Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Take DC podcast. This is a
Speaker 1: special dispatch from Des Moines, where former President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: just won the Iowa caucuses. It's a big moment in
Speaker 1: a big election year, the first contest in a race
Speaker 1: for the Republican ticket. We've had a surprising turn of events.
Speaker 1: Trump's win was called the four some caucaus sights had
Speaker 1: even started debating, and the race for number two, Florida
Speaker 1: Governor Ron De Santis, won that. I'm your host, Seleia Mosen.
Speaker 1: I'm taping at ten fifty pm from Iowa with two
Speaker 1: senior politics reporters, Bloomberg's Nancy Cook and Josh Green. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about Monday night's results, what it means
Speaker 1: for the Republican ticket, and what it could tell us
Speaker 1: about the twenty twenty four presidential race.
Speaker 2: Ahead.
Speaker 1: Nancy, Josh, thanks for coming by my pop up podcast
Speaker 1: studio here in the des Moin Marriott.
Speaker 3: It's glorious.
Speaker 4: I'm very impressed by the towels draped over things.
Speaker 5: Fun.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get started. Monday nights caucuses in Iowa
Speaker 1: started at seven pm with one of the purest expressions
Speaker 1: of democracy, the Pledge of allegiance. I was at a
Speaker 1: caucas site tonight with my producer, Julia Press. We sat
Speaker 1: in a high school auditorium and listened to Iowan's advocate
Speaker 1: for three different candidates.
Speaker 6: I feel that Desiantas will be the one that can
Speaker 6: take the military's role. Very seriously, we have.
Speaker 3: To consider the general election.
Speaker 5: I believe that Haley has the best chance against Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: How about somebody that's got a track record that means
Speaker 5: what they say and say what they mean true.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm pulling for Trump.
Speaker 1: The big news of the night is actually how fast
Speaker 1: The Associated Press, which officially calls the race, said that
Speaker 1: Trump had won. Caucus has started at seven and the
Speaker 1: race was called at seven thirty one pm. Is this
Speaker 1: usually how these nights go?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: I think that we did expect the results to be
Speaker 4: called pretty early, just because Trump did have such a
Speaker 4: commanding lead in the polls, you know, dating back at
Speaker 4: least a month, if not more.
Speaker 3: It's very unusual, certainly unprecedented for a race to get
Speaker 3: called before caucus goers had even liked her its speeches.
Speaker 3: But it just goes to show what a landslide victory
Speaker 3: it was for Trump because there was no mystery from
Speaker 3: the moment, you know, the doors opened about who is
Speaker 3: going to win?
Speaker 4: Now Ron DeSantis's campaign. You know, he came in second
Speaker 4: in the Iowa coccus Is. They are calling foul on
Speaker 4: that early AP call and they feel like it's unfair.
Speaker 4: You know, people, as you said, like didn't even have
Speaker 4: time to actually pick who they were going to support,
Speaker 4: and the AP had already called it. So they are
Speaker 4: really criticizing that decision.
Speaker 1: Let's get to that second piece of news then, on
Speaker 1: who got second place, Ron DeSantis. We did actually talk
Speaker 1: to some voters who shared a couple of reasons for
Speaker 1: supporting Rondasantis. His domestic policies are very strong.
Speaker 7: I like his honesty and his forthcoming. I think he
Speaker 7: understands what we're facing, what the middle class is facing
Speaker 7: right now, and actually has some plan to do something
Speaker 7: about it.
Speaker 2: Actually, I knew two years ago that I would want
Speaker 2: him to be president. It was after COVID and what
Speaker 2: he did during that.
Speaker 1: How do you think DeSantis pulled off a second placer?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't use the phrase pulling off. I mean he
Speaker 3: finished probably thirty points behind Trump, So I would characterize
Speaker 3: it as a disappointing second place finish for DeSantis, that's
Speaker 3: just good enough that he can probably stay in the
Speaker 3: race for a couple more states. I just don't see him.
Speaker 3: Given all the money and manpower that the Santas in
Speaker 3: a super Pac put into this race, it doesn't bode
Speaker 3: well for his chances going forward. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I mean, vivek Rimostin came in fourth, he's already dropping out.
Speaker 1: He's announced that immediately. Where does that leave our other
Speaker 1: big cuted Nikka Hayley.
Speaker 4: It leaves her in not a spot that she wanted
Speaker 4: heading into New Hampshire. She's expected to do much better
Speaker 4: in New Hampshire because the electorate there is much different.
