The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Is Breaking All The Rules Of The Iowa Caucuses — And Still Winning

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

The Iowa caucuses are less than two months away, and former President Trump remains the clear frontrunner in state polls. But, challengers Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis have recently picked up key endorsements that could challenge Trump's hold on that state. This episode was edited by Lexie Schapitl. It was produced by Lexie Schapitl and Jeongyoon Han. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Mackie from Sherman Oaks, California. Today is my 13th birthday. I just got home from school and I'm so excited to celebrate. This podcast was recorded at 1.11 p.m. on Tuesday, the 28th of November. Things might have changed by the time you hear this, but I will officially be a teenager. Here's the show. Yay! Happy birthday! Happy birthday, Mackie. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the campaign. Mark your calendars. The Iowa caucuses are on January 15th, which means in less than

two months, Iowa Republicans will make their choice for presidential nominee. Clay Masters of Iowa Public Radio is joining us here to break down the latest news from Iowa. Hello, Clay. Hello there. So you have covered a lot of caucuses, but you say that this race is different. How so? Well, the one big thing about this race that is just so much different than the last several is that there has not been a candidate who has been at the top of the polls throughout the entire cycle. Of course, it's also unprecedented that we have a former president who's even running for his old job again. And, you know, in caucus cycles in the past, you've had these candidates kind of rise in the polls and they're the front runner.

Think back to Herman Cain or Ben Carson or different caucuses from past cycles. This time, though, when we've seen kind of a bump in polling, this is way further down in the numbers. And so Donald Trump has been this dominant force in the Republican primary, in the caucuses, in the run up here. And it's just made this kind of seem completely different than anything we've covered before here. Right. And the ads that Trump is running, the way he's running his campaign, he's focused on Joe Biden. He is running as the nominee even before he's a nominee. If it were up to Donald Trump, he wouldn't even be putting in the effort to campaign for his old job. He wants to get past this. When he comes to the state, he's reminding

people that he doled out all kinds of farm subsidies during his first administration, that he was the guy who put three of those justices on the bench that overturned Roe v. Wade. And he's here just reminding people what he's done in the past and wants people to remember that he's their guy on January 15th. I believe we have him in Fort Dodge recently just kind of summing up what we've been saying for a long time, that if this field were to get eliminated after January 15th, hey, that could change a lot of things for him. We have to send a great signal. And then maybe these people just say, OK, it's over now. It's over. We got to end it because we have to focus on Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats. And yet there are several other

people running in this Republican race. Two of them, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, the current governor of Florida, are actively fighting with each other, sort of duking it out for second place. So those ads are really illustrating the fight that you're seeing for what we're kind of looking at is second place in the Iowa caucuses. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been seen as Trump's main rival all this time, but again, still very far down in the polls. And. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been seen as Trump's main rival all this time, but again, still very far down in the polls. And you've seen on the national stage, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley kind of upping her public persona from her performances during those debates where Donald Trump is not showing up. I should note too that businessman Vivek

Ramaswamy is still spending a lot of time in Iowa campaigning here. He even has an apartment in Des Moines right now. But he is just not seeing any kind of a bump like we're seeing with DeSantis or Haley. I mean, I just find it so fascinating that all of this hoopla and effort and work is going into hopefully getting a second place finish. Trump is just so far ahead that the most exciting race is for second place. And we're talking a presidential candidate to represent Republicans in the 2024 race. So there have been some developments this week in what you might call the establishment race. That is the race for endorsements. And that matters, maybe not because of what it'll do to voter behavior,

but it sends a signal to the big dollar donor class and others that, oh, this candidate has some momentum. This candidate has something behind them. And so we just learned today that Nikki Haley has been endorsed by the Koch Network, previously known as the Koch Brothers. They've been very influential with outside spending in past campaigns. And then, Clay, you covered a couple of other important endorsements that Ron DeSantis has gotten recently. Yeah, and those important endorsements are right here in the state of Iowa. We're talking about Governor Kim Reynolds, who just won her reelection campaign in 2022 by a very large margin. And that was, of course, a midterm where Democrats did much better nationally than was expected. So Reynolds shares that with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who she has endorsed.

And I do want to stress how rare it is that we see an endorsement from a sitting governor ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Traditionally, like Kim Reynolds had been for months and months, which actually frustrated Donald Trump that she wouldn't endorse him. She had remained neutral for months. And now she, at the beginning of this month, threw her support behind Ron DeSantis because she says she doesn't believe that Donald Trump can win in a general election against Joe Biden. And then we also saw more recently the head of this very influential group in Iowa among evangelical Christians, which remember is a very large voting bloc, out proportionate than the Republican Party as a whole here in Iowa. Bob Vander Plaats is the head of the family leader,

and he backed Ron DeSantis. He is famously known historically for endorsing previous caucus winners in Ted Cruz in 2016, Rick Santorum in 2012, and Mike Huckabee in 2008. Of course, all three of them won the Iowa caucuses, but then were not the eventual nominee in the end. But Bob Vander Plaats putting his weight behind Ron DeSantis and Kim Reynolds putting her weight behind Ron DeSantis is sending a message to some people that might still be on the fence. Vanderplotts was essentially able to pick the winner of the Iowa caucuses. He did it year after year after year. And I wonder if evangelical voters are not this voting bloc that Bob Vanderplotts used to be able to persuade. Well, certainly former President Donald Trump, when he was running eight years ago, was really not seen as somebody who would have the evangelical

vote. And that's part of why Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, won. He was able to captivate so many voters within the evangelical Christian community. But as we've seen, as the former president served his time in office, he has been able to coalesce a lot of support from evangelical Christians. So you do have to wonder if somebody who is very influential, like Bob Vander Plaats within the Republican Party, he had a fundraiser earlier this year where he featured many of the presidential

candidates where you really saw the power and weight that this group has had in influencing state legislation here in Iowa. You really do wonder if Trump is just stronger than any kind of endorsement that the head of this very influential group would have in the outcome of the Iowa caucuses. Yeah, I mean, it really looks like Trump's just kind of blown up the system. I mean, like, everything that we anticipated before is no longer. I mean, he's the exception to all the rules, whether it's the endorsements, whether it's retail politics. In so many ways, you know, the former president has just kind of shifted everything, flipped it all on its head again.

