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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:19:31 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Correspondent Sam Levine: Scott Duffy, a 46-year-old engineer, arrived early here to the caucus at the Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids. He’s supporting Vivek Ramaswamy. “He seems to get it and he’s not afraid to talk to you guys [the press], talk to anybody,” he said. “He’ll get down to it, he’ll get deep into the details on it. It’s not the boilerplate standard politician lines from everyone else. He’s a smart dude,” he said. He acknowledged that Trump is the “odds on favorite,” but I’m not particularly fond of how he ran the country, especially in 2020. And then he caused a lot of problems in this country that I’m not real happy with.” He added that he was interested to see how the weather affected turnout. He said he had seen rural roads nearby that were not yet plowed. Correspondent Chris Stein: In the Iowa caucuses, the task of persuading attendees to vote for a certain candidate falls to the precinct captains. Rick Jacoby is Donald Trump’s precinct captain at the site where I am – and also the only captain in attendance for any candidate. Asked if he expects captains for any other contender to show up, Jacoby, who is also checking in voters as the precinct chair, replied, “it would be nice, but we’ll see what happens”. Much has been made about whether the chilly weather Iowans are enduring will keep them from caucusing. Jacoby isn’t buying it. “Iowans are used to cold weather,” he said. There are also five members of the press in attendance, indicating the interest in covering caucuses that happen in unusual settings.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:23:07 GMT -5
(MSNBC) Ramaswamy delivers baffling final message to caucusgoersLess than an hour before doors opened tonight, Ramaswamy, whose campaign has struggled mightily, for some reason decided to center his closing pitch on … transphobia. “There are two genders. And no, a man cannot become a woman,” he wrote on X. “Iowa, I’m asking for your vote tonight.” The voters DeSantis needs if he wants to have a good nightSteve Kornacki speaking on MSNBC moments ago: The recipe in modern Republican caucuses in Iowa has been: You win the evangelical vote, win Iowa. Mike Huckabee did it in 2008, Rick Santorum did it in 2012, and Ted Cruz did it against Donald Trump in 2016. ... If DeSantis is going to have a surprisingly good night, he’s going to have to do a lot better with evangelicals, and Trump is going to have to do a lot worse than this final poll has shown. So we’ll keep an eye on that.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:24:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Washington Bureau chief David Smith: On a night when the 2024 race for the White House gets under way, some people are already talking about 2028. At a Trump campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa, a voter asked Donald Trump Jr if he would consider a run next time. His girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle exclaimed: “Oh, god.” Don Jr, 46, looked over at her and shouted: “Hey, princess, you ready for this?” She replied: “Let’s go, Iowa!” Don Jr then told the audience of 62 seated supporters: “You never know. Listen, I don’t want to say no because then if you decide to do it, like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s a major liar’, you know... I guess the answer is I will continue to fight no matter what. The question is do you want the day job of actually doing it?” Another voter asked Don Jr if he believes his father was anointed by God. Trump’s eldest son replied: “That’s not for me to decide. There’s a higher power that decides that. But I’ll say he’s fought for this country where he’s taking on forces that probably no one else has, certainly in modern history, and I think he’s delivered accordingly.” Arriving two and a half hours late because of a weather delayed flight, Don Jr endorsed “great replacement theory”, arguing that Democrats are deliberately importing people more likely to vote for them. “There’s literally more illegal immigrants coming across our border now on an annualised basis than there are babies born in America,” he said. “That’s not racist; it’s just statistics and facts.” He also took swipes at his father’s rivals in the Iowa caucuses. “Who here thinks it’s acceptable for men to be wearing high heels while running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States?” he asked in a clear dig at Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has faced claims that he wears heel lifts to make him look taller. “Nikki Haley has never met a war she didn’t want to be in,” Don Jr added. “We would be fighting, like, a 30-front war.”
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:26:27 GMT -5
(MSNBC) Evangelical Christians make up a crucial voting bloc in Iowa. In 2016, roughly two-thirds of Republican voters who participated in the Iowa caucuses identified as evangelical or born-again Christians. They helped propel Sen. Ted Cruz to victory in the state, though the Texas Republican would falter in the rest of the presidential primary. DeSantis has courted the evangelical vote hard in Iowa, but many remain staunch Trump supporters, drawn in part — as The New York Times reports — to his characterization of Christians as a persecuted minority.
