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      Who Are the Iowa Caucus Captains and What Do They Do?

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      At every precinct from Sioux City to Davenport, captains will give speeches on behalf of their preferred candidates and try to persuade their neighbors at the last minute.What distinguishes the caucuses in Iowa from the primaries in most other states is persuasion: the notion that, even if someone enters their voting site with a preferred candidate, they might still be open to changing their mind.While electioneering is commonly prohibited at polling places in other states, in the gymnasiums, auditoriums, churches and community centers where Iowans will gather Monday night, it is actively encouraged. And the people formally tasked with doing it — the precinct captains — are some of the caucuses’ most important players. Yet, they are little known to outside observers.The goal is to have one captain for each candidate, at each site. They try to personally persuade people before the proceedings begin, and later comes the central responsibility: a short speech on why their neighbors should support their candidate.Some are seasoned operatives — one of Ron DeSantis’s captains is a former co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, and one of Nikki Haley’s is a state senator.But many are just ordinary Iowans who decided to volunteer, often for the first time. Meet four of them:Mary DoyleSupporting Donald J. Trump in Des Moines“I was a little bit leery because, oh, wait a minute, that sounds like it’s important and I should know what I’m doing,” Mary Doyle said about being a caucus captain.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesWhen Mary Doyle, 69, attended a Trump rally last summer, she checked a box on a form saying she wanted to help the campaign. On Monday, she will be a precinct captain — a job she hesitated to agree to.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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      The Weather in Iowa Is Not the Only Thing That Is Bitterly Cold

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, we are conversing on the eve of the Iowa caucuses — not yet knowing who came in second, but not in much doubt about who’ll come in first. I’m trying to remember the last time the Republican winner went on to win the nomination: Ted Cruz in 2016? Rick Santorum in 2012? Mike Huckabee in 2008?Losers all. Assuming Donald Trump wins, that might even be a good omen.Gail Collins: And remember, Trump won Iowa in 2020, when he was an incumbent president looking for a second term; that didn’t turn out all that well for him, either.Bret: Not that I’m rooting for him to win in Iowa. Or anywhere else for that matter.Gail: I like the way we’re starting out! Now tell me how you think the other Republicans are doing. Especially your fave, Nikki Haley.Bret: Her zinger in the debate with Ron DeSantis — “You’re so desperate, you’re just so desperate” — could be turned into a country music hit by Miranda Lambert. Or maybe Carly Simon: You’re so desperate, you probably think this race is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?Gail: Hehehehehe.Bret: I just fear that, in the battle between Haley and DeSantis, they’re canceling each other out, like matter and antimatter. As our colleague Frank Bruni pointed out in his terrific column last week, that just clears the path for The Donald.Gail: Whenever a candidate boasts, like DeSantis, that he’s visited all 99 counties in Iowa, you hear a shriek of desperation mixed in with the bragging. But I’m not gonna totally give up hope for Haley until we see what happens in New Hampshire.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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      A Big Reason to Pay Attention to Iowa? New Hampshire.

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      Second place could mean a lot to Nikki Haley tonight as a showdown with Donald Trump looms in the next primary contest.Finishing second in Iowa could propel Nikki Haley in New Hampshire.John Tully for The New York TimesThe long road to the Republican presidential nomination begins tonight in Iowa, where voters will gather at their neighborhood precinct caucuses to cast the first votes of the 2024 election campaign.Iowa may not have many voters or delegates, but the first-in-the-nation caucuses always attract a media frenzy. With the help of the national spotlight, Iowa voters have been surprisingly influential over the decades: A caucus win has sometimes been enough to propel candidates — think Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter — from a deep deficit or even obscurity to the nomination.But tonight, Iowa voters seem likely to choose Donald J. Trump — someone they didn’t pick eight years ago, but who now appears poised for the largest victory in a contested Iowa Republican caucus.Absent a polling meltdown, Mr. Trump’s victory would be one of the more impressive illustration of his dominance over the Republican Party. In 2016, Iowa voters rejected Mr. Trump in favor of Ted Cruz. And unlike most of the country, the Republican establishment in Iowa has not gone along with Mr. Trump. Yet he’s poised for an overwhelming victory anyway.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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      Campaigns Battle Cold and Complacency in Final Turnout Push in Iowa

