What do the candidates’ final Iowa event plans say about their campaign strategy?

DES MOINES — For presidential candidates, the final weekend before an Iowa caucus is all about making themselves available to Iowa voters and making that closing argument that could persuade any Iowans who remains on the caucus fence.

That’s according to a pair of experts on the Iowa caucuses, who The Gazette asked to discuss the last-weekend Iowa caucus campaign plans of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

Of course, part of that discussion — as are so many in the Midwest — has become about the weather.

Blizzard conditions hit Iowa this weekend and are here to stay through Monday night’s caucuses. According to the National Weather Services, some areas of Southern and Southeastern Iowa received more than a foot of snow during the second storm this week, and “life-threatening wind chills” could reach as low as 40 degrees below zero on Sunday and extend into early next week.

The storms have already wreaked havoc with the presidential candidates’ final weekend schedules.

Haley canceled all three of her events scheduled for Friday, and instead conducted tele-town halls.

DeSantis and the Super PAC supporting him canceled four of the five events at which he was scheduled to appear Friday, sneaking in only an appearance at a suburban Des Moines conservative group’s meeting early in the morning.

And Trump’s campaign retooled his schedule; while some events will remain in place, Trump himself will only be in Iowa for one of the four events scheduled for this weekend: in Indianola on Sunday.

As of Friday night, DeSantis’ and Haley’s events scheduled for Saturday and Sunday were still on.

“You have to make yourself available in the final weekend. Because — I know this is hard for some people to wrap their minds around — but people are trying to make up their mind right now,” said Craig Robinson, an Iowa caucus campaign staff veteran who now works as a consultant. Robinson said he is “happily unattached” in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

“(Iowa Republican voter) are not like, ‘I’ve been on board this campaign the whole time.’ That’s rare,” Robinson said. “I think most people are making up their mind, and the best person to close the deal is the candidate themselves. So it makes sense to me that you would really see pretty intense barnstorming of the state in the final weekend.”

To Robinson’s point, some Iowa Republicans who attended Wednesday night’s presidential debate at Drake University in Des Moines, who were interviewed on campus after the debate, said they were still wrestling with who to support at Monday night’s caucuses.

Ron DeSantis

DeSantis’ final weekend schedule is the most aggressive of the three, which matches his approach to Iowa throughout the cycle. Few candidates have campaigned in Iowa as often as DeSantis, and he has held more campaign events here than Trump or Haley.

DeSantis had a barnstormer’s schedule for the weekend, covering the state literally river to river: Council Bluffs, Atlantic, West Des Moines, Davenport and Waterloo on Saturday, and Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Ankeny on Sunday.

The Saturday night event in Waterloo was postponed late Friday.

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Timothy Hagle, a political-science professor at the University of Iowa, said DeSantis’ final weekend schedule may be an indication that the governor is attempting to replicate Ted Cruz’s victorious 2016 Iowa caucus campaign.

In 2016, Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas, edged Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses in part by winning more counties than Trump — 56 for Cruz to 37 for Trump — including by excelling in the state’s rural areas.

Trump, however, followed his runner-up showing in Iowa with a victory in New Hampshire, and from there went on to earn the party’s nomination and eventually the White House.

“This is when they’re trying to make their closing argument and talk to some final people who still may be, if not undecided, are persuadable still at this point,” Hagle said.

Nikki Haley

Haley was scheduled to be in Cedar Falls, Iowa City and Davenport on Saturday. As of Friday night, her Sunday schedule was not yet available.

Hagle said those Saturday stops for Haley make sense, given their recent Iowa Republican caucus history. Iowa City is in Johnson County and Davenport in Scott County; those are two of the five counties that in the 2016 Iowa Republican caucuses went to Marco Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida who finished a close third to Cruz and Trump.

Haley’s third scheduled stop Saturday is in Black Hawk County, where Rubio finished a close second to Cruz in 2016.

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Hagle said viewed through the lens of the 2016 results, Haley’s scheduled stops make sense because she appears to be making a campaign pitch that would attract the type of Iowa Republicans who caucused for Rubio.

Donald Trump

Trump’s final weekend schedule changed dramatically with the weather. Originally, he planned to attend campaign rallies in Atlantic and Sioux City on Saturday, and Indianola and Cherokee on Sunday.

After changing the schedule due to the weather, Trump is scheduled only to appear at the Indianola event.

Prior to those changes, Robinson said he was intrigued by Trump’s strategy of spending his final weekend in Iowa — with the exception of Sioux City — outside of the state’s largest metropolitan areas.

“On one hand it looks a little odd. But I actually think that might work for him because (it’s) showing that he’s willing to campaign more rurally,” Robinson said. “I think that Trump going to those size communities is probably a pretty good use of his time.”

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Robinson noted that Trump’s 2016 success in Iowa was confined mostly to counties on or near the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. If Trump is to win the 2024 caucuses and match his historic caucus polling numbers, he will need to be successful in other areas of the state as well, Robinson said.

“What vote didn’t Trump get eight years ago in the caucus? He didn’t get the rural vote,” Robinson said. “He didn’t dominate in rural Iowa. Ted Cruz won all those counties. I think for Trump to meet expectations (Monday) he needs to do well all across the state this time, and if his support is limited to certain areas of the state, he might be in trouble. So I think that it might be pretty wise for him to be campaigning the way he’s approaching it.”

The weather

The frigid temperatures and high winds could drive town turnout in Monday night’s caucuses, both Hagle and Robinson said, especially in rural areas where caucus participants may have to travel farther to their caucus precinct. Hagle said it’s possible that dangerously cold temperatures could cause both older and younger Iowa Republicans to decide against going out on Monday night.

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Whether a weather-induced lower caucus turnout would harm one candidate any more than the others remains to be seen, the experts said.

“Who does this affect — which campaign? That’s harder to say because I haven’t seen any statistics lately that are suggesting that maybe older voters tend toward this candidate or that candidate. It's probably a mix,” Hagle said, adding that he believes both Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy have appealed to younger voters. “It’s going to vary.”

Robinson said if any of the leading candidates’ campaigns are worried about the weather, Trump’s should. That’s because he has the most to lose as the consistent and commanding leader in the polls throughout the cycle and because he has earned the support of many non-traditional Republicans, who may feel less motivated to attend a caucus in extreme cold weather.

“The caucus is such a greater step anyway. I have to go to a meeting at a certain time, at a certain place, and I might not be familiar with any of it. So I think Trump already is fighting that,” Robinson said. “And then, he’s got this lead. I think if his numbers, if he doesn’t meet expectations, I think there’s a lot of that at play.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com