reporter: yeah, ana, good morning, and welcome to iowa. we are at casey s general store. this is an iowa staple, and we re here talking to average iowans to get a sense of how engaged they are this caucus cycle, and i will tell you the things we re hearing. we have heard from the die hard trump supporter who says no matter what, they will be showing up on caucus night to caucus for him. i also spoke to a woman who one week out is still undecided. she caucused for trump in the past, but while she likes his policies, she doesn t like the wake he talks. that said, she has still not decided on one of the other candidates. and again, one week out from caucus night. i will tell you the vast majority of folks that we ve spoken to here say that they don t plan to caucus. i spoke to one independent voter, nancy, about why she s not caucusing, and also what her top issues are, and i want to play a little bit of that conversation. they just they seem to grand stand a little when they re cau
presidential candidates are hitting the campaign trail in the final two weeks before the iowa caucuses. trump has been largely absent compared his opponents, but the des moines register has reported that his campaign has been quietly building a grassroots juggernaut. i have to find out. how welcoming back chief political reporter for the des moines register. donald trump is one of the most undisciplined humans i have ever come across, and i keep reading over and over that he has got this disciplined 2024 campaign team. you are on the ground in iowa. how has he built such a large presence? i think in a lot of ways he learned from his mistakes in the 2015 2016 caucus cycle. he came into that that you re not really knowing what was going on.
campaign team. you are on the ground in iowa. how has he built such a large presence? i think in a lot of ways he learned from his mistakes in the 2015 2016 caucus cycle. he came into that that you re not really knowing what was going on. he had a lot of people who weren t veterans of caucus campaigns. they really kind of were just a ragtag group that were to doubted went. in this cycle they are coming in from the beginning, basically as an incumbent. he has got a big infrastructure behind him ready to help make this thing happen. and so they ve been quietly tracking down what are called caucus policing captains, the people who will be at roughly 1600 caucus sites on caucus night to help donald trump supporters figure out what they re supposed to be doing, let them know how the caucuses work, make sure that they stay and do what needs to be done. and so he is really working to identify these people, make sure that they have the information that they need to
donald trump s legal challenges. and yet, and yet, his support in your state remains so solid. why? yeah, that has remained pretty consistent throughout the last what are we up to, eight years now going all the way back to the 2015 caucuses. the people who ultimately gravitate towards former president trump don t see all these issues that rise as cause for concern. and if anything, they see them as just evidence of his political enemies trying to take him out. so there really isn t a whole lot that we ve seen, not just in this caucus cycle, but over time, that erodes that support from the base group of supporters for former president trump. and when you have such an expansive field of candidates
crazy, a little out there, but she is very down to earth. you meet a lot of people who see her in person and say, wow. she was really relatable and made a case to me and i get it. so that s what s interesting about elizabeth warren right now. bernie sanders obviously has a huge base of support he is locked in from the past caucus cycle. you go to a joe biden event and it is more people looking for stability. they re looking for somebody to bring things back to a sense of normal for them. we do have to remember i know things are very exciting. we are far, far away from iowa and even further from the general election. at this point in 2008 rudy guiliani led the republican field by almost 10 points. hillary clinton by almost 20 points. is this still anybody s race? this is still anybody s race. but you do get the sense that things are definitely narrowing down. i mean, we talk about three tickets out of iowa, three candidates who can do well here and move on to the next early voting s