Speaker 4: It's full of independents, more moderate Republicans, Democrats, and so
Speaker 4: she's expected to do pretty well in New Hampshire and
Speaker 4: probably come in second. And so they were hoping she
Speaker 4: would come in second in Iowa and then it would
Speaker 4: kind of turn into a real race between her and
Speaker 4: Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: That's not what we had.
Speaker 3: The other thing that became clear and talking to polsters
Speaker 3: and analysts in Iowa this week was that a lot
Speaker 3: of Haley's supporters are independents and Democrats. Who crossed over
Speaker 3: in order to vote against Trump, and that helped her
Speaker 3: a little bit in Iowa. It will certainly help her
Speaker 3: in New Hampshire. But as we move forward to more
Speaker 3: conservative states where that sort of thing isn't allowed, it
Speaker 3: just doesn't suggest that Haley can put together a winning
Speaker 3: coalition of Republicans rather than independence and Democrats, which is
Speaker 3: ultimately what she's going to need she's going to pose
Speaker 3: any kind of a real threat to Trump.
Speaker 1: There is a couple of unique things that happened this year.
Speaker 1: One is the weather. It's the coldest caucus in modern history.
Speaker 1: A lot of reporters and political operatives flying out from
Speaker 1: DC and other parts of the country barely made it.
Speaker 1: My team struggled to get to Des Moines.
Speaker 3: We are here in Atlanta, derailed and disrupted by the
Speaker 3: harsh weather.
Speaker 5: All of DC is spread out across the country trying
Speaker 5: to get to des Moin.
Speaker 1: Is there any sense that the weather actually affected turnout?
Speaker 4: So we don't know what the weather did or did
Speaker 4: not cause, but the early estimates of the turnout are
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand people, which if that turns out to
Speaker 4: be correct, it was very very low. The largest turnout
Speaker 4: that we saw was in twenty sixteen when Ted Cruz
Speaker 4: beat Donald Trump in that caucus, and that was a
Speaker 4: turnout of roughly one hundred and eighty thousand. And I
Speaker 4: don't know if that's the weather, but the weather here
Speaker 4: has been absolutely terrible. And we had the legendary Iowa
Speaker 4: polster j N. Seltzer in to talk with some Bloomberg
Speaker 4: reporters and editors this week, and she said something that
Speaker 4: stuck with me, which is that you know, it will
Speaker 4: really hinge on whether or not people can get a
Speaker 4: parking space at their caucus location because the roads and
Speaker 4: the parking lots are still filled with snow drifts. You imagine, like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's so cold here at sub zero temperatures,
Speaker 4: If you can't park at your caucus location, you know
Speaker 4: you're just going to skip it.
Speaker 1: Was there any one candidate that benefited or was affected
Speaker 1: by the lower turnout?
Speaker 3: I think if anything, it helped Trump because if you
Speaker 3: looked at breakdowns of polls and who was most enthusiastic
Speaker 3: about their candidate, Trump's supporters were far more enthusiastic to
Speaker 3: go out and vote for Trump than the Santus voters
Speaker 3: were to vote for DeSantis or Haley voters who were
Speaker 3: to vote for her, and he ultimately ended up clearing
Speaker 3: the bar that I think a lot of people were
Speaker 3: looking at, which was will he win a majority of votes?
Speaker 3: Will he win you know, fifty percent plus one in Iowa,
Speaker 3: you know, and beat all the other candidates combined.
Speaker 4: I also just want to say that the Trump campaign
Speaker 4: this year compared to twenty sixteen, is so different, and
Speaker 4: they are so organized this time and super professional, and
Speaker 4: they have it together. And I think that Democrats and
Speaker 4: people who who are not necessarily following Republican politics day
Speaker 4: to day are I'm not fully aware of that. Trump
Speaker 4: has a very competent team of long time experienced operatives
Speaker 4: around him, including his campaign manager Susie Wiles, and a
Speaker 4: senior advisor, Chris Losovita. And they took really no chances.
Speaker 3: In Iowa.
Speaker 4: They identified precinct captains who went to each precinct location
Speaker 4: with these white hats and gold lettering. You know it
Speaker 4: said Trump Caucus Captain. It's like out of the Apprentice.
Speaker 4: They made a hat to caucus video.
Speaker 1: Making America Great Again starts one place on Earth and
Speaker 1: one place only right here in Iowa.
