URBANDALE, Iowa — As a historic blizzard bore down on the first presidential caucus state of Iowa, a shivering Ron DeSantis joked that his team “can handle” the weather despite being “a Florida-based campaign.”
But as he stood outside his Des Moines-area campaign headquarters early Friday afternoon, DeSantis was wrapping his second and final campaign event on a day in which he was scheduled to hold four events.
As the entire GOP presidential field is finding out, Mother Nature can’t be outworked or out-organized, no matter how close the Iowa caucus looms on the calendar.
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Thanks to what the National Weather Service called “life-threatening” blizzard conditions pummeling the state, nearly all the major Republican presidential candidates canceled campaign events for Friday.
While Nikki Haley scrapped her three events for the day and turned them all into “tele town halls,” Donald Trump’s campaign punted on its main event for the day, a rally headlined by campaign surrogate and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake.
While DeSantis’ campaign added the event at his Urbandale headquarters late—which attracted plenty of restless press snowed in around the capital city—his Never Back Down super PAC axed its events for the governor for later in the day.
Characteristically, it was far-right longshot Vivek Ramaswamy who sought to keep his full Friday campaign schedule of four events around the state. “George Washington braved the weather to cross the Delaware,” Ramaswamy said in an irony-free post on X.
As for the campaigns’ active efforts to reach Iowa voters—which entails sending legions of volunteers to knock on doors—the whiteout conditions around the state would seem an obvious obstacle.
Yet the DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy operations all confirmed to The Daily Beast that their canvassing plans plowed ahead on Friday despite the weather. (The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment.)
“People are still activated and excited,” a spokesperson for the Haley campaign told The Daily Beast. “Iowans are used to the weather!”
Iowans handle the cold better than most, but the final days of the caucus campaign will see record-breaking extreme cold. This year could wind up as the coldest Iowa caucus in modern history, with highs on Monday likely to fall below zero and stiff winds making conditions even more dangerous.
The Friday mess drains valuable time for DeSantis and Haley to organize and rally crucial support ahead of Monday’s caucus, in which Trump is strongly favored to post a comfortable victory.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis leaves a campaign office after meeting with his staff on January 12, 2024 in Urbandale, Iowa.
Scott Olson/Getty ImagesNow, seemingly everyone in Iowa is attempting to game out whether the weekend’s cold, on top of the Friday blizzard, could meaningfully alter the landscape of a contest that has thus far been frozen in Trump’s favor.
While Haley and DeSantis likely aren’t expecting victories in Iowa, even the slightest hints of momentum could influence the primaries in the more competitive states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
If the blowing snow and life-threatening cold conditions are going to help anyone by potentially deflating turnout on Monday, it’ll be Trump, said Steve Scheffler, a Republican National Committeeman for Iowa who’s remained neutral in the race.
Scheffler has been involved in every caucus going back to 1972, and told The Daily Beast in an interview that “turnout will be affected a little bit, but not a lot.”
The “diehards,” Scheffler said, will come out no matter what. “The major campaigns, especially Trump and DeSantis, have done a good job” cultivating their own supporters, the seasoned Iowa veteran said, but he remained adamant the cold shouldn’t depress turnout too much.
Whiteout conditions, on the other hand, could be a major problem, according to Scheffler, especially in rural areas. “Especially if you’re in rural Iowa,” he said, “and they’ve only got three or four caucus locations where you have to drive 15, 20 miles to get there.”
Still, there are others who see these conditions as a potential hurdle for Trump. According to the Des Moines Register, some Iowa Republicans believe the former president is poised to attract the votes of the vast majority first-time caucus participants—which would be good news for him, save for the fact that first-timers are seen as less likely to show up in bad weather.
Some DeSantis and Haley loyalists seem prepared to compete for every last vote, no matter how miserable it gets in Iowa. Tom Davis, a South Carolina state senator and Haley supporter, posted on X that his flight from Charlotte to Des Moines was canceled—so he planned to rent a car and drive the 800 mile trip instead.
Meanwhile, DeSantis was joined in Urbandale on Friday by a top ally, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who drove eight hours from St. Louis after his flight to Des Moines got canceled. “A true alpha male right there,” a DeSantis volunteer remarked before the pair headed outside to address reporters.
With nowhere else for the press to go on a snow day, DeSantis played media critic after insisting “our voters are by and large committed caucus goers.”
Speaking with a Newsmax microphone right in front of him, the Florida governor called out the conservative media for treating Trump with kid gloves. Referring to Fox News and unspecified outlets as “basically a Praetorian Guard” protecting Trump, DeSantis charged “they don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers.”
“That’s just the reality,” DeSantis continued. “That’s just the truth.”
Now, the strength of his Iowa operation will be put to the test along with everyone else’s, but the remark from DeSantis signaled a potential excuse for a widely predicted Trump victory—regardless of how the weather impacts the contest.
Indeed, though the late stages of caucus campaigning have been derailed by the weather, Scheffler, the longtime Iowa Republican, said the major dynamics of the race are already locked in.
The most important players in Monday night, he said, could end up being the campaign representatives who speak at their local caucus sites right before Iowans cast their ballots—effectively the final impressions campaigns can make on any remaining undecided voters.
“In terms of the trajectory, I don’t think there’s much you can change at this point in time,” Scheffler said. “I think maybe 10, 15 percent of people are going into the night undecided, so it’s important to have a good person giving the speech up there.”
Still, he said the former president shouldn’t have much to worry about if the cold keeps any significant number of likely caucus goers indoors.
“And again,” the seasoned Iowa hand said, “Trump supporters seem to be more in concrete than the others are.”
