What’s really going on in Iowa? Will masses turn out to caucus for Trump? Is Bernie Sanders going to be able to ride his momentum to a shocking win?

Instead of speculating, we went straight to some of the people who know the situation on the ground best: The Iowa political editors and reporters who’ve been watching the race up close, and have lived through one cycle after the next.


In a roundtable interview moderated by Politico senior politics editor Charlie Mahtesian, they offered some surprise insights: Voter turnout might not be an exception this year; Hillary Clinton’s impressive ground game has done a solid job countering the Bernie Sanders wave; and Donald Trump—despite the polls, despite the crowds and despite the clear on-the-ground excitement—could still suffer an embarrassing defeat, not just to Ted Cruz but also to Marco Rubio.

Behind it all lies the weariness of a state that has been uniquely inundated by the American campaign machine this season. After all the YouTube ads, the mail, the attacks on TV, jokes one editor: “I can’t wait to see a fertilizer commercial.”

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Charlie Mahtesian, Politico: Can you tell us a little bit about what the national media is missing about this story? What is it that we don’t understand about the state of the election or about Iowa, or is there something we consistently get wrong?

Ed Tibbetts, Quad City Times: My perception is fairly positive when it comes to coverage. Over the years I was disabused of the notion that folks just parachute in. Yes, there are some who come for a brief period of time, but I think that a lot of the national media come and stay awhile, and it shows.

Christinia Crippes, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier: I sometimes feel like it gets missed that people are really not a hundred percent committed. People really do make up their minds at the last minute, and I think sometimes it kind of comes across that things are settled, or that some particular person is going to do well, when in reality these people are going to see multiple candidates. You see the same people on stops, and even if they say at one event that they like this person, they could go to the next one and say, ‘You know what? I was really impressed with this person, too.’

CM: How does this compare with prior elections? Is the excitement level about the same? Is it heightened?

Dale Alison, Hawk Eye: I’ve been here since ’85, and I think that it’s really a tough one to answer. The Donald Trump folks—those guys have been committed from Day One, and they have tended to draw in more and more. They’ve been good recruiters.

On the Democratic side, I really think Hillary Clinton has some rock-solid supporters, and she’s got her really solid core. But the enthusiasm is clearly with Sanders. And poor Martin O’Malley is just kind of left out.

Amalie Nash, Des Moines Register: This is my first experience with Iowa caucuses. I’ve asked that question of a lot of people here, both on the [Des Moines Register] staff as well as out in the community, and I think because of how large the field is, there has been a lot more interest from the beginning, and then when you have someone like Donald Trump running, that sort of ratchets up the coverage. I think people are a little bit more interested and excited.

We have a project that focuses on getting millennials involved with elections. And so, as we’ve been doing that and talking to a lot of millennials and having them write for us and do various things, I’ve been impressed with how engaged they are. I think part of that has to do with Sanders, because a lot of them are leaning in that direction. He’s got that young support in a lot of different factions here. It definitely seems like there’s a lot of interest from all different sort of demographics out there right now.

Bret Hayworth, Sioux City Journal: The Sioux City Journal covers 15 of Iowa’s 99 counties—and my day yesterday was spent calling county auditors and getting voter registration numbers, and we compared voter registration this year one week before the caucuses to the 2008 and 2012 elections. Very, very similar numbers.

AN: Our pollster keeps the voter list updated, and so she’s constantly looking at that and sent us an update on January 18, saying that at the end of the prior week they had about 10,000 new registrants on that list, divided pretty evenly between male and female.

ET: It’s difficult to figure out from one caucus cycle to the next whether the electorate is more excited. In 2008, we saw a great level of interest and excitement that I would say is probably similar to what we’re seeing in this cycle. What strikes me as being different, as it is in every cycle, is just the amplification of media and avenues for messaging.

DA: I think you can draw some parallels between Bernie Sanders in 2015 and Barack Obama in 2007. And I think there was that constant support for Hillary Clinton, even in that cycle, but the people who could be influenced tended to drift to Obama back then, and I think those same people are probably drifting to Sanders.

On the Republican side, I think everybody can agree that there has never been anything quite like Donald Trump, and everything seems to be reflected through that lens. He’s consumed everything on the Republican side.

CM: Will Sanders and Trump supporters actually turn out? What can you tell us about what the electorate is going to look like Monday? Do you think the energy surrounding the Sanders and Trump campaigns will actually translate into turnout in the way it did with Barack Obama when the same questions had surfaced?

DA: Absolutely. I look at Sanders and Trump as generating the same type of people who are dissatisfied with the status quo, who are dissatisfied with the way things are going. Those people have rallied around somebody who is different, and I think those people are highly motivated to turn out Monday.

