1. The final Iowa poll is coming out tonight at 9pm ET tonight, per one of the owners:
2. Here is the Zoom link to join our 2WAY episode happening Sunday night at 6pm ET with J. Ann Selzer of the Iowa Poll, plus ace pollsters Celinda Lake and Emily Ekins.
No RSVP is required and you may forward the link to anyone you wish to have join.
3. If you missed Friday’s introduction to 2WAY, you can watch the full session here:
4. A few developments:
A. The New York Times has their latest version of “Nikki Haley is awesome (because she’s not Donald Trump),” delving into her anecdotal support from Iowa Democrats and independents, with this classic “to be sure” paragraph:
To be sure, the number of non-Republicans who will show up for Ms. Haley on Monday night is most likely small.
(I always give extra points for “to be sure” paragraphs that literally start with “to be sure.”)
B. Dan Balz:
Trump could become the first Republican to win an outright majority of the vote in a multicandidate caucus. With two asterisks, the closest any candidate — Republican or Democrat — has come to a majority was in the 1984 Democratic caucus, when Walter F. Mondale captured 49 percent of the vote to Gary Hart’s 17 percent.
(The asterisks: Tom Harkin won 76 percent in the 1992 caucuses, but only because the other Democratic candidates had ceded Iowa to him because he was a popular senator from the state. In 2000, Al Gore won 63 percent, but that was a two-person race, against Bill Bradley.)…
The focus for the next few days will be on Iowa and on three storylines: Can Trump’s organization attract a big influx of first-time caucus goers and deliver a huge victory? Can Haley finally surpass DeSantis for second place — and, if she does, can she finish at all close to Trump? Can DeSantis, who has put everything into Iowa, prove wrong all those who say his campaign has been such a mess that he could soon be written off?
Trump’s team is reluctant to entertain questions about his performance, other than to show confidence that his margin of victory will be bigger than Dole’s in 1988. They hesitate to talk about the consequences of a closer-than-expected finish or to set expectations too high. But should the former president, who dominates his party, be satisfied finishing with less than a majority of the vote here?...
Whether there are enough such caucus-goers — one-time Trump supporters who want the country to move on from his chaos or never-Trump Republicans who see him as a threat to the country — to embarrass the heavy favorite on Monday night is the question of the hour.
Trump advisers are planning for a quick run through the four early states — Nevada and South Carolina coming after Iowa and New Hampshire — and then effectively claiming the nomination in early March. Those who thought at the start of 2023 that he was vulnerable to a challenge for the nomination have spent the past 12 months failing to demonstrate that he is. Monday night will be the first test.
C. Reuters:
US climate envoy John Kerry will leave the administration later this winter and plans to help President Joe Biden’s election campaign, Kerry’s office said on Saturday.
Kerry, a US former secretary of state, informed his staff earlier on Saturday after speaking with Biden earlier this week, a spokesman for Kerry told Reuters.
D. Meteorologist Jennifer Jacobs:
