To no one’s surprise, former President Donald Trump is spinning conspiracies out of the life-threatening arctic air mass that has descended on Iowa in advance of the state’s caucuses, warning his supporters of possible foul play in preventing his supporters from voting.
“Be on the lookout for dirty tricks,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post late Sunday night, adding that the caucuses will “not be canceled or postponed under any circumstances. Don’t listen to any dishonest RINOS or Globalists that say otherwise!”
Brutal blizzard conditions and icy wind chills have beset the Hawkeye State over the past week in the leadup to the first-in-the-nation presidential nominee vote, expected to start at 7 p.m. local time. The National Weather Service is warning Iowans of “life-threatening wind chills” as low as 45 degrees below zero that will not let up until Tuesday. The conditions will make Monday evening the coldest caucus the state has held in four decades.
In his last campaign event held in Indianola, Iowa on Sunday, Trump assured voters they’d be safe to vote because the caucuses take place indoors. (He neglected to mention, of course, that caucus-goers have to travel to and from their voting sites.) “You’re going to be all indoors, but you’ve got to get up. You’ve got to vote,” he said. “Because it has nothing to do with anything but taking our nation back, and that’s the biggest thing there is.”
“Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it,” Trump said, sparking laughs. Trump also suggested that his voters could meet potential spouses at their caucus sites.
Trump didn’t campaign much in the state over the last week, and the frigid weather forced his campaign to cancel back-to-back events on Saturday. Extreme weather conditions forced all three of his rivals to cancel in-person events over the weekend. On Friday, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “George Washington braved the weather to cross the Delaware,” vowing to keep hitting the campaign trail “for as long as we can *physically* make it.” He later had to call off an event hours after telling former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to “man up” after she nixed an event of her own.
As it has been throughout the race, Trump’s relative lack of campaigning is a sign of its strength. The polling in Iowa has remained remarkably consistent over the stretch of the campaign, with Trump consistently posting double-digit leads as he exerts a vise grip over the rest of the field. The final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll released Saturday evening had Trump enjoying a 30-point lead over his rivals.
Even as Trump warns about “dirty tricks,” it’s unclear whether the poor weather will significantly affect turnout or the ultimate outcome. “Caucuses are low turnout events anyway,” Bruce Nesmith, a political science professor at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, told ABC News Monday. “So the people that would be deterred by cold weather would be people who probably wouldn’t have gone for other reasons.”
That dynamic may be a boon for the Trump campaign, which has been forecasting a record-setting victory. Saturday’s poll found that the former president’s supporters in Iowa are the most enthusiastic likely caucus-goers, while those supporting Haley—who recently leapfrogged DeSantis into second place, and is hoping that a strong showing will give her momentum going into New Hampshire—did not report being too excited about heading out to vote for her.
“There is an underlying weakness here,” pollster J. Ann Selzer told NBC, referring to Haley’s low enthusiasm numbers. “If turnout is low, it seems to me that a disproportionate share of her supporters might stay at home.” Trump seemed to acknowledge this dynamic on Friday. “You have the worst weather, I guess, in recorded history,” he said in a video posted on X. “But maybe that’s good, because our people are more committed than anybody else — so maybe it’s actually a good thing for us.”
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