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      Republicans once had high hopes for turnout in Monday’s caucuses. But the brutal weather and Donald Trump’s dominance have cooled predictions.Nikki Haley’s team predicts Iowans will brave brutal weather to caucus for her. Aides to Ron DeSantis say the subzero temperatures give their candidate an edge because he has the biggest team knocking on doors. And the Trump team says they don’t worry about the cold — former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters will “walk through glass” to caucus for him.The truth: No one really knows what to expect on Monday night when Iowans become the first to weigh in on the 2024 presidential election. An already unpredictable and quirky process is even more so this year, thanks to dangerously cold weather and an unusually uncompetitive contest.Until recently, both the Trump and DeSantis teams had been privately preparing for an enormous turnout of more than 200,000 caucusgoers, a figure that would eclipse the party’s previous record of 187,000 in 2016. But as the winter storm blew in last week, nobody from any of the leading campaigns wanted to attach their names to a firm prediction.The National Weather Service forecast subzero temperatures in Des Moines, with wind chills dropping to as low as minus 30 degrees on Monday.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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      Is Trump Steaming Toward a Candidacy-Sinking Iceberg? Three Writers Look at Iowa and Beyond.

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Mike Murphy, a co-director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, a former Republican strategist for John McCain and others and a host of the podcast “Hacks on Tap” and Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster and a moderator of the Times Opinion focus group series, to discuss their expectations for the Iowa caucus. They also banter about the road ahead for the G.O.P. primary and what the general election might look like after the primary.Frank Bruni: Mike, Kristen, happy Iowa caucuses. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table in a parka and earmuffs, in honor of the freezing temperatures that caucusgoers are expected to brave. And I thank you for joining me.Have any of the developments of recent days (Donald Trump’s appearance in two different courtrooms, Chris Christie’s exit from the race, the Nikki Haley-Ron DeSantis debate, some other twist) potentially altered the trajectory of the race or set up caucus results that might surprise us?Kristen Soltis Anderson: I doubt that the events of the last few days have done much. This is still Trump’s caucus to lose.Bruni: But will he win as big as some people believe? And if he does stage a blowout, is there only one, or more than one, ticket out of Iowa?Soltis Anderson: I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump get a majority of votes. And I think there’s only one ticket out of Iowa. DeSantis would need to dominate handily, winning or coming near Trump’s share, to have a prayer of gaining the momentum he’d need to thrive in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Without that, DeSantis has nowhere to go besides looking ahead to 2028.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, Where and When to Caucus in Iowa on Monday

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      The Iowans who will brave frigid temperatures Monday for the first test of support for Republican presidential hopefuls will be caucusing — a process that’s distinct from other ballot-box affairs.Unlike in other elections, Iowa’s Democratic and Republican parties, not the state’s government, organize and run the caucuses. And members of the two parties will conduct business a little differently.What happens during a caucus?Once participating Republican voters arrive at the caucus precinct, they must check in with precinct workers, who will verify that they are eligible to participate. (Only registered Republicans may participate in G.O.P. caucuses, but party rules allow unregistered voters, Democrats and independents to register or switch their party affiliation at the caucus site.)Then, the caucusgoers will elect a chair and secretary to preside over the event. Supporters of each candidate will speak to the caucus, pitching their peers on why they should support their preferred candidates.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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      Democrats Fret That Biden’s Power Players Are Not at His Campaign Base

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      President Biden has a re-election campaign with two distinct centers of gravity — the White House and his Delaware headquarters — and advisers who are juggling two jobs at once.With less than 10 months to go until the 2024 election, the nerve center of President Biden’s bid for a second term is stationed not at his campaign’s headquarters in Delaware but within feet of the Oval Office.The president and his chief strategist, Mike Donilon, have repeatedly discussed when to move him over to the campaign — perhaps after the 2022 midterm elections, then after the 2023 off-year elections and again at the end of 2023. Each time, no move happened after the president told aides he wanted to keep Mr. Donilon within walking distance.Anita Dunn, the longtime Democratic operative who stepped in to help revive Mr. Biden’s fledging operation four years ago, is devising the re-election message again, even as she oversees communications at the White House. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s deputy White House chief of staff and former campaign manager, is also splitting her day job with her role as one of the most powerful voices in the campaign.So far, almost none of the people in the president’s inner circle have left for campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., prompting some donors and strategists to worry that too much of Mr. Biden’s team remains cloistered inside the White House. Less than a year before Election Day, the president has a campaign with two distinct centers of gravity, advisers juggling two jobs at once, and months of internal debate about when to consolidate everyone in one place.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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      Trump Has Made Claims About Caucus Fraud. What if He Underperforms?

