On the Ground in Iowa: The Inevitability Problem

Speaker 1 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 1 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 1 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 1 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.

Speaker 2 The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower, and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live.

Speaker 2 And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love, right in your vehicle or on the SiriusXM app.

Speaker 2 Every Sirius XM-equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, so the experience begins the moment you drive.

Speaker 2 Learn more at kia.com/slash sportage-hybrid, Kia movement that inspires.

Speaker 3 You might have a picture in your mind of what the Iowa caucuses are all about. The state fair.

Speaker 2 Butter cows, corn dogs, and politics.

Speaker 3 Cliche diner interviews.

Speaker 5 The beans are spoken here.

Speaker 3 The coffee bean caucus bringing a little bit of fun into Iowa this morning. Retail politics.

Speaker 7 People from all across Iowa continue to make their way to the fairgrounds as are Republican presidential candidates.

Speaker 3 For five decades, the Iowa caucuses have been the first nominating nominating contest in the presidential primaries and have become a key part of our political process and tradition

Speaker 3 until this year.

Speaker 3 On the Democratic side, the DNC voted to change the 2024 primary calendar and have South Carolina go first, shifting the nominating power to more diverse states.

Speaker 3 On the Republican side, Iowa is still first. But the dynamic is very different this year.

Speaker 3 Donald Trump is basically running as an incumbent, a rose garden strategy, but for Mar-a-Lago and courtrooms across the East Coast. But still, it seems to be working.

Speaker 3 Trump's not just the frontrunner, he's been leading the polls by an average of 30 points. But that's not to say the other candidates haven't had their moments.

Speaker 9 And Vivek Ramaswamy is hoping to keep the momentum going after his performance in the first debate.

Speaker 10 And you could see that is Haley. That's a 10-point jump for her since August.

Speaker 3 Ron DeSantis is getting a major boost as Iowa's governor makes a rare endorsement. But while the fight for second place has picked up, they haven't been able to gain any meaningful ground on Trump.

Speaker 3 Regular PodSafe America listeners probably know that I have a soft spot for Iowa.

Speaker 3 I first spent time there back in 2004 when I was working for John Edwards' campaign, and I lived in Des Moines for a full year in 2007 when I worked on then-Senator Obama's Iowa caucus campaign.

Speaker 3 His victory there set Obama on the path to winning the nomination in the presidency. And I'll admit, That experience makes me view the whole process through rose-colored glasses.

Speaker 3 Maybe a little too rosy. I love the weird rules, the retail politics, the entitlement and absurdity of the whole thing.

Speaker 3 But no matter what state goes first, our nominating process should force candidates to get out on the road, take face-to-face questions from voters, and not just read prepared speeches at rallies or cut TV ads.

Speaker 3 But this year, it seems like retail politics and all the good parts of the Iowa caucus process are just dying a slow death.

Speaker 3 With Trump on cruise control and the other candidates stuck in neutral, even I've been wondering, what the hell are we doing here?

Speaker 3 I'm Tommy Vitor and this is On the Ground in Iowa, a special two-part series from Pod Save America.

Speaker 3 Part 1, the inevitability problem.

Speaker 3 One thing to understand about the Iowa caucuses is that the history and significance is a little different depending on which party you're talking about.

Speaker 3 For Democrats, Iowa has been a springboard to the nomination, or at least a serious contention. John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, they all won here.

Speaker 3 But for Republicans, in the pre-Trump era, the caucuses have tended to be more of a showcase for the most socially conservative candidate in the race, and those candidates have not gone on to great success.

Speaker 3 Just look at the most recent competitive GOP contests. In 2008, Mike Huckabee came from behind to beat John McCain in Iowa.
Then, McCain won New Hampshire and won the nomination. In 2012,

Speaker 3 Rick Santorum beaten at Romney in Iowa by 34 votes.

Speaker 12 Game on.

Speaker 3 And then Romney won New Hampshire and won the nomination. In 2016, Ted Cruz beat Trump in Iowa.

Speaker 11 The night is a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa.

Speaker 3 And then Trump won New Hampshire, and you know the rest. As former New Hampshire Governor John Sununi once said, Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidents.

Speaker 3 But that doesn't mean Iowa Republicans are any less serious about the process.

Speaker 13 I don't think they're trying to pick the next president necessarily. I think they're trying to give, you know, a fair betting to everyone who shows up and to say who is worth still being in the mix.

