Nikki Haley is cruising toward defeat in Iowa. Here's why her campaign isn’t panicking.

DES MOINES − Republican voter Meg Courter has never organized her neighbors on behalf of a presidential candidate before, but this year she is going all-out for Nikki Haley in the early voting state of Iowa.

Courter says she is serving as a precinct captain for the former South Carolina governor because she has been so energized and impressed by Haley, who she has seen speak an estimated six times.

“Will she win Iowa? No. Iowa is the winnowing process," the 62-year-old nonprofit fundraiser said Wednesday night at Drake University as she walked into the Des Moines debate. “We don't really usually pick the person who ultimately gets the nomination.”

Volunteers like Courter are why Haley isn't rattled by a presumptive loss in Iowa, where she is polling more than 30 points behind her chief rival. Haley’s campaign is tempering expectations for the Iowa Caucuses on Monday evening and gearing up for a brawl with former President Donald Trump the following week in New Hampshire, instead.

Haley’s team says it is aiming for a strong finish in Iowa, without saying exactly what that means. And the candidate herself has said she does not necessarily need to win the first contest for the results to be perceived as a good showing for her, even as her campaign ratchets up pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to come in first place.

A new Suffolk University poll Thursday showed Haley taking the lead over DeSantis for second place in Iowa.

DeSantis bragged last month that he would win the politically conservative state, setting up the possibility of an embarrassing and potentially fatal loss if he comes in second to Trump.

'She's through the roof'

Haley’s supporters are harboring no such belief that their candidate, who basically admitted last week that she expects to lose Iowa, will come from behind to clock a surprise victory in the state's caucuses. But they say she's building momentum and that matters.

Former GOP Rep. Will Hurd, who endorsed Haley after quitting his own bid for the presidential race last year, said that after the contest voters will see the former United Nations ambassador is generating enthusiasm.

“She's been doing better in Iowa than anybody thought at the beginning of the campaign. She's through the roof in a place like New Hampshire, and that's what's really starting this broader momentum,” Hurd told USA TODAY in an interview from Iowa, where he is acting as a surrogate for Haley's campaign.

“The strategy is: campaign everywhere. Take your message everywhere. And take it one election at a time,” Hurd said.

But an expected blizzard in Iowa Friday has prompted Haley to cancel her in-person events in favor of virtual town halls.

The last time a Republican won the Iowa Caucuses in a contested race and became their party’s nominee was more than two decades ago. In 2000, George W. Bush won the competition that has traditionally begun the voting process. He went on to win on to win the GOP nomination and the presidency.

Trump narrowly lost Iowa in 2016 to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and then kicked off a winning streak by capturing New Hampshire.

“The reality is that Donald Trump just ran the tables,” former Cruz communications director Alice Stewart said.

Trump is the favorite to win both states and become the GOP’s nominee for a third time. His campaign estimates the former president will have amassed enough delegates to lock up the nomination by mid March.

To keep that from happening, DeSantis has poured resources into Iowa, which will hold its caucuses on Jan. 15. But rather than focusing squarely on Trump, DeSantis has been making a last-minute attempt to shake up the race by dragging Haley down.

At events, the Wednesday evening debate and in his final commercial of the contest, DeSantis has levied an attack that Haley doesn’t care about Iowans. The charge stems from a sarcastic comment Haley made in New Hampshire about the state’s residents correcting Iowa’s outcome.

“You know Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it,” Haley said at the town hall earlier this month. “And then my sweet state of South Carolina brings it home.”

Haley says the comment was made in jest. But to some Iowans who plan to caucus, including undecided voters who were leaning toward Haley, it wasn’t funny.

The admission aligned with her campaign’s long established view that winning Iowa is not critical to her success, and the South Carolina native agitated some Republicans by seemingly saying the quiet part out loud.

DeSantis seized on the moment, turning it into a commercial. “Haley disparages the caucus and insults you,” the narrator of his television spot says.

Her comments were “flippant” and “derogatory,” DeSantis told reporters on Monday. “I do think that reveals kind of her true view about the folks in Iowa.”

He also made reference to a meatier controversy involving Haley’s omission during a town hall of slavery as a cause of the Civil War.

Haley has highs, lows in Iowa home stretch

The dispute over slavery and Haley’s slap at Iowa voters were frustrating for Rylee Miller, a law student who attended a CNN debate between DeSantis and Haley on Wednesday at Drake University.

Miller said the comments “really kind of turned me away, and it kind of makes me a little disappointed in the Republican Party," although he said he still plans to caucus for Haley.

“To me, this is turning into the least of the evils,” the Des Moines resident said, “and I think that's what Nikki Haley represents.”

After listening to DeSantis speak at an Associated Contractors of America Conference in Des Moines earlier that day, Duane Lawrence, 60, called Haley's comment about Iowa voters "derogatory" and said it reinforced his choice to support the Florida governor.

“I’m not particularly thrilled with her temperament,” he said of Haley. “She comes off a little too harsh sometimes, like she’s trying a little too hard,” Lawrence added.

DeSantis hammered Haley for the remark again at the debate, bringing it up in his opening and closing statements.

“He wants to talk about me insulting Iowans, Iowans know when you're telling a joke,” Haley responded. “The fact that he is only running in one state is not the way you win president. I'm running in all states.”