And I think this is just another one of those examples. You know, I'll be very curious looking past 2024, whether are we going to get is it going to return or is this the end of of these kind of expectations of politicking as we know it? All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, what Iowa Republican voters are saying. Hey, it's Sue Davis. Before we get back to the show, we know you depend on NPR's political coverage and appreciate the fact that we're working every day to make sure you're up to date on the biggest political news. Your support is what makes that possible. It also powers the news and podcasts you rely on across the NPR network. So a big shout out to our NPR Politics Plus supporters and anyone listening who currently donates to public media.

You are making a real difference. If you're listening and have never been a supporter, it's Giving Tuesday. And an international day of giving is the perfect reason to finally join NPR Politics Plus. Hear our regular show sponsor-free and get the bonus episodes our supporters enjoy. Or make a tax deductible donation to your local NPR station, the NPR network, or all of the

above. You have choices. What really matters is that you are part of the community of listeners who help keep NPR going. You can give today at donate.npr.org slash politics or explore NPR Plus at plus.npr.org. And thank you. And we're back. And I want to talk about electability, because that is something that voters say that they really care about. And, you know, in 2016, there had been some concern about whether Trump was electable. Then he won the election and he was president. And I do wonder now, what are voters telling you about how they feel about his electability? Because, of course, he lost in 2020. And just to state the obvious, he has been impeached twice. He has been indicted four

times, including for trying to overturn the results of the last election. He faces trial during the election year. But is that actually perceived as baggage by the voters that you're talking to? I mean, I would say it depends on who you're speaking with. I mean, I was recently in Iowa speaking with voters, and they had big, big concerns about Trump's electability. And one of those voters was Michelle Stone. But my heart just tells me that if he, we could have a chance to lose. And I would love to have him, and I'll vote for him in a heartbeat.

But sometimes I think, well, maybe we need another Republican in there to win. These are Republican voters who want a Republican president. They want someone who can beat President Biden in 2024. And they're seeking an alternative. I mean, they really want someone else. They think DeSantis would have a better shot at beating Biden. They think Nikki Haley would have a bigger chance at beating Biden. But with more recent numbers showing that Biden is actually below Trump in some of the numbers, talk of Trump's electability from, say, Kim Reynolds or Chris Sununu doesn't necessarily carry as much weight as it used to. And Kim Reynolds is, as we said, the governor of Iowa and Chris Sununu is the governor of New Hampshire, these first two states where voters will be making their preference

known. Clay, you've been going to Trump rallies. You've been going to events that Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis and others have been having. How do they feel? The biggest thing that is helping the former president when I'm talking to these voters is when you hear about the things that are moving forward with the indictments, with the court cases. It's common to see T-shirts with his mugshot on them now. And that's only emboldening people

that want to support Donald Trump on caucus night here in Iowa. And the Trump campaign is putting forth more of an effort than I saw eight years ago, where they are making sure people sign into these commit to caucus cards, so they get people to turn out. They're looking for precinct captains. There is an effort underway, and the people that are showing up for the former president are very excited to caucus for him again. But then again, there are these people who are showing up to Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis events, and they're not saying, you know, we're

concerned about possible criminal charges that are moving forward. They're saying that he's too divisive, that there are enough people that don't like him and wouldn't vote for him, and so they want somebody, again, that they think can win. And what has happened in so many caucus cycles in the past that I've covered is you have people up until the last few weeks of the caucus campaigning before they truly make up their mind. And what I'll be interested to see if those people do really break away and have some kind of a decision as we get closer to caucus night or if this narrative that has been dominating the cycle so far that Donald Trump is far and away from all his competitors, just carries on, and we get through caucus night and he wins. So yes, people are saying they want an alternative, but again, it's the people who are very engaged who are really trying to think this through and take it seriously. I mean, I just find it so fascinating that the idea in Iowa and New

Hampshire is that the candidates get out and, you know, the local community are able to speak with them, meet with them, ask them, kind of test the tires, check everything out. But, you know, what I think Trump is showing, at least in this case, is that you can make as many waves, you can get as much attention speaking in a studio, talking on social media, then actually visiting the candidates. I mean, he comes for a rally. He does not go to the VFW. He does not go to as many diners. He might pass out some milkshakes here and there. But it is not like in years past where all the candidates were in each town going one town by town, VFW by VFW. I think it's raised a lot of questions about whether the system is working. And I should note, too, that Ron DeSantis this weekend will be holding his 99th Iowa County Tour final stop.

So there's this big thing that said, you know, one of the best ways to win the Iowa caucuses is to hit all 99 of the state's counties. And Ron DeSantis will be doing that on Saturday in Newton. So it's really going to be interesting to see if this, you know, backs up any of the things that Franco is just laying out there. Yeah, that was like the Jimmy Carter model. That's right. And Barack Obama, too. Yeah. Franco, given all of that, what is the game plan then if you're Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis? I think the game plan is doing what they have been doing, which is hitting as many spots as

they can before the caucuses and hoping for a surprise finish, maybe not first place, but as close of a second place as they can and gaining some momentum to take them to New Hampshire and then beyond. All right, we are going to leave it there for today. But Clay, we will be in touch. And thank you, as always, for joining us on the pod. My pleasure. Thank you. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordeñas. I cover the campaign. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.