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      The last time Donald J. Trump participated in competitive Iowa caucuses, he lost narrowly, accused Senator Ted Cruz of Texas of stealing the contest, claimed fraud, demanded that Iowa Republicans nullify the results, and called for a rerun.While Iowa has a history of troubles with its caucus results, there’s been no evidence of fraud. The 2016 Republican contest was, in fact, the only one since 2008 that had gone off without a hitch.And yet if Monday night ends with Mr. Trump underperforming expectations, both his history and his rhetoric during this year’s campaign suggest he won’t hesitate to cry foul and refuse to accept the result.Mr. Trump has already accused Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida of “trying to rig” the caucuses. Laura Loomer, a far-right and anti-Muslim activist whom Mr. Trump last year considered hiring for a campaign post, suggested on social media that “the deep state” was engaging in “weather manipulation” to instigate Iowa’s Friday snowstorm and subzero temperatures to depress Trump turnout on Monday. And Donald Trump Jr. suggested in a Telegram video that “we can’t take anything for granted, or assume that everything is going to be on the up and up. We’ve seen this rodeo before.”Those claims are not likely to be met with much support from Iowa Republicans and the party volunteers who will operate the 1,657 caucus sites across the state.“If Trump says it’s fraud, he’s full of crap,” said A.J. Spiker, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa who is backing Mr. DeSantis.Still, Iowa Republicans aim to protect themselves from campaigns claiming foul play at the caucuses.At each site, caucusgoers mark their presidential preferences on paper slips. Those slips are then counted in full view of whoever wants to watch. Typically a representative from each campaign watches the counting, and recording is allowed.“It’s the most transparent straw vote you could possibly do,” Mr. Spiker said.The Trump campaign’s headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa, on Saturday.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s pre-emptive Iowa fraud claims last month followed a flub by Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey DeSantis. She called on supporters to “descend upon the state of Iowa to be a part of the caucus.”“You do not have to be a resident of Iowa to be able to participate in the caucus,” she said.That earned Ms. DeSantis a rebuke from the state Republican Party.Only Iowans can participate in the caucuses. Republican volunteers are supposed to check for photo identification at the caucus sites. Still, Mr. Trump’s campaign suggested then that the DeSantis campaign had professed a “plot to rig the caucus through fraud.”Another candidate who has trafficked in conspiracies and has been sowing doubt about Iowa’s caucuses is Vivek Ramaswamy, who failed to qualify for recent debates.“The mainstream media is trying to rig the Iowa G.O.P. caucus in favor of the corporate candidates who they can control,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in a campaign video this week. “Don’t fall for their trick. They don’t want you to hear from me about the truth.”Voting rights groups and disinformation experts say the pre-emptive cries about fraud and rigged elections have become something of a new normal.“This follows the general playbook, the election denier playbook of just pre-emptively laying the groundwork for claims of fraud in the event of a loss,” said Emma Steiner, the Information Accountability Project Manager at Common Cause, a left-leaning voting rights organization. “It’s sort of future-proofing.”Indeed, Mr. Trump has long trumpeted baseless claims of fraud or rigging before an election. In 2016, weeks before Election Day, Mr. Trump started questioning the veracity of mail ballots in Colorado, citing little evidence. After he won the 2016 election, Mr. Trump claimed that widespread fraud cost him the popular vote (it did not), and he launched a commission to investigate voter fraud in the country (it folded without any significant findings).The Trump team has called elections rigged even when he is not participating in them. When the 2020 Democratic caucuses melted down because of a faulty app and a disorganized state party, Mr. Trump’s campaign questioned whether the results were “being rigged against Bernie Sanders.” His sons went further.“Mark my words, they are rigging this thing,” Eric Trump wrote on Twitter the night of the 2020 caucuses. “What a mess.” More