Monday expected to be the coldest Iowa Caucus Day on record

A version of this article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here. To submit a question to next week’s Friday Mailbag, email onthetrail@deseretnews.com.

Good morning and welcome to On the Trail 2024, the Deseret News’ campaign newsletter. I’m Samuel Benson, Deseret’s national political correspondent.

3 things to know this week

1. Chris Christie bows out of the race. The former New Jersey governor outlasted a number of other prominent Republicans — Mike Pence and Tim Scott among them — but his anti-Trump message failed to garner much traction outside of New Hampshire. Will he endorse Nikki Haley, potentially pushing her into competition with (or ahead of) Trump in the Granite State? It’s unlikely, if his hot mic moment is any indicator. More on that here.

2. The Iowa caucuses are this Monday, officially marking the start of the 2024 Republican primary. The GOP hopefuls are blitzing the state, encouraging Iowans to get out on Monday night to vote. But one candidate is missing: Donald Trump, who spent Tuesday and Thursday in a courtroom, and skipped Wednesday night’s debate to do a solo town hall on Fox News. More on that here.

3. A score of prominent Utahns endorsed Nikki Haley on Wednesday, including Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson; Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers; Abby Cox, wife of Gov. Spencer Cox; and Zions Bank President and CEO Scott Anderson. Read more here.

The Big Idea

Voting in a winter wonderland

In three days, Iowans will cast the first votes of the 2024 presidential election. That is, if they can break the ice off their doors before they leave.

There’s a foot of snow on the ground in Des Moines Thursday, with more falling as the day progresses. Come Monday, when Iowans gather at their precinct locations for the caucuses, it’ll be dark and cold — somewhere between zero degrees and 16-below. There is no absentee voting, so participants need to show up at 7 p.m. sharp.

Even the candidates are starting to get nervous. Several canceled events throughout this week because of unsafe road conditions. Vivek Ramaswamy chided Haley on social media for canceling a Monday event, saying that if you “can’t handle snow, you can’t handle Xi Jinping”; a day later, Ramaswamy joined one of his events via FaceTime while his staffers held up his face on an iPad.

A review by the Des Moines Register suggests that Monday will be the coldest caucus day on record — the wind chill is expected to plummet temperatures to negative-27 degrees. (The previous record is negative-26.)

“On Monday, it’s gonna be so cold,” Haley told a group of supporters Thursday, eliciting laughter. “Like, I don’t even know what negative-15 is. I was complaining it was cold in Iowa in October.”

Much has been made of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status, a tradition dating back to the 1970s. Some say that it causes politicians to pay undue attention to a relatively small state (a valid point, as most Republican presidential candidates have not campaigned much outside of Iowa in months). Others say that Iowa is not representative of the country —also true, as Iowa’s demographics are more white and more rural than national averages — which were enough to make the Democrats move their first contest to South Carolina.

Whether it’s fair or not, some credit is due to the well-informed Iowa voters who have braved frigid temps to attend campaign events — and on Monday will do it again to cast their votes.

What I’m reading

A never-Trumper makes the case for Trump: “You can’t defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable,” writes Bret Stephens. “Since I will spend the coming year strenuously opposing his candidacy, let me here make the best case for Trump that I can.” The Case for Trump … by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose (Bret Stephens, The New York Times)

Obama to the rescue? “Former president Barack Obama has raised questions about the structure of President Biden’s reelection campaign,” as polls show Biden slipping in a hypothetical head-to-head with Trump. Obama, worried about Trump, urges Biden circle to bolster campaign (Tyler Pager, The Washington Post)

In defense of empathy: DeSantis slammed Haley during the debate Wednesday for saying that George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers was “personal and painful for every American.” Haley never endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement — she’s been critical of it — but DeSantis tries to take her empathy here and twist it into a condemnation. Noah Rothman has an interesting take on why. Is It Bad to Be Nice? (Noah Rothman, National Review)

Friday mailbag

Today’s question comes from Chris J.:

While I would love for this video (“God Made Trump”) to have been produced by the Trump campaign. I assume it is possible that some enemy of Trump (like me) generated the video to discredit Trump with evangelical supporters. My question is, how carefully did you verify that it came from the Trump campaign?

This question refers to our coverage earlier this week of the evangelical backlash toward what some called a “blasphemous” video about Donald Trump. You can read our story — and watch the video — here.

Here’s a paragraph from that story:

So, Chris, your hunch was correct — this wasn’t created by the Trump campaign itself, but by an independent group that works closely with the Trump campaign. I reached out to Dilley for comment and heard nothing.

Though it was not created by Trump’s team, the fact that Trump himself shared it on social media — along with others in his close circle, like Donald Jr. and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — looks, to me, like an implicit endorsement of the video and its contents.

One last thing — a reminder to follow our new On the Trail 2024 Instagram account!

Have a question for the next Friday mailbag? Drop me a line at onthetrail@deseretnews.com.

See you on the trail.

Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.