Speaker 4: And you know, Trump did not come to the state
Speaker 4: as often as Haley or DeSantis, but behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: they were organizing quite effectively, and I think that that
Speaker 4: really helped them. I mean they you know, a few
Speaker 4: days ago, we talked to them and they said, look,
Speaker 4: we'll give people rides if we need to. You know,
Speaker 4: we're happy to. We'll organize rides to pick people up
Speaker 4: if they can't get their themselves.
Speaker 1: Trump broke the he got more than fifty percent in
Speaker 1: Iowais this is a big deal for him? Then?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that was the most of the
Speaker 3: analysis sort of hinged around that fifty percent barrier, you know,
Speaker 3: would he be able to win a majority? And that
Speaker 3: was what a lot of people were looking at going in,
Speaker 3: like will he be able to will he not be
Speaker 3: able to? In the fact that he did, I think
Speaker 3: only kind of amplifies my sense that he is every
Speaker 3: bit the strong candidate that we thought he was going in.
Speaker 4: It looks like he won by you know, potentially more
Speaker 4: than twenty five points, the largest that anyone ever won
Speaker 4: the Iowa caucuses. The margin was twelve point five or
Speaker 4: twelve point eight percent, you know, roughly that was Bob Dole.
Speaker 4: So this is historically the largest margin. And I also
Speaker 4: want to point out that, you know, he's always had
Speaker 4: a lock on the working class, but it seems like,
Speaker 4: you know, based on some early reporting, it also seems
Speaker 4: like he really did well with college educated Republicans in Iowa.
Speaker 4: So I think it just shows that his support is
Speaker 4: not just with old you know, people who have supported
Speaker 4: him since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: So one key thing remember is that Iowa is a
Speaker 1: heavily Republican state. It's not really representative of the rest
Speaker 1: of the country demographically. Plus, in the last five decades,
Speaker 1: Republican caucuses here have correctly predicted the party nominee and
Speaker 1: a contested race just three times, and only one of
Speaker 1: those winners went on to take the presidency, was George W.
Speaker 1: Bush in two thousand. So what can we learn from
Speaker 1: the Iowa caucus results.
Speaker 3: We'll get to that after the break. We're back.
Speaker 1: I'm Saliah Mosen with a Big Take DC podcast taping
Speaker 1: past eleven pm here in Iowa. I'm with Bloomberg's Nancy
Speaker 1: Cook and Josh Green, and we are digging into the
Speaker 1: results of the Iowa caucuses. So Nan, Josh, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what we can learn from Iowa. Nancy, you spoke
Speaker 1: to jay An Seltzer, a prominent Iowa polster, earlier today.
Speaker 1: What did she say is being captured in the polls?
Speaker 1: And how accurate were her pre caucus polling results.
Speaker 4: I think what her polling show that really stuck with
Speaker 4: me is that they're is a huge amount of enthusiasm
Speaker 4: in Iowa for Trump and it cut across like every
Speaker 4: age group and every demographic group, and I was so
Speaker 4: struck by that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ron DeSantis. He went all in on Iowa.
Speaker 1: He visited all in ninety nine counties. He moved a
Speaker 1: third of his campaign staff to the state pretty early.
Speaker 1: He got the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the governor here,
Speaker 1: and major evangelical leaders. All of these things are the
Speaker 1: typical Bell weathers with success. What does it mean that
Speaker 1: he did all of this but he is still a
Speaker 1: distant second.
Speaker 3: I'll just say it. It means he's a terrible candidate.
Speaker 3: I mean, talking to insiders around Iowa, you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the politics here is kind of retail and local,
Speaker 3: and you meet people and people are just not impressed
Speaker 3: with Desantisus political skills. As you said, he had every advantage,
Speaker 3: And the only thing you can really say about his
Speaker 3: Iowa experience is the eked out a narrow second place
Speaker 3: finish that I think will allow him to continue on
Speaker 3: in the race. But I think the finish that his
Speaker 3: team was hoping for was something much closer to Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: something that creates the idea that Dessantas had momentum, that
Speaker 3: his candidacy was being reborn and it was going to
Speaker 3: emerge once again as a serious challenger to Trump. And
Speaker 3: there's really nothing in the results that point to that.
Speaker 1: Josh, you said something earlier about moderate's Democrats, independents all
Speaker 1: getting involved to support Nicki Haley. When I was out
Speaker 1: there at a precinct and when Julia, my producer, was
Speaker 1: out at different rallies for the three major candidates, we
Speaker 1: heard it from a number of voters who were drawn
Speaker 1: to Nicki Haley because she represented a moderate option.
Speaker 6: I think we're looking for someone that's not going to
Speaker 6: create a divisive country.
