Dem
51
GOP
49
Waterloo is a small city of 67,000 located 90 miles northeast of Des Moines. Here it is on the map:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has been there, as he has visited all of Iowa's 99 counties and Waterloo is the most populous city in Black Hawk County. Unfortunately for him, it is also one of the bluest counties in the state and has been so for decades. So his visit was quick and pro forma, just to check a box on the way to somewhere more promising. But tonight he is likely to meet the other Waterloo—you know, the place in Belgium that Napoleon visited on June 18, 1815, and was later quite sorry he did, since that was the end of the line for him.
Everyone was waiting for Ann Selzer to release her final poll of tonight's Iowa caucuses. She is considered the best Iowa pollster in the business, but even she gets it wrong sometimes. And the very cold temperatures expected for tonight could also impact turnout (and her prediction). On the other hand, the expected blizzard doesn't seem to have materialized, with the forecast now being for very cold temperatures (ca. -6F) but no blizzard for most of the state.
Here are her results: Donald Trump 48%, Nikki Haley 20%, and Ron DeSantis 16%. If Trump gets 48%, that will be the highest score for a non-incumbent Republican ever. Even more important is that Selzer has DeSantis in third place.
According to Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review and a guy well steeped in Republican politics, unless DeSantis stuns everyone tonight with a powerful second-place finish (assuming Iowa can count the caucus votes correctly, something the state is not especially good at) DeSantis is done. You can stick a fork in him. If he can't win a state jam-packed with evangelicals—whose leader, Bob Vander Plaats, supports him, as does the state's governor, Kim Reynolds (R)—how is he going to do next week in New Hampshire, a state full of crusty Yankees who don't like him and whose governor, Chris Sununu, has endorsed Nikki Haley? It's do or die for Ron tonight. Maybe the cold weather will keep the Haley voters home, but they tend to be affluent suburbanites who understand the stakes, so maybe not.
The path is important. If Haley comes in second to Donald Trump tonight, she will have the Big Mo going into New Hampshire, a state where she is already nipping at Trump's heels. A bit more momentum courtesy of Iowa could put her over the top in the Granite State. Aforementioned crusty Yankees just love telling those Iowa evangelicals, uh, nope. As in, nope to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2016, nope to Rick Santorum in 2012, and nope to Mike Huckabee in 2008, despite their respective wins in Iowa. In none of those years did the winner of the Iowa caucus win New Hampshire. In fact, in all three of those years, the winner of New Hampshire, not the winner of Iowa, went on to win the Republican presidential nomination. New Hampshire is a good bellwether whereas Iowa is a terrible one. Sorry, Iowans.
If DeSantis does poorly tonight, his prospects in New Hampshire next week are lousy, his prospects in the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 8 are very poor and his prospects in the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24 are truly dreadful, assuming he is still in the race then. DeSantis hasn't campaigned much in Nevada and Trump leads him there by 65 points. A recent Emerson poll there has Trump at 73% and DeSantis at 8%. For some reason, the pollsters forgot to ask about Haley. Silly of them. South Carolina is Haley's own state and she is sure to come in second. It's do or die in Iowa for DeSantis. Lowry thinks that if DeSantis does really poorly in Iowa tonight, he'll drop out before the end of the week. (V)