Speaker 3 Brianne Fonensteel is the chief political reporter for the Des Moines Register, and this is the third presidential caucus cycle she's covered, which means she has sat through more campaign events than any one human being should have to endure.

Speaker 13 Certainly, they're caucusing for the person who they think should be president, doing their best to really hear everybody out out and to not come in with such preconceived notions that it prevents them from hearing out some of these other candidates.

Speaker 3 When I worked in Iowa, retail politics still mattered. Voters expected to see candidates in person, to ask them questions.

Speaker 3 We sometimes even got personal attention, like a call on their birthday or a shout out in a speech.

Speaker 3 Traditionally, candidates who put in the time, held town hall meetings, and built grassroots organizations were rewarded. A lot of this has to do with how the caucuses actually work.

Speaker 3 They're not like a regular primary where you might show up at your polling place, cast a vote and leave, or even just send in a mail-in ballot.

Speaker 3 They require much more time from the people who participate.

Speaker 13 You know, you're still required to show up in person at 7 p.m. on a Monday night in January.

Speaker 13 It's January 15th this year, but you show up and you get in a room and there's a little bit of party business, but basically when you get to the presidential preference section of this, they pass out blank sheets of paper and you write down who you want for president and they collect those up and they tally the total vote count and they read it out and they put it into an app and they tally it across the state.

Speaker 3 The Republican process is much simpler than the old Democratic caucus rules, which had viability thresholds and realignment and math and reporting and a bunch of stuff we don't have to get into here.

Speaker 3 The thing to take away from this is that if you're a Republican voter who wants to participate, you need to carve out several hours on a Monday evening in January.

Speaker 3 Maybe it's cold, maybe you have to work, maybe you need to make the kids dinner. That's the challenge for campaigns.

Speaker 3 How do you get people so excited about your candidate that they block out a whole evening for you?

Speaker 3 And that is where all the organizing comes in and why campaigns that have strong ground games tend to do better.

Speaker 3 You can just look back to 2016. When Trump was running for president in a crowded field, Iowa voters chose Ted Cruz because he visited all 99 counties in the state.

Speaker 3 Iowa Republicans actually like spending time with Ted Cruz. I know, it's incredible.
Brianne says that unlike Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign barely tried in Iowa in 2016.

Speaker 13 If you think back to how he did and kind of what his operation was like in 2015 and 16, it was a really kind of ragtag approach, right? It was not sophisticated. It was not particularly respected.

Speaker 3 And after he lost, of course, Donald Trump said the election was stolen.

Speaker 14 Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, Trump tweeted. He stole it, adding either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullify.

Speaker 3 These days, Trump is massively popular with Republicans in Iowa.

Speaker 3 He doesn't have to win the caucuses to win the nomination, but if one of his opponents could pull off an upset here, that would really shake things up.

Speaker 3 And that's why Brianne says team Trump is doing things differently this time around.

Speaker 13 I think his operation is smart. I think they're sophisticated.
I think they've learned. They've brought in people who know what they're doing.

Speaker 3 Trump still isn't employing the traditional approach. He's not trying to visit all 99 counties.
You don't see him at events with just a few dozen people in a church basement or at a diner.

Speaker 3 He's really only doing big rallies.

Speaker 8 Hello, Iowa.

Speaker 3 And his campaign has caught flack for not spending more time in the state. But according to a big Reuters story from October, the Trump campaign has an edge that his opponents don't.

Speaker 3 An enormous trove of voter data.

Speaker 3 Basically, if you live in Iowa and you've had any interaction with any Trump campaign, 2016, 2020, 2024, they're focused on getting you to caucus.

Speaker 3 Trump's opponents haven't run in Iowa before, so they don't have this same history of data to draw on.

Speaker 3 And Trump's campaign is hoping this not only allows them to target past voters, but also gives them the opportunity to reach people who don't typically show up to caucus.

Speaker 13 They are actively identifying and bringing in people who are new to the caucus process, which if you've done this before, if you look at campaigns like Barack Obama, that was really key to their success, right?

Speaker 13 To expand the electorate and to bring in new people. You know, I've been going to some of his events and they call them commit to caucus events.

Speaker 13 And some of the organizers will have people in the audience raise their hand if this is their first caucus. And about a third of the people in the room will do that.
It's not a small number.

Speaker 13 And that was surprising to me.

Speaker 3 I think the point you made about him bringing new voters in is such an important one to watch because that will not only obviously increase your support at the end of the day, but it makes your opponents totally blind to how well you're doing as compared to them.

Speaker 3 I mean, this was a big debate in the 2008 Democratic caucuses. There was a theory of the case among the Clinton and Edwards campaigns that the caucus universe was mostly people who had caucus before.

Speaker 3 It'd be like 150,000, 200,000 people. And the Obama side, we thought we could bring in all these new people, young folks, people of color.
And ultimately, that's how we won.

Speaker 3 And I think why they were kind of shocked by the results.

Speaker 13 Right, totally. You know, they're not taking it for granted.
And it's hard to get new people to turn out.

Speaker 13 It's hard to identify people who haven't been engaged in this process before and convince them to show up at seven o'clock on a cold Monday night. You know, it's dark.
You don't want to be there.

Speaker 13 It's not the most exciting thing you've ever done, but they're doing a lot at these events and in their messaging to say, Donald Trump needs to win big so that everyone else will drop out and we can just move along and focus on Joe Biden.

Speaker 13 Because there is a risk when you're ahead by that much for your supporters to say, well, he's going to win anyway. He doesn't need me.
And he's very intentionally saying, I need you to show up.

Speaker 13 I want to win by 30 points. I want to bury these guys and move along.
And so that message really works with his crowds because they want to be part of that win with him.

Speaker 3 After the break, we take a closer look at Trump's Iowa campaign and learn more about the voters who are looking for an alternative.

Speaker 15 It's time to save. The Firestone Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale is on.
Get 15% off all tires and $40 off a lifetime will alignment when you buy two or more eligible tires. Visit

Speaker 15 Care.com for details and more deals.

Speaker 16 Year after year, Harry and David makes my family's holiday season feel special with treats handcrafted in Medford, Oregon.

Speaker 16 Harry and David still hand picks and packs every Royal Riviera pair, makes their iconic moose munch popcorn using the original recipe, and ties each bow by hand on their Tower of Treats gifts.

Speaker 16 And they all taste as good as everyone remembers. Make your own holiday magic and get 20% off site-wide at HarryandDavid.com, promo code PAIR20.
That's HarryandDavid.com, code PAIR20.

Speaker 18 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

Speaker 18 With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 19 You can listen to Jeff Lewis Live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more.

Speaker 19 Subscribe now and get three three months free. Offer details apply.

Speaker 3 What's interesting, if not surprising, watching the Trump campaign in Iowa is his rallies feel like they could be anywhere. Yes, he occasionally talks about issues that Iowans specifically care about.

Speaker 20 When I'm back in the White House, I will save Iowa ethanol by repealing Joe Biden's absolutely insane job-killing electric vehicle mandate.

Speaker 3 But most of these rallies are just the same old mix of boasting and whining and shit talking people.

Speaker 20 But we're going to crush crooked Joe Biden next November. We're going to make America great again.
We're going to put America first. But De Sanctimonius is really over it.

Speaker 20 Did anybody ever see anybody fall? I think it's got to be one of the worst campaigns in history. He was supposed to be young.

Speaker 10 He's this, that.

Speaker 20 He's going to be the future of the party. After people see him make about three speeches, that's the the end of him.
We're leading the field with 67 with DeSanctimonious at nine.

Speaker 20 And Bird Brand is at eight.

Speaker 13 She said,

Speaker 20 she was another beer.

Speaker 11 She said, I will never run against you, sir.

Speaker 8 I will never run.

Speaker 3 But he always comes back to one thing. Don't forget to show up in caucus.

Speaker 21 We're really talking about commit to caucus. Do you ever hear that expression? Don't forget, you have to coffee.

Speaker 13 One thing that I think is just really striking, having gone to a lot of these campaign events in person, it's hard to convey in a news story, but Donald Trump is having fun.

Speaker 13 You know, we talk about his showmanship. You go to his events and it's a really intangible charisma that he has and the crowd eats it up.

Speaker 13 And he's the only one who is up there, like having a great time. Ron DeSantis is not having a great time up there, at least apparently.
Maybe he loves it, but not in quite the same way.

Speaker 22 Oh, what is that?

Speaker 22 An icy? Yeah, that's probably a lot of sugar, huh? Good to see you.