CC: I live next to a college town and so from my standpoint, I see better that Bernie Sanders' people are organized and doing events that teach people how to caucus. They had an event the other night that explained to people the process of caucusing. At least in this part of Iowa, I see that Bernie Sanders’ people will probably be organized and show up.

DA: It would not surprise me in the least if Donald Trump comes out of this blanked. Those [voters interested in Trump] may show up for the Republican caucus, but they may turn out voting for somebody else, and I could see the Trump campaign essentially vanishing after this.

ET: Some of the strategists that I’ve talked to say that at least on the Democratic side, they don’t see a turnout like we saw in 2008. On the Republican side, some of the smarter folks I’ve talked to have talked about the possibility of a larger turnout. Given just how small a slice of the electorate the caucus participants are, it’s really something that’s just so difficult to know.

CM: The Iowans I’ve talked to are expecting a record-breaking turnout this year. Are there any contrarians among you who think that maybe that’s not the case, that maybe the level of excitement among Republicans might be overstated, that this might just turn out to be a standard year?

BH: I go simply on interviews that I’ve done with people, but I think it’s perhaps overstated that it’s going to be some record turnout amongst Republicans. Talking with some county officials again, as I’ve done in the last few days, I talked to one who—in the largest county up here in northwest Iowa—said it looks like it’s a typical presidential year.

DA: In this state, I think it’s going to be highly dependent upon the weather. If it looks like it’s snowy or rainy, which I think is a possibility, that could have a huge impact.

CM: We’ve talked a lot about the rallies and the field organization and the mechanics of the campaigns. I was wondering if anyone could go out on a limb and about who you think has run the best campaign in Iowa. Which stands out as a campaign that’s really wired in to the state, organized everywhere, and has attracted the notice of Iowa?

DA: I think Hillary Clinton has maintained the support she had in ’08, and then she went out and purposely tried to round up the Obama supporters, and I think she was pretty successful at that. But I don't know that anybody saw the Sanders wave coming, and I think the new people in the party are really enthused by Bernie Sanders. Sanders was able to capitalize on his surge, but I think Clinton has been able to beat that back. On the Republican side, it’s been all over the place.

AN: One of the interesting things, if you look at the Republican side, is how differently they’re conducting their campaigns. If you look at someone like Huckabee, who’s doing 150 events over the course of just a few weeks, and Rick Santorum has been in the state a ton, traveling all over—it has not translated to higher poll numbers. I think you see some real differences in terms of which ones are relying more on television and print advertising, and which ones are really trying to do retail campaigning. The different tactics are dependent on money and everything else, but you’re just seeing a lot of variety on the Republican side.

CC: What I’ve noticed is that Ted Cruz is following the playbook of Santorum and Huckabee, and it is sort of translating into success for him. And so I see him as fairly well-organized on the Republican side. I’ve seen him a few times, and he’s very successful at the big, large rallies, but he also does well at those smaller sort of events. I think he’s following what, in my mind, is sort of the Iowa playbook and meeting success with it. Donald Trump is not really doing the Iowa playbook but is doing quite well here. So who knows?

CM: At the national level, it seems like we’ve settled on a consensus based on polls that in Iowa, at least, on the Republican side, it’s a battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for first place and then it’s less clear about who comes next. Can anyone speculate on who finishes in third place after those two?

AN: We do extensive polling, and so that aligns with the last poll a couple of weeks ago that we had that showed Donald Trump and Ted Cruz within the margin of error, with Cruz up slightly, and then Marco Rubio and Ben Carson down in the next tier. I think that is going to be sort of a race for third, and it will be interesting because you saw Ben Carson on the upswing for a little while and now his numbers have gone down; whereas Rubio’s numbers seem to be going up a little bit, and he’s building more momentum. And if you look at the level of advertising, both pro and anti-Rubio, you see way more of that in the state right now than you see advertising around Ben Carson. And so I think other candidates are seeing Rubio as being viable, and that’s why you’re seeing so many attack ads against him, and you’re seeing his PAC responding in kind by placing a lot more advertising.

ET: People will be watching on caucus night who ends up in third place, who emerges in that establishment lane. But I also think that given the overwhelming consensus that this is a race in Iowa between Cruz and Trump, if one of them underperforms, that might be a big story.

CM: When the Iowa Republican electorate is discussed, it’s often discussed in terms of the high percentage of evangelicals that comprise the base there, particularly compared to, say, the Northeast or some other parts of the country. Yet when you look at those numbers, a candidate who would seem at first glance not to be in perfect alignment with evangelicals has a pretty healthy share, and that’s Donald Trump. What is it about his appeal with born-again voters? Or just generally, why does he have so much traction?

ET: My perception of that block of voters is that they have a variety of interests.

