How Iowa could slow Trump's roll
The former president has a huge lead, but will he meet expectations?
A quick note: I’ll have more to say about the Iowa Caucuses before Monday, but I wrote this piece last month, and I thought I’d bump it up on the page given that we’re in the home stretch. As of Friday, the polls continue to be good for Trump here, but as Adam Nagourney wrote in the New York Times this week, the former president’s biggest rival in Iowa just may be the sky-high expectations he and the polls have set for his campaign, and not Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
The regular rules of politics tend not to apply to Donald Trump, but what if the expectations game still matters in Iowa?
This is the idea that winning isn’t always enough in the first-in-the-nation caucus state; that what really matters is a presidential candidate meets expectations.
The expectations of the media. Of donors. Of party officials and voters in other states.
This is a time-honored tradition in Iowa.
Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of candidates exit the race a day after the caucuses when they didn’t meet expectations. Even some winning candidates have seen Iowa put a hitch in their step because they didn’t win by enough.
Yet, I’ve never seen a candidate with expectations as high as they are for Donald Trump in 2024.
Polls say Trump has a big lead in Iowa.
Ok, it’s not just big. It’s huge.
The RealClearPolitics polling average says 47% of Iowa Republicans support Trump, 30 points better than Ron DeSantis and 33 points better than Nikki Haley. Even the state’s most reliable survey, the Iowa Poll, put Trump ahead by 27 points a month ago.
I think some of this is the bandwagon effect. Iowans, like most Americans, want to be with a winner, and research has shown that this has some effect on a candidate’s polling numbers. Still, the clear narrative from much of the media over the last several months is Donald Trump will inevitably be the Republican nominee. Resistance, they imply, is futile.
Then there’s Trump himself. He anointed himself the winner from the very beginning.
He won’t debate. He’s barely campaigned in Iowa. He takes the state’s farmers for granted, proposing a trade policy that will gut rural Iowa even as he proclaims, “how could a farmer vote against me?”
He trashed a 6-week abortion ban that aligns with the views of most Iowa conservatives, and he promised he’d compromise with the Democrats on a more permissive policy if he wins.
Still, Iowa Republicans love him.
But what happens if, against heady odds, Gov. Kim Reynolds and Bob Vander Plaats can help convince these voters to think again?
Two of the state’s most influential Republicans, Reynolds and Vander Plaats argue Trump isn’t worth the risk of losing to Joe Biden. They say he’s out of step with Iowans on abortion. And Vander Plaats has leveled especially personal criticism at Trump. “I’ve never met a dad or a mom or a grandpa or a grandma who have told me they want their son or daughter, grandchild to grow up to be like him,” Vander Plaats told an interviewer the other day.
If these two can convince enough Iowans, just as they're locking in their choices, to jump off the Trump bandwagon and give DeSantis another look; if they can persuade these voters that Trump is not inevitable; that their deeply held values are not his, this could have an impact on Jan. 15.
So could the accumulation of anti-Trump ads run by the Koch network. Haley, too, is now running ads in Iowa.
This theory is speculation, of course, but it is clear Trump is wary if not worried.
The Donald has decided to drop by Iowa this weekend for events. His campaign also has decided to do something relatively rare: run its own TV ads in Iowa. The ads are reportedly going to use Reynolds’ past words of praise for Trump to blunt her DeSantis endorsement. Which is smart but still a sign Trump is concerned.
You’d think a guy with a 30-point lead wouldn’t bother. Unless Trump's lead is less than meets the eye.
Consider this scenario: If Trump only wins 35% of Iowa’s vote, a mark Vander Plaats mentioned a few weeks ago, that leaves a lot of folks for DeSantis and Haley to divide up, with a smattering left over for a smaller field of also-rans.
Trump probably still wins Iowa, but perhaps it’s only by 10 points. Or maybe just single digits. That’s a pretty big fall for a guy who once led Iowa by 30-plus points.
Maybe then the story shifts from Trump’s aura of inevitability to a sudden decline in support.
It’s true that Trump’s loss in Iowa in 2016 didn’t stop him from winning in New Hampshire. But he also wasn’t leading by 30 points back then.
A lead that shrinks by 20 or more points could slow his roll going into New Hampshire.
It may even create a bandwagon effect for a non-Trump candidate.
For that to happen, of course, it means DeSantis has to drop out if he doesn’t win Iowa. It means if Nikki Haley wins or finishes second in New Hampshire, the rest of the field has to exit and get behind her campaign. (OK, Vivek won’t leave, but who cares?)
These are a lot of pieces that have to fall into place, and some smart political people think if Trump is going to be stopped in 2024, the same person must win both Iowa and New Hampshire.
I don't think that’s likely. But my scenario just might be.
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