Speaker 13 You know, Donald Trump has the crowds kind of eating out of the palm of his hand, and he can say these things in such a way that makes people laugh and maybe shrug off some of the more extreme aspects of that.

Speaker 3 When we love you, thank you.

Speaker 23 Doesn't sound like my kind of a lover, but that's okay.

Speaker 3 You recently wrote a piece for the Register with the headline, in Iowa, a Trump win appears inevitable. Is the fight to catch in meaningful or delusional?

Speaker 3 Do you have an answer to that question at this point?

Speaker 13 You know, I think talking with people for that story and since it published, you know, it's a little bit of both. That's a huge margin to try to close by caucus day.

Speaker 13 And so if you're looking at whether somebody can really defeat Donald Trump, you know, people haven't ruled it out. Stranger things happen in politics.

Speaker 13 And Iowa is known for the results kind of closing late in the race, but it's still a lot.

Speaker 8 You hear this everywhere.

Speaker 3 Iowa's over. Trump's got it locked up.
And look, there's good reason for that. He's clinched tons of influential endorsements, and the polls show that his support is both broad and deep.

Speaker 3 Dave Peterson is a political scientist at Iowa State University.

Speaker 6 I've been the guy in charge of the Iowa State polling for the last two cycles.

Speaker 3 How firm do you think, based on your data, that Trump's sort of 51 to 54% of the vote is?

Speaker 8 I think that's pretty firm.

Speaker 6 You know, look, what are people going to learn about Donald Trump that they don't already know that's going to make them not support him? I mean, I cannot think of many things.

Speaker 6 And so I just don't think his supporters are going to leave him, right? They know that they like him. They know what they get from him.
They know who he is. They know what he stands for.

Speaker 6 They know how he's going to campaign. They know how he's going to govern.
And they approve of it. And so, you know, why change, right? Why not stick with the candidate that you know you like?

Speaker 3 The Iowa State University civics poll that Dave Peterson conducts actually favors Trump a little more heavily than a lot of the polling averages out there.

Speaker 3 Dave's results have Trump in the low to mid-50s, while polling averages in the same timeframe have Trump in the mid to high 40s. But the trend lines are the same.

Speaker 6 So this, to me, the top line story is that the Republican Party is defined by Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 Dave told me that historically, Iowa Republicans could be broken down into three distinct groups.

Speaker 6 The Iowa Republican Party historically has been, pre-Trump, was this sort of one-third Christian evangelical, one-third sort of Ron Paul libertarian, one-third Mitt Romney, sort of old school fiscal conservative sort of aspect.

Speaker 6 And the relative outcomes have always been fairly close between those.

Speaker 6 So if, you know, if all three camps are represented, it's been relatively balanced and sort of along the lines with the rest of the country, of the Republican Party in the country.

Speaker 3 But Trump has managed to blur those traditional lines.

Speaker 6 Since 2016, the big change is now Trump is dominating the party, right? Those factions aren't as dominant anymore. To me, the divide in the the party is now a divide over Trump, right?

Speaker 6 Are you a Trump loyalist? Are you a Trump skeptic? Are you a Trump opposition? Those are the three camps now.

Speaker 3 So for those Republicans who do want to see Trump gone, the question becomes, can the Trump skeptics and the Trump haters come together behind one candidate and win?

Speaker 3 In Iowa, some Republican power brokers believe there's still a lot of voters out there interested in a Trump alternative.

Speaker 3 Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have won major endorsements from important Iowa Republicans, particularly leaders of Iowa's evangelical base.

Speaker 3 People like Bob Vanderplatz, the president of the Family Leader, an influential Christian organization who, fun fact, endorsed Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and yes, Ted Cruz before all three won the Iowa caucuses.

Speaker 3 Here's Bob Vanderplatz on CBS back in August at the Iowa State Fair.

Speaker 11 I think Trump is tailor-made to get defeated here. And I think that's how crucial Iowa is this go-round.

Speaker 5 If Trump gets beat here, I think it's game on of a nomination. If Trump wins here, I think he runs the table of a nomination.

Speaker 3 Despite Trump's dominance in the polls, it's not hard to find Iowa Republicans who are ready to vote for someone else.

Speaker 3 We went to an event in Sioux Center, Iowa, the far northwest corner of the state, hosted by Iowa Representative Randy Feenstra and his wife.

Speaker 23 Randy and Lynette have invited all the candidates.