CC: Maybe it’s just because I was most recently at a Ted Cruz event, but people there seem to not like Donald Trump because he doesn’t come across as truly Christian, or at least doesn’t participate in it in the same way that they do. Most of the supporters that I’ve talked to, or people who have at least been interested in him, haven’t brought that up as the main reason they’re supporting him or as an issue that’s most important to them. So I mostly hear it on the other side, where people are frustrated that he’s doing well with evangelicals or that he’s just doing so well because he’s not as vocally religious.

DA: I think there’s a lot of vocal support for Trump, but I still don’t know how deep that support is, and it would not surprise me in the least if, at the last moment, that would flip to not necessarily a Cruz, but I think a Rubio would be a big beneficiary of a flip. I think the appeal for Trump is just the fact that people are frustrated that nothing seems to be getting done, and you’ve got Donald Trump out here saying, ‘I’m going to get it done. I do this stuff for a living.’

BH: From my recent candidate events in heavy evangelical Protestant territory—very rich Republican turf—I don’t know that evangelicals are turning out in big numbers. I see a lot of people that are still taken in by the celebrity and wanting to come see a show, so to speak. And if you just compare what is said on the campaign trail, the signifiers … Rubio was up here recently, Cruz was up here recently … they pepper their remarks with Bible verses and references to God and the Lord and all that sort of stuff, and I don’t hear Trump doing that in the events I’ve covered, and then seeing him in other places, on TV and such. It’s a little curious to me that evangelicals would be going to him, and I’m still not sold on that as something that’s happening.

CM: Can you either predict a winner or tell us something we should look for on Monday?

AN: I won’t talk about who I think is going to win, but I think one thing that’s interesting about Iowa—Kathie Obradovich, our political columnist, wrote about this—it’s the concept of expectations. Even if someone doesn’t win the caucuses, they can sort of win the media cycle by beating expectations. So at this point, there are certain expectations based on polling, media attention and everything else around all of the candidates.

If someone like Martin O’Malley got 10 percent here, that would be a story, that he’s been polling at 4 percent and then suddenly he rises to 10, and then it’s, ‘Well, what’s going on? Is his campaign suddenly picking up steam?’ And obviously he wouldn’t have won. He still would have come in third place in that case, but, you know, there would be a conversation around it.

We asked Chris Christie, when he was here, how he was hoping to place. And he said, ‘Look, I’m not going to win the Iowa caucuses. I know that. My goal is to be the governor who lands on top.” And so if that’s the case for him, then that’s some success.

ET: It’s a cop-out, but I would say that one of the fun things about the Iowa caucuses is that generally something happens on caucus night that nobody expected. I wouldn’t expect that this cycle would be much different.

DA: I’m not going to hazard a guess. It will be interesting to see how solid the Trump support is.

BH: I’m going to say that Sanders will be a very, very tight second to Clinton. That race has definitely tightened, and then that could be a narrative, that Clinton had led for so long and now it’s tightened.

On the Republican side, it is hard to predict, but I’m suspecting that the Iowans who have told pollsters they like Trump may not turn out to caucus. So I will go with Cruz, Rubio, Trump, Carson, then Huckabee or Paul.

CC: I don’t want to make it a prediction, but going back to what I said about the organization of Ted Cruz: I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do very well, especially compared to Donald Trump. I just think he has the stronger organization. But I could be way wrong, and we’ll find out Monday night.

CM: One question that comes up a lot, and you see this in the national media coverage of Iowa, is surrounding the ethanol issue. That was a contentious issue for Senator Cruz and some of the other candidates. But it’s hard to tell outside of Iowa how much of an issue it is anymore. For many years, this was considered something akin to a third-rail issue, and the politics and economics surrounding it have changed over the years. Can you put that debate in context? How much does it matter to Iowa’s economy now, and how much do people pay attention to the ethanol question?



CC: I have not seen it be a top issue. I certainly think it is an issue. I mean, it does affect a good portion of our economy. But I haven’t seen it asked about a lot.

BH: From what I’ve seen, there are so many mailers [on ethanol.] It’s the third party interest groups that are really pushing this issue in Iowa—the alliances. There are ethanol alliances really pushing Cruz on this derogatorily.

DA: I was really surprised that Terry Branstad has gone to the mat on this issue. This really was not a campaign issue. It did not come up in the questioning. And the fact that the governor has made it an issue surprised me.

AN: It certainly is something that state leadership feels strongly about, which is why it became an issue there. When we’ve had the candidates in for editorial board meetings, we’ve asked all of them what the main questions they’re hearing out on the trail are, and you know, what are people talking about. Ethanol is not number one or even mentioned by most of them. It has more to do with the economy, and then after Paris, a lot of the conversation really shifted toward homeland security and terrorism. It’s a small but vocal group that’s keeping the issue alive.