Getting 80% for any poll question is usually good news for a candidate. In the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll, 61% of likely Iowa caucusgoers said it would not affect their support if Trump is convicted of a crime before Election Day 2024. A further 19% said it would make their support more likely. Just 18% said a conviction would make them less likely to vote for him. Normally, that’d be a landslide for Trump. But the possibility that up to one-fifth of Iowa Republicans — let alone undecided voters and independents — might reconsider their vote in light of a Trump conviction is another sign that his legal troubles could scramble the race. And it matches other polls — even ones with otherwise unfavorable results for Biden — that show a conviction in any of his four criminal trials could sway thousands, or even millions, of voters.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:30:15 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Correspondent Chris Stein: We’re kicking things off here in Malcolm with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer. There’s also the matter of Rick Jacoby‘s role. He’s the temporary caucus precinct chair, because the person who was originally supposed to do it got sick. He asked the attendees to elect him the permanent chair, and they granted it. A major component of the caucuses is local Republican party business. Jacoby is passing around an envelope for donations to the party, and looking for people to serve on the county central committee and attend the county convention. Correspondent Sam Levine: Here at Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids, speeches on behalf of candidates are getting underway. Barrett Hubbard, the caucus chair, is giving remarks on behalf of DeSantis. Many of the lines are similar or identical to what I’ve heard DeSantis say on the campaign trail the last few days. “DC is swampier today than ever before,” he said. “Donald Trump is running on his own issues, Nikki Haley is running for her donors’ issues and Ron DeSantis is running for the issues theater matter to the American people.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:31:26 GMT -5
(The Guardian) In Malcolm, precinct chair Rick Jacoby is now making his case for nominating Donald Trump. “I think he’s done a great job for us in the past. I think he will do a great job for us in the future,” Jacoby said. Another caucus goer spoke in favor of Florida governor Ron DeSantis. “I am afraid that as much as I supported Donald Trump the last two elections, I’m afraid that he has gotten so much negative against him, between the press and the Democrat party, that he will be ineffective if he gets elected,” the voter said. Earlier, a voter piped up to say he did not think DeSantis should stand. “He’s got a job already, he’s the governor of Florida. That’s what he needs to focus on,” the voter said. They’re now handing out ballots to determine who will win this precinct.
Voting wrapped up quickly, and they’re counting ballots now. “I think Donald Trump is going to win,” a voter said, as they counted ballots. “The reason why the news media is attacking him is because they and the democrats are afraid of him.”
A man who did not give his name just gave a speech on behalf of Nikki Haley and decried fellow Republicans attacking each other. “If we want to defeat Joe Biden, good lord folks, we can’t let that slip away by attacking one another. Whoever the Republicans nominee is I’m voting for them, he said. He also spoke about Haley’s experience on the international stage and standing by America’s allies.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:32:09 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:34:07 GMT -5
..results beginning to trickle in from Iowa... -Donald Trump, 74.6% -Ron DeSantis, 15.4% -Nikki Haley, 5.3% -Vivek Ramaswamy, 2.4% -Asa Hutchinson, 2.3%
NBC News projecting a Trump victory tonight...
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:36:32 GMT -5
...very early delegate count... Trump, 30 delegates DeSantis, 6 delegates Haley, 2 delegates Ramaswamy and Hutchinson, 1 delegate each
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:47:38 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Donald Trump wins the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa, AP projectsThe caucuses kicked off just 30 minutes ago, but the Associated Press has already made its call for Donald Trump. There’s no surprise – Trump has been by far the frontrunner. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are in a high stakes fight for second place. How big Trump’s victory is, and how closely behind Haley and DeSantis trail could set the tone for how the rest of the primaries pan out.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:48:43 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:53:33 GMT -5
Per the AP... Trump, 53.9% (22 delegates) Haley, 20% (8 delegtes) DeSantis, 16.9% (7 delegates) Ramaswamy, 7.9% (3 delegates) Hutchinson, 1.3%
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:54:50 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The cacuses are still underway, and the fight for second place still continues. CNN’s entrance polls, which were taken as caucusgoers arrived at their sites, found that the majority identified with the “MAGA movement”, referring to the “Make America Great Again” movement started by Donald Trump. That gives you a bit of an idea of where voters were ahead of the voting tonight. Correspondent Sam Levine: Here in Cedar Rapids, where the caucus is still happening, a speaker for Vivek Ramaswamy also did away with prepared remarks in favor of a more improvisational speech. “He’s not beholden to big donors. He’s so eloquent. If you get him onstage with anybody, he’s gonna come out ahead,” he said. Brett Mason, dressed in a red Make America Great Again hat, gave the speech nominating Donald Trump. He said that when Trump ran in 2016 he thought was was “capricious” and that he was “slow to get on that bandwagon.” But now, he said, “he has a record.” He also said “it was kind of crazy all the conspiracies turned out to be true” and went on to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop story He also said Trump was approachable and that he had the chance to meet him a month or so ago. Mason said he asked Trump why he was running and Trump said: “It was a landslide election in 2020 - America put me in there and I don’t want to drop the ball for them.” Trump lost both the popular vote and the electoral college to Joe Biden in 2020.
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 20:56:53 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Correspondent Chris Stein: They just announced the results of the caucus here at Kingston steakhouse in Cedar Rapids: Donald Trump got 38 votes, followed by Nikki Haley, who got 22. Ron DeSantis got 17 votes and Vivek Ramaswamy got 7 votes. Asa Hutchinson got 0 votes. One person voted “other”
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Post by Webster on Jan 15, 2024 21:01:45 GMT -5
(The Guardian) \Correspondent Joan Greve: t took only a half an hour for the AP to declare Donald Trump as the winner of the Iowa caucuses, but some precincts hadn’t even started voting when the result was announced. Here in West Des Moines, the precinct was just wrapping up speeches from candidate representatives when networks started calling the race for Trump. Even with the outcome known, caucusgoers proceeded to cast their ballots, which were thrown into a repurposed grocery bag before being counted by officials. In the end, Trump won both precincts here, although Ron DeSantis came in a close second in one precinct. In the other precinct, DeSantis and Nikki Haley tied for second place. Haley is expected to soon deliver remarks at the hotel in West Des Moines where those two precincts just concluded voting.
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