Speaker 3 It was called Faith and Family with the Feenstras. It was held at Dort University, a private evangelical Christian college.

Speaker 23 To work effectively towards Christ-centered renewal in every area of life. Well, politics is one area of life.

Speaker 3 This is the beating heart of evangelical Iowa. We look to God for our direction and our guidance.

Speaker 3 And our leaders should do the same thing. Most of the voters we talked to had nice things to say about Donald Trump, but some are ready to move on.

Speaker 24 Personally, I feel like Trump is like the grandpa you love, but you're kind of embarrassed of right now.

Speaker 3 Morgan is 27 and from Altoona, Iowa.

Speaker 24 You know, you thought he did a really good job and you want him to do well and

Speaker 24 he's just,

Speaker 24 he's embarrassing us. And I don't like that.
And I feel bad for him and I feel bad for Americans that we all have to go through this because of some people who are not very nice to him. Ultimately,

Speaker 24 I mean, if he's the nominee, I'm going to vote for him,

Speaker 24 but I won't be caucusing for him.

Speaker 25 I thought he had a good impact, but I do think that he was a little bit of loudmouth. And I think he needs to know when to shut his mouth every once in a while.

Speaker 3 Spencer Verplug is 19 and a student at Dort University.

Speaker 25 But other than that, he had some really good policies and made some great changes. But at the end of the day, I think that's what's going to get America back on track to being more

Speaker 7 unified countries if we don't have someone that's constantly pointing fingers and saying that the other side is the devil or something like that.

Speaker 26 I'll be caucusing for the DeSantis campaign.

Speaker 3 Dustin Roger is 41 and from George, Iowa.

Speaker 26 Trump would never sit down at an event like this and talk about faith, family, and true leadership. Trump struggles when there's not somebody else on stage to make fun of or demean.

Speaker 26 That's the reality. You can like some of his policies, but it comes down to character, it comes down to leadership, and

Speaker 26 we don't have that with every candidate.

Speaker 3 So, almost everyone we spoke to was critical of Trump, but the only person who said he wouldn't vote for him in the general election was Matt Hagen, a 22-year-old from Little Rock, Iowa.

Speaker 27 I think, just as a Christian, I don't think he really lives in the light of Christ. Certainly, his policies were beneficial, but I think apart from your policies, you also have to have character.

Speaker 27 And I think that sets a good example. I wouldn't want my kids growing up in a country where he is the primary character setter.

Speaker 6 After the break, if Trump is sort of the incumbent, why isn't he doing better?

Speaker 18 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

Speaker 18 With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 19 You can listen to Jeff Lewis Live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXTem app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more.

Speaker 19 Subscribe now and get three months free. Offer details apply.

Speaker 28 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 28 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. from CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 28 And the best part, Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odo.com.

Speaker 28 That's odoo.com.

Speaker 12 The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar.
Your lucky jersey, your chairs, and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space.

Speaker 12 And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist, and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an SUV.
It's your Equinox.

Speaker 12 Chevrolet, together let's drive.

Speaker 3 So some Iowans are clearly looking for an alternative to Trump, and it's not an insignificant number. Dave Peterson's team at Iowa State thinks that Trump's polling isn't all good news.

Speaker 6 If Trump is sort of the incumbent, why isn't he doing better?

Speaker 8 Right?

Speaker 6 I mean, why is he only at 50%, which is exactly the opposite narrative from everything else?

Speaker 3 The way Dave sees it, so many people are focused on Trump's lead that they could be overlooking a weakness in his numbers.

Speaker 3 His team asked Republican caucus goers how they voted in the 2020 general election compared to who they're supporting in this year's caucus.

Speaker 6 We asked our respondents, who'd you vote for in 2020? 95% of the likely caucus goers voted for Trump. Why aren't 95% supporting him now?

Speaker 6 If I were DeSantis or Haley, I would be spending way more time putting, you know, what does 50% in the Iowa caucus mean in historical perspective?

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 6 If you think about Trump as the incumbent Republican candidate and you compare him to how incumbent presidents have done, he's underperforming.

Speaker 6 Right. So in 1980,

Speaker 6 80, right, when Carter was running against Kennedy, Carter got 59% 59%

Speaker 17 in Iowa.

Speaker 3 And in 92 in New Hampshire, George H.W. Bush only got 58% against Pat Buchanan.