Speaker 3: I just think she's so down to earth and just
Speaker 3: common sense.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 1: As a she didn't do so well Monday night in Iowa.
Speaker 1: What does her performance here say about Republican voters and
Speaker 1: their appetite for a moderate in this cycle.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that Nikki Haley's support here, you know,
Speaker 4: as we've talked about, was with independents and Democrats, and
Speaker 4: also her support came from the suburbs, you know, the
Speaker 4: Des Moines suburbs, like places where more moderate Republican voters lived.
Speaker 4: But I just think the broad Republican base will not
Speaker 4: necessarily get behind her. And you have to remember too,
Speaker 4: that sort of having this three candidate race still benefits
Speaker 4: the Trump campaign because it leaves the field very fractured.
Speaker 4: So you'll have DeSantis coming in second in Iowa, potentially
Speaker 4: Nikki Haley in New Hampshire. Like it prolongs the race,
Speaker 4: but it allows no one to actually rise up and
Speaker 4: really challenge him. And that's the same thing that happened
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen, but on sort of a bigger scale
Speaker 4: because there were more candidates. And but the more the
Speaker 4: field is fractured and no one is able to kind
Speaker 4: of coalesce support, the better that it is for Trump.
Speaker 1: So, Nancy, to your point, we did actually talk to
Speaker 1: some voters who were changing their registration to participate in
Speaker 1: the primary, bringing out their driver's license and indication that
Speaker 1: they are or maybe they were Democrats or independence and
Speaker 1: now they're registering as Republicans.
Speaker 6: Hey Cock, it's for a Pete Buddha dej last time,
Speaker 6: I'm actually like a registered Democrat, Like this is very
Speaker 6: unusual for me to come over on the Republican side,
Speaker 6: But I just feel like this this election is so critical.
Speaker 1: But at the CAUCA site that I was at, I
Speaker 1: ran into Des Moines Mayor Connie Bosen who said that
Speaker 1: she actually doubts that there is going to be enough
Speaker 1: people switching over to Republican to really make a significant difference.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people say they might do that, but to really
Speaker 2: do it is another thing.
Speaker 1: Josh, you said there's going to be more of these
Speaker 1: voters in other states. Do you think that it's going
Speaker 1: to be enough to boost Haley's campaign from third to second?
Speaker 3: It may in the state of New Hampshire, where there's
Speaker 3: a long tradition of independence and Democrats crossing over when
Speaker 3: there isn't a competitive Democratic primary, like there's not this year.
Speaker 3: So I think that's Haley's best hope at emerging with
Speaker 3: a or even like a kind of a close challenge
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. I mean, one of the things I
Speaker 3: was looking at tonight and some of the returns in
Speaker 3: these counties was where Nikki Haley did well and what
Speaker 3: sorts of voter she was winning. And there were counties where,
Speaker 3: at least based on the polling of people going into caucuses,
Speaker 3: something like ninety percent of her supporters were college educated.
Speaker 3: That is not a reflection of what the broader demographics
Speaker 3: of the Republican primary electorate looked like. And unless she
Speaker 3: can start drawing many more non college educated voters, I
Speaker 3: think she's going to be stuck as a factional candidate
Speaker 3: who has a lot of appeal to moderate, never Trump
Speaker 3: college educated voters, but I think a lot of those
Speaker 3: voters if Trump winds up being the nominee, you're going
Speaker 3: to turn around and vote for Joe Biden in the fall.
Speaker 1: What about Donald Trump's legal troubles? What are we seeing
Speaker 1: from the Iowa results about how people think about that?
Speaker 3: Did not seem to be a problem. On the polls
Speaker 3: of BECUS goers going in, two thirds of voters said
Speaker 3: that it wouldn't it wouldn't dent their support of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump if he were I think convicted of criminal charges.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that the challenge for the Trump campaign is that,
Speaker 4: you know, he's a bulletproof with the Republicans. Does that
Speaker 4: carry over to the general election, you know, do suburban
Speaker 4: women come back to him to independence? I mean, we
Speaker 4: have seen in swing state polls that Bloomberg has conducted
Speaker 4: with Morning Consul that he is ahead in all the
Speaker 4: swing states, so like, I don't think it's affecting him
Speaker 4: with swing state voters either so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Josh, And that's roughly like what you said about
Speaker 1: voters not caring is in line with.
Speaker 4: What we heard.
Speaker 1: I really respect his dignity to just bite it.
