they say texas kept the feds from helping a woman and two children who died crossing the rio grande. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments. we begin with donald trump getting a warm embrace from frigid iowa. nbc s garrett haake is just north of des moines. garrett, what is the former president saying in his closing pitch? reporter: good afternoon, from what will surely be a donald trump jr. event here today in ankeny as the trump team tries to lock in the results of what we have seen in poll after poll over the last couple of weeks. a dominant lead here in the hawk eye state. at his last major rally yesterday, donald trump basically tried to welcome in all the disparate elements of his movement here in this state, be they first time cause of action caucus goers, evangelicals, and warned primarily against their biggest enemy which he views as complacency. listen to what he told a call in indianola yesterday. a victory over all the liars, che
good day. i m chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. devastatingly cold weather is making these caucuses even more unpredictable in a state known for surprises. we have the latest on former president trump s bid to run away with a win tonight and the fight facing the other candidates to have a strofrng enough showing to stay in the race. we ve got the latest straight ahead. plus, congress on the clock again. with just four days to go before a government shutdown, leaders of both parties float a plan to keep the lights on, but there s a catch. conservatives hate it. so will that sink it? iranian-backed rebels refusing to back down despite dozens of u.s. air strikes against their home base. another u.s.-owned ship attacked just a few hours ago in the red sea. this time they actually hit it. so how is the u.s. going to respond? a lot to get to on this very busy day. we start in iowa where the first votes in what will almost certainly be one of the wildest
Here is the statewide result. five counties in 2016 went for marco rubio. not many counties, polk county where the state county is, biggest county in the state, almost 17% of the vote will come from polk county, rubio won it. why was rubio winning these counties, these are counties that tend to be urban, suburban, high concentration of college degrees, higher income. that was rubio s core base in 2016. that is also nikki haley s core base in these caucuses. you take a look at polk county, the big bedroom communities of dallas county, right outside des moines. johnson county, iowa city. if haley is going to have a breakout showing, this has to be the core of it. the five rubio counties, is she winning any of them, rolling up big numbers there? that could get her second place, could get her a strong story line she s looking to have coming out of tonight. steve kornacki, thank you.
Good day. i m chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. devastatingly cold weather is making these caucuses even more unpredictable in a state known for surprises. we have the latest on former president trump s bid to run away with a win tonight and the fight facing the other candidates to have a strofrng enough showing to stay in the race. we ve got the latest straight ahead. plus, congress on the clock again. with just four days to go before a government shutdown, leaders of both parties float a plan to keep the lights on, but there s a catch. conservatives hate it. so will that sink it? iranian-backed rebels refusing to back down despite dozens of u.s. air strikes against their home base. another u.s.-owned ship attacked just a few hours ago in the red sea. this time they actually hit it.
At this point it s just wallpaper. it s hard to be distinctive at a time when all you re seeing people generally tuned it out. if you haven t made an impact by now, just having a lot of tv on in the last few days of the xaip in a primary state is not going to have much impact. kathie, are people at this point just muting when the ads come on? when you ask people are they excited for the caucuses, they say i m excited to get my tv back. i don t want to see all these ads. tv ads in the caucuses are kind of silly money in terms of the universe of people that you re actually going to reach. we mentioned that the record turnout is like 187,000 for a republican caucus. probably it will be lower than that. how much money are we spending per caucus-goer? a whole lot. we will do that calculation tomorrow, i promise you.