Speaker 6 Kennedy and Buchanan are hailed as these deep challenges to the candidacy of the incumbent president.

Speaker 3 That's a really good point, because I think one thing folks have to understand about Iowa and the way it's viewed is it's not always about winning in Iowa. It's about exceeding expectations.

Speaker 3 I think the assumption I've made, and I assume a lot of journalists make, is that Trump will say, I didn't win Iowa last time, but I did this time. Therefore, I sort of bested myself.

Speaker 3 Although, let's be honest, he disputed those election results too.

Speaker 5 So, what do you think of that?

Speaker 8 Yeah, right.

Speaker 6 I mean, what matters is the narrative and story that comes out of the race. But the idea that winning 50% in the Iowa caucuses is this

Speaker 6 massive blowout, right, Is

Speaker 6 kind of disconnected from the history of the Iowa caucuses.

Speaker 3 All of this is interesting, but my gut says that this history won't matter as much as just winning.

Speaker 3 And I doubt the press corps will spend much time comparing Trump's results to Jimmy Carter's margin over Ted Kennedy back in 1980.

Speaker 3 I wanted to talk to an Iowa Republican operative to see how all of this looks from inside the party. So I called David Kochal.
We got connected through friend of the pod, Tim Miller, a few years back.

Speaker 5 I'm David Kochel. I've been the Republican consultant in Iowa since the 1984 cycle, six presidential campaigns.
Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander, Mitt Romney twice, Jeb Bush,

Speaker 5 I guess Dole twice, maybe. I don't know.

Speaker 3 If you've forgotten how many campaigns you worked on, that's a pretty good credential. Which was the most fun?

Speaker 5 The most fun, I would say, was definitely not 2016.

Speaker 3 Kochell is one of those never-Trump Republicans who hates how Trump has changed the Republican Party. And he thinks there is a path to beating Trump, even if it's a narrow one.

Speaker 3 We talked back in late November.

Speaker 5 I think 70% of Iowans consistently in every poll that I've seen, private polling, public polling, 70% of Iowans are open to someone else.

Speaker 5 Now, some of those people are saying they'll vote for Trump in the caucuses, but that's why we got to do this. That's why we, you know, you got to play the game.

Speaker 5 You got two campaigns right now in Haley and DeSantis who are putting a lot into this. Haley just got the AFP endorsement.

Speaker 4 Recent endorsement by Americans for Prosperity Action. The group is backed by billionaire Charles Koch.

Speaker 5 Which brings with it, you know, probably a dozen professionals on the ground, a hundred or so, or dozens and dozens of paid canvassers. So all of a sudden, she's got some ground game to play with.

Speaker 5 DeSantis has been there finishing up his 99 county tour.

Speaker 29 You got to do all 99. Like that's the people that do that are the ones that win Iowa, but it's also just an important tradition.

Speaker 5 It's important to have this fight because I think Trump is vulnerable. I do think it's the state I think they're worried about the most.

Speaker 5 And as this field is starting to consolidate, you know, I mean, he's at risk of having to take somebody on one-on-one. Trump versus the field, he'll win 100% of the time.

Speaker 5 Trump versus one other person in a state that's really paying attention to this thing, he's vulnerable. These states in particular like to surprise people and they do surprise people.

Speaker 5 And, you know, it doesn't take much to change the nature of of a race. And, you know, these things have their own storylines.
They have their own narratives.

Speaker 5 At some point, you know, if it's him versus one gifted opponent and it's close, he may have to debate him.

Speaker 17 And then, you know, you see what happens.

Speaker 5 By the way, if he were to lose, could you imagine the meltdown

Speaker 5 that he would have on True Social? It would be epic.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Kind of hoping for that.

Speaker 3 Cochell is right that early state voters love to surprise us. And frankly, I admire his optimism.

Speaker 3 But I'm still skeptical of arguments that Trump's poll numbers in Iowa somehow show weakness, or that any of these candidates could beat Trump even in a one-on-one race.

Speaker 3 Republican voters love Donald Trump. And just like back in 2016, it's not at all clear when this might turn into a one-on-one race.

Speaker 3 Over the past few months, the field has gotten a little smaller, with hopefuls like Tim Scott and Mike Pence dropping out, but there's still five Trump challengers left.

Speaker 3 with Haley and DeSantis leading the pack. That said, if Trump's support did dip below 50%,

Speaker 3 there would mathematically be a path for a single challenger. Here's Dave Peterson, the pollster at Iowa State, mapping out the electorate again.