Speaker 5: If our former president, an American citizen who's a billionaire,
Speaker 5: is handcuffed by the political system and the justice system,
Speaker 5: how's a regular citizen like myself ever going to be
Speaker 5: able to stand up to the government.
Speaker 1: Look at all the January sixth stuff that he's had
Speaker 1: to end or all he did was to stand up
Speaker 1: there and have a speech. So the least that we
Speaker 1: can do is stand behind him.
Speaker 3: I think that's just a reflection of the iron grip
Speaker 3: that Trump has over Republican voters. They don't see his
Speaker 3: legal woes as being a reflection of his bad behavior.
Speaker 3: They see it as him being persecuted, like in many
Speaker 3: cases on their behalf and it only intensifies their support
Speaker 3: for him. And I think that helps to explain why
Speaker 3: Trump won a landslide victory in Iowa.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about what we've all seen
Speaker 1: and heard here in Iowa and what it could mean
Speaker 1: for the general election and President Joe Biden. In November,
Speaker 1: we talked to a lot of Iowands. The economy came
Speaker 1: up over and over again.
Speaker 6: It could be economy right now.
Speaker 3: It's kind of down the rain.
Speaker 7: Oh my god. The grocery store.
Speaker 6: I hate going down even just.
Speaker 7: Getting a snack or a drink at a driver.
Speaker 5: It's crazy, how expensited.
Speaker 2: I have three kids at home. The groceries I swear
Speaker 2: of double. I mean, you can't say you can't keep
Speaker 2: a budget.
Speaker 7: I went to Hygie the other day. I got like
Speaker 7: two bags of groceries like one hundred bucks, which is
Speaker 7: kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: And that last voice was a man named Scott Bates,
Speaker 1: who said that he planned to caucus for Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: And he told Julia Press, my producer, that he was
Speaker 1: worried about her finances.
Speaker 7: I don't know how somebody your age could afford to
Speaker 7: buy a house.
Speaker 1: What do you think of that?
Speaker 4: Well, I think that we heard the same thing. You know,
Speaker 4: I heard the same thing when I was out and about,
Speaker 4: you know, not just in Iowa, but kind of everywhere.
Speaker 4: I think the pocketbook issues are really important to people.
Speaker 4: You know, I would include in the price of groceries,
Speaker 4: you know, the price of gas. The other thing that
Speaker 4: we heard a lot about this week, which kind of
Speaker 4: surprised me, was immigration. We just heard from a ton
Speaker 4: of people here what a problem that is.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: We spoke with one ceo who you know, owns a
Speaker 4: bunch of farms and a bunch of agribusinesses, and he's
Speaker 4: had a hard time getting enough workers, and he's mad
Speaker 4: at Washington that there isn't sort of better immigration policy
Speaker 4: that lets people come here or legally. I just think
Speaker 4: that immigration is a huge sleeper issue and the Democrats
Speaker 4: haven't really come up with a good answer for it.
Speaker 4: So I think Trump will continue to put them on
Speaker 4: the defensive over that.
Speaker 1: How is what happened in Iowa going to help Biden
Speaker 1: craft his message as he in earnest begins his campaign.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the big one is there was
Speaker 3: a CNN poll the other day that showed something like
Speaker 3: three out of four independent voters don't believe that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. Trump winning
Speaker 3: a landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses, which he has done,
Speaker 3: I think is going to start pulling some of those
Speaker 3: voters back to reality, and that's probably a positive for Biden.
Speaker 3: I mean, the best thing for Biden's chances of a
Speaker 3: second term are Trump emerging as the Republican nominee and
Speaker 3: turning off independent voters, who, especially in a kind of
Speaker 3: a fifty to fifty narrowly divided country, can be the
Speaker 3: deciding votes.
Speaker 4: The Biden White House has been banking for months on
Speaker 4: this playbook that they have of running against Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: and they think it will be successful because it was
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty and twenty twenty two. But I think
Speaker 4: the mood in this country is very sour over the
Speaker 4: economy and on immigration, and I'm not sure that they're
Speaker 4: prepared for the fights that they're going to have.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thanks for listening to the Big
Speaker 1: Take DC podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm your host, Seleiah Mosen,
Speaker 1: coming to you from Des Moines, Iowa. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Julia Press and Naomi shaven a special thanks
Speaker 1: to Gregory Cordy. Blake Maples and Alex Sagira are our
Speaker 1: mix engineers. Our story editors are Michael Shepherd and Wendy Benjaminson.
Speaker 1: Sage Bauman is our executive producer and head of Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in. I'll be back on Thursday for
Speaker 1: our regularly scheduled programming