The next morning at a Haley event in Ankeny, undecided voter Monica Newendorp, who lives in Pella, brushed the matter off as “nitpicky offhand remarks” and said she’s more interested in hearing about the candidates' plans.

“I think Iowans have thick skins for a variety of reasons, and I think we're used to hearing stereotypes about us,” said Newendorp, a retiree who said she is choosing between Haley and DeSantis. “It's not going to make or break my decision, whether he pushes that or not.”

Support for DeSantis drops in new poll

A Suffolk University poll released on Thursday showed Haley gaining support and DeSantis beginning to falter in the home stretch in Iowa. In the survey, 54% of likely caucus goers said they are backing Trump. Haley had 20% support in the survey and DeSantis had 13%. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy polled at 6%.

In a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll that was taken in December, it was Haley in third place behind DeSantis, who has made a point of visiting all 99 of Iowa’s counties.

Rachel Geilenfeld, an Ankeny resident who is supporting Haley and said she has been to several of her events, said there is an energy around Haley's candidacy. At the last one she went to in Indianola, "the room was so packed, you couldn't even get in the room," she said. "I don't know about whether she'll beat Trump, but she is, I think running extremely strong here in Iowa."

DeSantis has the support of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who said as he campaigned for DeSantis after Wednesday evening’s debate that he was bullish his candidate could win the state.

“He's built an organization to go the long haul,” Vander Plaats insisted.

The Florida governor has outsourced his ground game in Iowa to a Super PAC that his campaign is not legally allowed to coordinate on strategy with, although the candidate routinely appears as a “special guest” at the allied group’s events. While the group has been beset by infighting and turmoil in recent months, Never Back Down says it has recruited more than 1,600 precinct captains to organize voters next during next Monday evening's caucuses.

Trump’s campaign says it has more than 2,000 precinct captains lined up in Iowa and is running through the tape in all the early voting states.

But the candidate spent part of Tuesday at a Washington, D.C. courthouse, where judges considered his legal team’s argument that a former president is immune from criminal prosecution for conduct that occurred while he was in office. He then skipped Wednesday’s televised debate.

Trump appeared at a Fox News town hall in another part of Des Moines that evening before flying to New York to make a Thursday appearance at closing arguments in his civil fraud trial. He'll be back in Iowa on Saturday. His campaign has announced four weekend rallies across the state.

“President Trump always is very clear: we're going to put the pedal to the metal, run through the finish line,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said. “We're going to work hard to ensure victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and then, when this is all over, then Nikki will be left with her Democrat friends, and that's all she will have.”

Only registered Republican voters can participate in the Republican caucus in Iowa. But the rules allow Iowa residents to change their registration on site to be able to participate. Courter, the Haley precinct captain, said she’s personally spoken to dozens of independents and Democrats who are planning to register as Republicans on caucus night in order to vote for Haley.

Haley’s campaign is counting on a large turnout from independents and Democrats to win New Hampshire, where undeclared voters who make up the largest portion of the state’s voters can participate in either contest.

“Even the greatest optimist has to realize Donald Trump is significantly ahead in Iowa, and by all accounts, he will win Iowa,” Stewart, a Republican strategist who worked for Cruz’s campaign, said. “The contest now is: who's going to come out of Iowa in a strong second place with the momentum and the money at their back?”

Then comes New Hampshire

The Haley team’s goal at this point should be to turn out her existing supporters so she has a respectable finish in Iowa, as the campaign focuses on winning New Hampshire, said Ryan Williams, the national press secretary for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Romney won the nomination in 2012 with a similar approach, he said, after losing the GOP race four years earlier. The former Massachusetts governor went all-in on Iowa and New Hampshire in 2008 and lost both states. Four years later, Romney kept his “toe in Iowa,” in case the race there became competitive, Williams said.

“She doesn’t have that shot. She’s not going to win Iowa,” he said of Haley. “So it doesn’t make sense to do that last minute. Put all her chips on New Hampshire and see where they fall is the best approach for her campaign.”

Haley has the support of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and conservative grassroots organization Americans For Prosperity Action, which has been running ads and sending its volunteers door-to-door in state with early contests to campaign for her.

Doing well in Iowa may not change the result of the New Hampshire primary, but it could help Haley garner the support she needs to be competitive in delegate-rich states that hold simultaneous contests in March.

Haley’s campaign has been pushing a head-to-head match-up with Trump after New Hampshire as the way to deprive him of the nomination. And supporters like Courter, the precinct captain, believe if that's the case, “It’s possible that she can beat him.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s exit from the race on Wednesday brought Haley one step closer to catching up with Trump. A recent USA TODAY/ Boston Globe/Suffolk University survey found that without Christie in the race, Trump would lead Haley 47%-32%. With the anti-Trump candidate in the race, Haley was at 26%, Christie was at 12% and DeSantis was at 8% in the state. Trump had 46% support in the poll.

The survey was taken amid the firestorm over Haley’s comments about the Civil War and backlash to her remarks about Iowa.

“The fact that she’s run an error-free campaign and had a few hiccups here at the end,” Stewart said, “I think voters are going to be a lot more forgiving than the media.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Nikki Haley's campaign isn't panicking despite likely Iowa loss