Speaker 6 And so we sort of asked a lot of different questions about this. You know, we asked questions about January 6th.
We asked questions about the 2020 election. We gave people three choices.

Speaker 8 Joe Biden won a fair election.

Speaker 6 Joe Biden won with some irregularities, or Donald Trump won. But what you find is that the people who say Trump won, Trump did nothing wrong, right?

Speaker 6 Trump has never done anything wrong, Those are Trump supporters. That's half the party.

Speaker 8 But the other half, the Trump skeptics, are the people who choose the middle ground.

Speaker 6 Biden won, but there were some irregularities, or Trump's done some stuff wrong, but not crimes. That's DeSantis's support, right?

Speaker 6 That these people who are not opposed to Trump, but skeptical of him, are backing DeSantis. And then Haley's pulling from the opposition.
The people who say Biden won in a fair election.

Speaker 6 The people who say Trump has committed serious crimes. And we asked people who aren't supporting Trump, why not? And they gave us essentially two sets of answers.

Speaker 6 One set of answers was, I'm not supporting Trump because of Donald Trump, because of January 6th, because

Speaker 6 of the indictments. Those people are backing Nikki Haley.
The DeSantis people say, it's time for a change, or I just like another candidate better. Right.

Speaker 6 So they're not supporting Trump, but they're not, it's sort of incidental to what Trump has done. That's the divide that I'm seeing over and over again in these answers.

Speaker 3 So if the Trump skeptics, aka DeSantis supporters, and the Trump opposition, aka Haley supporters, were to come together against Trump under one Trump alternative, and believe me, that's a big if, they may be able to give Trump a competitive race.

Speaker 3 But based on the polling, that doesn't seem to be happening. The Iowa poll from the Des Moines Register has been tracking voters' second choices.

Speaker 3 And if you look at the DeSantis supporters, most of them are still willing to vote for Trump. Here's NBC's Steve Kornacki laying it all out.

Speaker 10 But this poll found they asked DeSantis voters, if he leaves the race, who would be your second choice? And 41% said Donald Trump would be their next choice.

Speaker 10 Only 27% said that Haley would be their next choice. So that's a thing to keep in mind when you look at these numbers here.

Speaker 10 For somebody like Haley, for any of these other non-Trump candidates, as they drop out, it's not automatic that the votes of somebody who drops out are going to a non-Trump candidate.

Speaker 10 A lot of them are going to go to Trump. This poll says if DeSantis drops out, Trump benefits more than Nikki Haley does.

Speaker 3 On top of that, the polls tell us that most of the people planning to vote for Trump are locked up.

Speaker 10 So a depth to his support that we're seeing in our poll. Nearly two-thirds, 63% of Trump's backers say their minds are already made up and they are definitely voting for him.

Speaker 3 Then there's the fact that Haley and DeSantis are more focused on each other than the actual frontrunner. But David Kochell says they have no choice.

Speaker 5 The point in the campaign that we're at now with Haley and DeSantis being the only two viable alternatives to Trump is they kind of have to go at each other. You know, there's no other way to do it.

Speaker 5 They are in a competition to see who gets to go into the finals. You know, Trump kind of has a bye week and they're trying to get into the finals.
And so I'm sure it's frustrating to people.

Speaker 5 Why are they, you know, Trump's killing them? Why aren't they going after the guy who's at 50? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Except, like I said, you know, the Denver Nuggets have to beat the Phoenix Suns before they can play your Celtics, right? And so that's what's going on. And, you know, this has got to play out.

Speaker 5 It's got to happen real fast. I think it will happen fast.
If we have a one-on-one by New Hampshire, watch out.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, nothing Trump does seem to turn off his base. I mean, the guy has been attacking Kim Reynolds, the very popular governor of Iowa.

Speaker 3 He's been attacking Bob Vanderplatz, this very influential faith leader in Iowa, calling him pay to play.

Speaker 3 Have you seen any evidence that those, what I think any normal person would call a misstep, have actually hurt him?

Speaker 5 You know, is it going to make all the difference? I don't think so because his fans are his fans, first and foremost.

Speaker 5 But, you know, he just doesn't have to play by the same rules as any other candidate. He's a unicorn.
There's never been another Trump. There'll never be another Trump.

