Party caucuses requiring a big chunk of voters’ time are famously harder to poll than primaries or general elections, and this year’s Iowa presidential caucuses add the additional complication of record low temperatures (a high of five below zero on January 15) projected on caucus night in a state digging itself out of a blizzard. The polls, however, are in remarkable accord about what is likely to happen Monday evening when Republicans gather at 7 p.m. CST. Donald Trump has registered between 48 percent (Ann Selzer’s Iowa Poll from the Des Moines Register–NBC News–Mediacom) and 58 percent (Morning Consult) in the six polls released in the last week. And in half of those polls, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are literally tied for second place at between 14 (Iowa State–Civiqs) and 18 (Trafalgar Group) percent.
Haley seems to have momentum in Iowa; she has slowly chipped away at DeSantis’s standing since this autumn, and in the RealClearPolitics averages she now leads him 18.2 percent to 15.6 percent. But by all accounts, the Florida governor’s earlier heavy investments in an Iowa field operation should give him an advantage if turnout is less than robust. And as Selzer’s gold-standard (and perhaps even voter-influencing) Iowa Poll indicates, Haley support is an inch deep and lacking in the kind of enthusiasm that could matter as voters decide whether to go out in subzero temperatures:
But a majority of those who plan to caucus for Haley say they are only mildly enthusiastic (49%, up from 39% in December) or not that enthusiastic (12%, up from 2% in December). She is the only candidate to see a substantial rise in the proportion of her supporters saying they are only mildly or not that enthusiastic.
Just 9% say they are extremely enthusiastic to caucus for Haley. Another 30% say they are very enthusiastic about caucusing for her.
“Her enthusiasm numbers, again, I just think are on the edge of jaw-dropping,” Selzer said. “That 61% are just mildly enthusiastic or not that enthusiastic — it just seems at odds with a candidate moving up.”
Another finding about Haley in the Selzer poll could help explain the low enthusiasm levels: A lot of them may actually be Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, as reported by NBC News:
Most likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers say they’ll vote for former President Donald Trump in the general election if he’s the GOP nominee, regardless of the candidate they’re supporting on caucus night.
That is, except supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with nearly half of them — 43% — saying they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.
Iowa allows on-site changes in party registration on caucus night, and there’s been some buzz for a while that Democrats (who have no candidate balloting at their own caucuses on January 15) might cross over to vote against Trump and for Haley. But again: Will they bother to do so on an Arctic evening on behalf of a candidate they may not actually like?
DeSantis needs good news from Iowa more than Haley does; her strongest states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, are still ahead on the calendar. A third-place finish in Iowa would leave DeSantis with no discernable path to the nomination even if Trump somehow stumbles. And whatever pitfalls lie ahead for the 45th president, they aren’t likely to appear in Iowa, where he has a huge and broad-based following characterized by the enthusiasm Haley’s supporters seem to lack, as the Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel explains with data from Selzer’s poll:
Among Trump’s supporters, 75% say they are feeling excited, 19% feel neutral and just 4% say they are resigned. … As in the December Iowa Poll, Trump leads with every demographic group tested. Trump does best among those without a college degree (59%), those with an income of less than $50,000 (60%), and white men without a college degree (62%). Trump’s lead with first-time caucusgoers is 4-to-1 at 56% to Haley’s 14% and DeSantis’ 13%.
Most interestingly, Trump leads handily among the huge cohort of Iowa Evangelical voters he lost to Ted Cruz in 2016, and whom DeSantis has targeted so intensely:
Among evangelicals, Trump leads with 51%, which is unchanged from December. DeSantis gets 22% (down from 26%), Haley gets 12%, which is unchanged from December.
Right now, the most dubious predications of the outcome of the caucuses come from Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, who is flatly arguing that her guy DeSantis will win outright, and from the campaign of also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy, which is claiming he’ll finish third. Ramaswamy is at 6.8 percent in the RCP polling averages for Iowa; he is at 8 percent, or half the third-place DeSantis’s level of support, in the final Selzer poll.
The stability of the Iowa contest in recent weeks has led to some benchmarks for the results that are as dubious as the Reynolds and Team Ramaswamy predictions. Some pundits believe Trump needs a majority, or perhaps a 20 percent winning margin, to avoid looking “vulnerable.” But the former president is almost sure to set a record by winning by a larger margin than any other candidate in the history of contested Republican Iowa caucuses, exceeding the 12.8 percent won by Bob Dole in 1988. The bigger question is whether after Iowa he will face one long-shot opponent (if Haley finishes ahead of DeSantis) or two rivals still battling for survival.
