WEATHERING THE CAUCUSES. Des Moines — A blizzard is crossing Iowa as this is written. On Thursday night, with the weather forecast worsening, Nikki Haley canceled three campaign events scheduled for Friday in the western part of the state, opting instead to hold telephone town halls with voters in those places. But Ron DeSantis, with an event scheduled in Ankeny, a suburb of Des Moines, at 7:15 a.m. Friday, stuck with the schedule. In the early morning darkness, with new snow on the ground, streets unplowed, a temperature of 17 degrees and falling, and the wind picking up — a Des Moines Register headline said, “Blizzard warning: Travel not advised as snow covers roads” I texted a DeSantis staffer at 5:56 a.m. with one question: Still on? Yes, it was.
DeSantis got a good crowd, considering — somewhere more than 100 people in the middle of a blizzard. One might look at it as an early test for his vaunted ground operation, but the reason really had nothing to do with door knockers and phone banks.
In part, the people showed because they were decidedly conservative. The event was sponsored by the Northside Conservatives organization, meaning the north side of Polk County, where Ankeny is located. Another reason was one that several attendees repeated: We’re Iowans. We can deal with winter weather. But the third, and probably the most important reason, was even more fundamental: We take this very seriously. Iowa Republicans have the chance to pick a presidential candidate just once every four or eight years. They’re not going to stay home and watch it on TV.
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The blizzard actually intensified as DeSantis was speaking. The sky was a sort of half-dawn gray, and the forecast was for the snow to continue until 6 p.m. and maybe beyond. While the event was still going on, DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, announced that two DeSantis Friday events in the northern and eastern parts of the state were being canceled or postponed until some future time. DeSantis was still trying to make a couple of other events, but he eventually had to postpone those, too.
And at 17 degrees, it was still relatively warm compared to what is said to be coming. The forecast for Des Moines for Monday, caucus day, was a high of minus four degrees and a low of minus 15. That would be the coldest weather ever for the Iowa caucuses, and there have been some pretty cold caucuses in years past. A number of people at the DeSantis event pointed out that the forecast is for just cold, not snow, so the roads should be clear for people to get to the caucuses. No problem! But others were saying: Get real — temperatures of 15 below are going to keep some people away.
Indeed, they will. At the end of the DeSantis event, I asked Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) about the weather factor. “It’s not going to be a record turnout, and I was hoping for a record turnout,” she said. “But Iowans are hardy. They know how important this is, and the fate of the country depends on it.” Well, if that is the case, the fate of the country will be influenced by some truly frigid weather on 2024’s first night of democracy in action.
It might even be the headline. What would be the newsiest thing to happen at the caucuses? Obviously, a victory by former President Donald Trump would be expected — after all, he’s 35 points ahead at the moment. A Trump defeat, on the other hand, would be earthshaking. Beyond that extremely unlikely possibility, everything else will be secondary. The results could be important for the DeSantis-Haley fight for second place, but the fact remains that it is a fight for second place. So when Monday night comes, if it really is minus 15 degrees, the weather could be the star of the show.
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