Speaker 5 I mean, his most famous person in the world. He is more of a celebrity than a politician.
It is kind of a movement at this point. I mean, some call it a cult.
I kind of agree with that.

Speaker 5 The rules just don't apply to him. Gravity doesn't apply to him.

Speaker 3 The working title for this series is What Are We Doing Here?

Speaker 3 It's sort of like something I could say from the ground, but also something that one could ask about everyone who's traveling to Iowa to watch at this point, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and maybe Vivek compete for second.

Speaker 3 But it sounds like you're very firmly in the camp of absolutely this does have a purpose. We should be competing here.
This makes sense. Am I summarizing you correctly?

Speaker 5 Yeah. And frankly, I feel very strongly about this, Tommy.
We have to have two healthy parties in this country. My party isn't as healthy with Trump leading it.

Speaker 5 And if you're going to move past Trumpism,

Speaker 5 the best way to do it is to beat him in the Republican Party, not beat him in the courts, not beat him, you know, with a Democrat.

Speaker 5 I think it's really important if we can solve this and nominate someone else, I think we have to try to do it.

Speaker 5 So to me, as much as it looks difficult now with, you know, kind of the national polling numbers, which are meaningless until these actual contests start happening as difficult as it looks it's a worthy enterprise we can cleanse the party largely if we could nominate someone like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis it's a new generation you really kind of turn the page and we haven't won an election since he was elected president in 2016 so from my perspective we should do it I hope someone takes him on one-on-one and starts beating him in contests and then we can pop the cork when it's all said and done and nominate somebody else but yeah no I'm firmly in the camp of we got to have this contest and see what happens.

Speaker 3 So Cochell says we have to play the game. But my fear is that in Trump's Republican Party, the game was over a long time ago.

Speaker 13 We wrestle with that a lot where it could be more meaningful than ever.

Speaker 3 That's Breanne Fonenstiel from the Des Moines Register.

Speaker 13 But also we could end this. exactly the way we started with Trump as the presumptive frontrunner nominee.
And I think that matters too, right? There was a real fight in Iowa.

Speaker 13 People really got behind these other candidates. Iowans gave them a real chance.

Speaker 13 And, you know, that says something, I think, about where the party is at if, you know, the winner far and away still ends up being Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 To me and to everyone else I talked to for this episode, that seems like the most likely outcome. But of course, we won't really know until caucus night.

Speaker 3 Next time, join us as we drive around Iowa and see what the race for second place really looks like. We're heading to Wauke.

Speaker 3 So right now we're going to Ankeny en route to Newton, Iowa, which is in Jasper County. We go to events and hear the case each candidate is making to Iowans.

Speaker 30 We need to reverse the decline of this country.

Speaker 18 We need a new birth of freedom all throughout the land.

Speaker 3 And talk with voters to hear what's driving them to caucus. Vaccine safety, your primary issue.

Speaker 21 My primary that. And Communist China, those are my top two.

Speaker 3 Our second episode drops on Friday. See you then.

Speaker 3 On the Ground in Iowa is an original series from Pod Save America and Crooked Media. I'm your host, Tommy Vitor.
Lacey Roberts is our senior producer.

Speaker 3 Alona Minkowski is our producer, with production help from Ashley Mizzuo and Evan Walton. Our executive producers are Reed Cherlin and Katie Long.
Original music by Hannes Brown.

Speaker 3 Sarah Gibbel Laska from Chapter 4 is our sound designer and engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of muse and programming.

Speaker 3 Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, Caroline Dunphy, Dylan Villanueva, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 3 Special thanks to Andy Taft, Alex Hernandez, Kayla Moriarty, and the Pod Save America team.

Speaker 3 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com/slash friends.

Speaker 3 And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 3 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.

Speaker 30 What is the secret to making great toast?

Speaker 4 Oh, you're just going to go in with the hard-hitting questions.

Speaker 30 I'm Dan Pashman from The Sporkfold. We like to say it's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
We use food to learn about culture, history, and science.

Speaker 30 There was the time we looked into allegations of discrimination at bon appetite, or when I spent three years inventing a new pasta shape.

Speaker 3 It's a complex noodle that you've put together.

Speaker 30 Every episode of the Sporkful, you're going to learn something, feel something, and laugh. The Sporkful, get it wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 28 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 28 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 28 And the best part, part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So, why not you?

Speaker 28 Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.