ET: I think what’s really different in the Republican Party in Iowa is that there is a stronger libertarian strain. And so, objection to subsidies as a whole I think are more pronounced now than maybe they were some years ago and as a result of that ethanol may not carry as much weight as it once did.

CM: So if ethanol doesn’t occupy the number one spot on the priorities list, what does occupy number one? What’s your sense about the issue that tops the list of priorities for most voters? What do they care about the most?

BH: I think we saw on the campaign trail in November, after the Paris attacks, everything flipped. It all became international/national security; you know, Israel, ISIS. I mean, those took up a huge amount of time in the candidate speeches as they talked with people here.

The thing that is so surprising, if you can recall four years ago, it was all jobs and if economic growth would be enough to where Obama could hold on and, you know, withstand a reelection. It very much seemed to be based on job numbers. You don't hear much about the economy [in 2016]. I hear very little about tax plans.

AN: The term that he used, that everything flipped: That’s a term that we’ve heard candidates use themselves. There was a variety of issues people would ask them about in town halls, [and] as soon as that happened, terrorism and ISIS became the number one thing and continues to be to this day.

EH: What’s interesting in the polling I’ve seen, and I think I’ve seen it at rallies as well, is that ISIS, terrorism, national security are bigger issues on the Republican side than on the Democratic side.

CC: Since the attacks, on the Republican side it’s become a bigger issue. On the Democratic side, it has become more of an issue. I’m a little surprised by how much health care issues are still a dominant talking point. Of course, in a college area, I hear a lot about affordable college and lower student loan rates and things like that on the Democratic side.

So it’s not necessarily the economy. But on the Democratic side, I still think it is about getting a leg up and doing well in a middle-class environment, and so I hear that more on the Democratic side. But like everyone else has said, on the Republican side there was that flip switch.

CM: What does it feel like on the ground in Iowa right now? How do the caucuses and the plague of reporters affect the rhythms of daily life? How would you characterize the level of excitement and bustle in Iowa right now?

ET: If you’re just asking about reporters—I’m sure you’re not—it’s obviously consuming us. But regular Iowans, I would say that for those people who are engaged in the caucuses, plan to go: They are being inundated with information right now.

BH: I’ve spoken to people in my circle of friends and people I know from covering politics here for many years—there are people who are really into politics, are superenthused about the potential of meeting all these candidates. We’ve had hundreds of visits over the last year throughout the state, and people that are really dialed in really, really appreciate it. It’s such a broad field that they relish the opportunity to see all these people in cafes.

There are [also] many who are just sick of it, to be quite blunt, and are in essence tuning it out.

AN: I was at an event last night where Tom Brokaw spoke, and somebody there was talking about how he had gone to visit family in Wisconsin over the weekend and was watching TV and was suddenly shocked that it wasn’t filled with political advertising. He was wondering what was going on until he realized, ‘Wait! I’m in a different state!’ I’ve been joking that I can’t wait to see a fertilizer commercial at this point.

CM: Is it just all ads all the time? Can you watch a television show uninterrupted by political ads?

CC: I’ve noticed that even when I try and watch something on YouTube or when I go to websites and look at videos, they’re all political ads. I can’t tell you how many Bernie Sanders ads I’ve seen watching YouTube. So it’s not just a television thing. It’s pretty unavoidable.

DA: People are really commenting about the increase in direct mail, particularly my Democratic friends.

BH: It’s also radio. I have this penchant for listening to some of the AM radio stations here in some of the smaller towns, and there are tons of political, presidential advertisements on there. And for those of us on social media like Facebook, all sorts of pop-ups that are politically related.

CM: Can you give it some scale for us? I mean, is it bigger than RAGBRAI (Iowa’s annual bike race)? Is it bigger than the Rose Bowl (which the University of Iowa played in this month)? Can you give us some idea of the scope of what a big deal it is or isn’t?

CC: It’s probably hard to judge because, as a political person, I interact with political people who, yes, this is their big event. It probably isn’t RAGBRAI-big or Rose Bowl-big, but it is a big event, and people are enthused about it if they’re in the political world. I think the people who aren’t in that world this could have ended a long time ago for them.

DA: It is all-consuming. Even people who are sick of it realize Iowa’s place in the pecking order. They’re waiting for the ads to finish. They’re ready for the show to move on. But I think at the same time, they’re pretty excited for Monday to come.

AN: The Des Moines Register does a lot of extensive polling here, and we did an Iowa poll in advance of the Rose Bowl, and we asked the poll respondents, “Are you most excited about ... ,” and there were about four options, and the Rose Bowl was one of them and caucuses was one, and the Rose Bowl won out in terms of people’s excitement. But the interesting thing in that poll was that wasn’t the case with Donald Trump supporters. They were more excited about the caucuses.

This interview has been condensed and edited.