CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Hawkeye State is poised to break the ice for the 2024 Republican presidential race with Monday's caucuses.
The party's four main candidates have been back and forth campaigning in the center of American politics ahead of the 2024 Republican kickoff event, and the Post also announced last week ahead of caucus day. I was there to get a feel for the voters.
Here are some observations from the ground and some key lessons learned.
Don't worry, they're not cops
It was unsettling to see cars parked casually in the median or veering off to the side of the road while traveling.
Don't worry, these vehicles were not subject to police speed enforcement. Unfortunately, they belonged to an unlucky driver who slipped off a slippery road in the midst of Iowa's harsh winter weather.
While driving across Iowa, the Post observed hundreds of abandoned cars from dangerous winter conditions.
The event underscored the harsh weather that awaits Iowans ahead of caucus night and served as a stark reminder of the consequences of underestimating Mother Nature's winter ferocity.
Some voters The Post spoke to expressed concerns about enduring Monday's subfreezing weather, especially worried about their elderly relatives doing so.
The Post learned the hard way why muscle cars are the cheapest rental option.
Adventures between campaign events in a cherry red Dodge Charger seemed appealing, but after a while it became a chore, using good old bungee cords to free the car from the snow and push it out of the parking lot. lost its shine.
By the second snowstorm, the rear-wheel-drive Charger was quickly returned to a four-wheel-drive pickup truck.
Some voters are still undecided
As of Saturday night, many voters The Post spoke to were undecided or undecided about whom they would ultimately support on Monday.
Granted, this is from a sample of voters who were considering different campaigns at this late stage in the game.
But given the debate portion of the caucus, where these voters discuss the 2024 race with their neighbors, it could impact the tight race for second place.
Unlike the regular elections held in most state primaries, Iowa has caucuses, meetings run by political parties in the community, where each group of candidates makes speeches and convinces the audience of their preferences. Trying to convince people to vote for a candidate. The specific rules for these meetings vary by caucus.
Voters then cast their votes in secret, and their votes are counted across the state to determine the overall winner.
Trump supporters seem really, really trapped.
Every poll shows former President Donald Trump with a wide lead over his Republican opponent.
I've been to multiple events for all four of the top camps, and one thing that stood out to me was that the Trump events seemed to be attended almost exclusively by Trump voters.
Meanwhile, the campaigns of the other three leading candidates, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswami, are drawing a mix of enthusiastic supporters and Iowans simply sampling the various candidates. was.
At Trump's events, many voters didn't seem serious about even supporting an alternative, let alone attending an event with one of the other three.
Conversely, the other three candidates appeared to have a significant number of people considering the four main options, in addition to their enthusiastic supporters.
Atmosphere check
Some voters justified the candidates they supported by asserting some policy positions or many characteristics they sought.
But when the Post dug into why certain voters supported one candidate over another, there were many who pulled the levers who appeared to be listening carefully to their intuitions.
“There are things I don't like about DeSantis,” Chris Harris, 56, of Iowa City, told the Post at a Haley event last week.
“He's not the right fit for me right now,” Harris said, noting that he “doesn't care” about DeSantis' “certain edginess” as he struggles.
In particular, voters often responded similarly when pitting Florida Governor DeSantis against Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
As the candidates made their final pitches to voters, many appeared offended.
All four leading candidates brought dramatically different personalities to their campaigns, which appeared to be a major problem for some voters.
Vivek supporters have doubts about Trump
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and 2024 candidate, appears to be closest to Trump than anyone else. The reason for this is both because he is the most reluctant to defeat Trump, and because he actively promotes himself on the floor as another “America First” candidate.
Given the overlap between the two, many anti-Trump voters are likely to choose between DeSantis and Haley.
But a surprising number of Ramasway voters The Post spoke to in Iowa seemed to have significant concerns about Mr. Trump.
Those concerns included a range of questions about the legal drama surrounding Trump, his competency, and his viability in the general election.
Voters think differently about One Belt, One Road
It didn't take a trip to Iowa to see that there was a huge gulf between Republican voters and the BRI elites. However, cracks were still noticeable.
Most of the voters The Post spoke to seemed to have a good grasp of big-picture news developments, even if they weren't as politically savvy as some of D.C.'s most prominent politicians and pundits.
And their perspectives sometimes diverged from conventional wisdom.
For example, some voters were torn between Haley and Trump, even though the two candidates had very different personalities.
President Trump's Lean Public Schedule
Mr. Trump sent a number of surrogates to campaign in Iowa. His replacements included Dr. Ben Carson, Arizona Sen. Kari Lake, and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
He held by far the least amount of campaign events in his rivals' home states.
And his voters didn't seem to care at all.
As for Ms. Haley, her closest Republican rival, she has seemed increasingly cautious lately, refraining from taking questions publicly from voters as she climbs in the polls.
extreme repetition
Perhaps the hallmark of every campaign cycle is hearing the same talking points over and over again.
Candidates raided Iowa, only to spit out the same canned goods. Some more than others.
Voters also asked many questions that candidates have likely already answered hundreds of times.
Still, nearly all of the local residents The Post spoke to seemed to take their responsibility to vet candidates for the nation's first contest very seriously.
The Iowa caucuses are scheduled to begin Monday at around 7 p.m. local time and 8 p.m. in New York.
