Everything is absolutely snowy in Iowa. The thermometer was around nine below zero this Wednesday night in Des Moines, just appetizing. cold festival So it will arrive in the next few days. Only now five days in this rural midwestern state open election year voting with celebration Monday between republican conventionsIf there’s one thing that seems frozen in what is expected to be the coldest event in history, it’s the state of the conservative race to elect their presidential candidate. Like this full speed He is in a clear position heading into the first vote, as he has been for months. specialization Donald Trump. Far, far away, the others.
Nothing, or almost nothing, has changed after this Wednesday’s celebration. fifth debatethis time they just joined Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Throwing themselves into Drake University and in front of the cameras cnn to the other’s jugular vein, only five kilometers from there embers he gave himself to rest ‘Town hall’ Edited by Fox News.
Trump’s power
The former president gave himself something scroll through friendly questionsDuring the breaks, the audience also takes photos with him. Among this audience were many people wearing the white and gold baseball caps they will wear to the conventions on Monday.district captains“Who are the people who speak in favor of a candidate at every meeting and try to persuade the participants to vote for him? Sign of strength from your support network despite having campaigned far less than his rivals in this state.
Your advantage is very prohibitive and your strategy ignore to them rivals It’s been so effective so far that Trump has bet on presenting himself as: inevitable. He already sees himself as a winner and even suggests it Have you thought about who your vice president will be? (although his campaign later clarified that he had decided on the qualities he was looking for but not on a specific person). He even called out some of his most recent Trumpist and controversial statements at the televised event. “I will not be a dictator” he said at one point. “I won’t have time for revenge,” he said in another.
Haley and DeSantis’ attacks and strategy
Meanwhile, the former governor of South Carolina, former ambassador to the United Nations, and current chief executive of Florida was preoccupied with another matter. harsh verbal hammer fight Not among themselves, no matter who their main rivals are.
The two accuse each other of lying, and in Haley’s case, she even created a website dedicated to her opponent’s lies, which she repeated ad nauseam throughout the two-hour debate. The two prepared lines of attack against each other; None could be more effective this Wednesday than when DeSantis accused Haley of being a “globalist” by saying “the ambassador may leave the UN, but the UN does not abandon the ambassador.”
tactics In any case, Haley and DeSantis coming together makes sense right now and against such a formidable opponent as Trump. Because even though she’s with him majority white and older population and one Overweight of evangelical votes Iowa is not a state that represents the nation (one of the arguments Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee have used this year to avoid starting their own internal selection process here), whichever of the two manages to position itself better in the caucuses. Monday will receive a boost to continue presenting itself as something possible alternative to the overwhelming favourite. And although experience shows that less is more Iowa doesn’t elect presidents, it helps run and finish races.
For DeSantis, Receives the endorsement of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. good result starting to be done survival problem. haleyin his own name, owned more room for maneuver but finishing second on Monday will also be particularly important. Next appointment, primaries of the day 23 in New Hampshiree is closer to Trump, according to some polls. And this Wednesday the path became even clearer for him.Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced he is withdrawing from the race.
Farewell Christie
Although Christie did not campaign in Iowa and was virtually absent from the polls, she received just over 10 percent of the electorate in some polls in New Hampshire, with half to two-thirds of voters viewing Haley as the second choice. And this natural heir In this race, voters support a candidate who is making an effort to stop Trump’s primary bid. On the negative side of the scale, Christie not only left without supporting Haley’s candidacy, but also I was caught on an open mic minimizing its future potential. “They will destroy it” he predicted. “Not fit for zero”.
But some of Haley’s performance in this Wednesday’s debate, and the preparations her campaign has already made to mount strong landings in states like Texas, California and Maine, suggest that the candidatebetting on the medium and perhaps long term. Despite the attacks of the duo in the debate embers For weeks, there were few people who identified their former boss with “that”. chaos” became infinitely more powerful. he said this “I will have to answer” Attack on the CapitolHe described it as “a terrible day”. And no matter what the former president said in the 2020 election, he expressed it. “Trump lost and Joe Biden to win”.
These are grievances that will do him little good in Iowa, a state where key elements of the Trumpist base, such as increasingly radicalized evangelicals, are dominant and decisive. But they can Call to moderates and independentsespecially in a duel against Biden in the presidential election. It’s not just Trump who is seen, felt and thought beyond these meetings.