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      Our DeSantis and Haley Reporters Switched Places. Here’s What They Found.

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      The candidates — and their campaigns — are a study in contrasts, from the vibes of their events to how they interact with voters and the press.For months, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, Republican contenders locked in a heated rivalry for second place in their party’s 2024 presidential nominating contest, have been crisscrossing Iowa ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.And so have we.As beat reporters, we’ve been trailing these two candidates for so long that we can recite every punchline, anticipate the applause and guess their potential responses to questions from voters on the campaign trail. Normally, Nicholas Nehamas is on the road with Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and Jazmine Ulloa follows Ms. Haley, former governor of South Carolina.On the final Saturday before Iowans vote, we switched roles for a day. Nicholas drove northeast from Des Moines to a Haley event at a brewery in Cedar Falls. Jazmine headed west to a DeSantis event in Council Bluffs.Here’s what we learned.The VibesNICHOLAS The first thing I noticed when I walked into Second State Brewing in Cedar Falls: Ms. Haley’s warm-up music wasn’t deafening. At DeSantis events, the music drowns out every thought and makes it difficult to talk to voters. Which almost feels intentional.The Haley crowd, roughly 60 people, was also a little younger and more suburban than I was used to. One voter told me she was a New York Times subscriber — not something I typically hear when I’m following Mr. DeSantis.About 15 minutes before Ms. Haley went onstage, someone announced over the sound system that reporters needed to go to the back of the room. I ignored that and kept talking to voters. Eventually, a very polite Haley staffer came to retrieve me. The tightly controlled environment felt like the early days of the DeSantis campaign, when harried staff members tried to keep us away from voters and sometimes even the candidate.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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      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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      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