals four years later, the hype was relatively muted.Like the Olympics, Iowa’s caucuses aren’t only about winning and losing. It will also matter how close the candidates finish to Trump. Nike may disagree — “Second place is the first loser,” the shoe company said at the 1996 Summer Games — but in Iowa second place is often the second winner.If Haley winds up a relatively close second, expect to hear about how it’s the greatest night in her political life. DeSantis would brand himself a modern-day comeback kid with a second-place finish.(Prepare to geek out: The Times’s election night forecast will include a needle for the race for second place tonight.)When second is really firstDiggins knows about heroic second-place finishes.Thirty hours before she won a silver medal at the 2022 Olympics in China, she came down with a case of food poisoning, sapping her energy. She said she was prouder of that finish while competing in suboptimal conditions than the gold from four years earlier.Then last November, during a race near the Arctic Circle in Finland, she lost a glove and was bleeding profusely from her face and still finished second in a 20-kilometer race when it was about zero degrees Fahrenheit — a little bit warmer than the expected minus 5 in Des Moines tonight.“There’s this really interesting relationship between first place and second place because there’s how everyone else treats you, and then there’s how you feel about it,” she said. “If you allow other people to evaluate you, you will never be happy because you will never make everyone happy. And I think that’s probably more true in politics than anywhere else.”Then there’s the weather — the first topic of conversation for just about everybody here in Des Moines.Both DeSantis and Haley have turned Iowa’s weather into a piece of their stump speech. “It’s not going to be pleasant,” DeSantis said of the caucus conditions.For her Olympic races, Diggins said she was wearing “as many layers as I thought I could still move in.” The key to succeeding in brutal conditions, she said, is not letting the cold get to her head, even if every other part of her body is freezing — lessons that carry over to running a presidential campaign.“It’s a really just a pain tolerance,” she said. “How much suffering are you willing to put up with and are you willing to go there?”Campaigns are struggling to estimate how the winter weather will affect voter turnout.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe coldest caucusHow cold is it? The Diocese of Des Moines gave Catholics dispensation to skip yesterday’s Sunday Mass. The National Weather Service described conditions as “arctic.”It will be warmer tonight than it has been over the weekend, but that’s not saying much. Des Moines could see temperatures of 10 below zero, with wind-chill as low as 30 below, according to the National Weather Service. Nevertheless, Republican presidential campaigns are asking Iowans to schlep to more than 1,600 caucus sites across the state tonight to cast ballots in the first presidential contest of 2024.“We’re going to be out there in the snow,” Nikki Haley said Sunday, my colleague Jazmine Ulloa reported.I can say from some experience that being outside when it is 5 below zero is no fun, and 15 below is even worse. At those temperatures, car tires deflate. Gas stations are no help: The air and gas pumps freeze too. It is a risk to be outside.What that means for caucus turnout is anyone’s guess.As my colleague Jonathan Swan reported, the Trump and DeSantis campaigns had been preparing for a record turnout of more than 200,000 caucusgoers, eclipsing the previous high of 187,000 in 2016. But now it’s anyone’s guess.David Kochel, a veteran Iowa Republican strategist, predicted about 150,000 Iowans would show up on Monday, a figure in line with historical norms, but still just about 25 percent of the registered Republicans in the state. He cited Trump’s lead and the weather as the biggest factors.In cities and suburbs where Haley’s supporters are more prevalent, the roads are plowed and there’s less blowing snow. Trump’s supporters in rural Iowa are said to be more motivated, but blowing snow is still whipping across the network of two-lane highways. The DeSantis campaign says his supporters are the most committed caucusgoers of all.All the Iowans we’ve talked to have told reporters they can handle the brutal weather. We’ll all find out tonight, given their shoddy track record, if they can finally carry out glitch-free caucuses.Reporter updates◆◆Donald Trump is making it very clear where his focus is this morning, arguing in a post on Truth Social that Nikki Haley is out of step with the Republican Party, and that she can’t win a general election because she can’t coalesce his MAGA movement behind her.He added what might be the nicest thing he’s said about Ron DeSantis in months: that the Florida governor “at least, is MAGA-Lite.” — Michael Gold◆◆Ron DeSantis continues to insist that he will stay in the race, no matter how he performs in tonight’s caucuses. “We’re going on with this,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “We’ve been built for the long haul.” For months, DeSantis promised to win Iowa, but he and his team have scaled back those expectations as he has remained well behind Donald Trump in polls. —Nicholas NehamasFollow live coverage and results here.More politics news and analysisHope? Nope: Fear and anxiety are on the ballot in Iowa.Oh captain: Meet the little-known biggest players in Iowa tonight.Untold story: Ron DeSantis rarely talks about his compelling biography.Trading places: Our DeSantis and Haley reporters swapped candidates for a day.Smoothie stop-by: Retail politics is complicated when you’re the commander in chief.By the numbers: Seven digits tell the tale of the Republican primary.No pandering: How Trump sidestepped the traditions of Iowa politics.When will we know? Iowa’s history does not inspire confidence for a timely result tonight. More
