Dynamic here in new hampshire. You look at the polling. You heard dasha explain it there. Nikki haley is in striking distance. Donald trump is still ahead, but you have some polls showing her within 10 percentage points of the former president. The former president already planning a slew of events in new hampshire. Hell be here almost every day between now or between tomorrow and the actual primary. I have been talking to voters about how theyre viewing this. How theyre looking at whats happening in iowa, and influencing their decision and what they plan to do next week, and listen to some of those conversations. You got to take the good with the bad. Its almost like you got to flip a coin at this point. I saw it in your face. Seems like youre struggling with this decision. Yes, i think its a Make Or Break election in this country. The iowa caucuses will influence how you look at the candidates once they get here . I think so, yeah. It means nothing to me. Reporter iowa means nothing
In this state where he has gone all in with all of his resources. This is certainly not where he thought he would be. Hes Trading Barbs not with the front runner, Donald Trump, but with Nikki Haley as theyre fighting it out for second place. Take a listen to the two of them talking about the next step here. Instead of going straight to New Hampshire, Desantis Has decided hes going straight from iowa to south carolina. No doubt an attempt to sort of taunt Nikki Haley on her home turf. Take a listen. Obviously New Hampshire has 20 delegates, iowa has 40. Nevada has a caucus. Im participating, Donald Trump is participating. Nikki haley is not even participating in that. Shell win zero delegates in nevada. The whole name of this game is to win a majority of the delegates, so were competing for every delegate we can. He has only played in iowa, hes invisible in New Hampshire, south carolina, hes fourth and fifth place in both of those. I welcome him to south carolina,
Short of 50 , what that means is half of iowans said no, they want to go somewhere else. Thats his expectation, i think, and then youve got the race for second place, haley and desantis, who has the momentum, whos got the machinery. Haley appears to have the momentum. Desantis has invest Add Lot of money in his organization, hoping it comes through for him. Thats going to be the bigger story of the night. Its going to have to be trump and one other candidate if theres any chance of blocking him from the nomination. We talked about in 2008 Mike Huckabee ran the iowa caucus, thanks to what he called the Pizza Ranch strategies. He stopped at those locations. Candidates have been trying to replicate that strategy. Including vivek ramaswamy, considering that this strategy has delivered results for little known candidates, when you talk
Team until about a week ago have been raising the expectations. Garrett haake, always great to see you. Thank you so much. In the meantime, Ron Desantis is zeroing in on his Post Caucus Fight against his rival, nikki haley. Nbcs Dasha Burns is in West Des moines where desantis will be holding his Caucus Party enough. Its not enough that they have a Caucus Tonight and the results matter a little bit, but they have gone ahead and are Trading Barbs over what happens next. Tell us about it. Reporter lets take a little step back here, chris, because Ron Desantis is the candidate that at the outset of this primary was a Rising Star in the republican party. He was the guy that everyone was looking to to unseat trump as the standard bearer of the republican party, and he was the guy that was saying not so long ago that he was going to win iowa. Now, hes campaigning here as the underdog. Hes fighting for second place for that mantle to take on trump, not just nationally but
Nobody is coming by because the roads are empty today and will be probably tonight. So were in a different toir. I think it will affect turnout a lot. In 2016, we had 180,000 republicans participate. I have been thinking maybe 150,000 for this caucus. Well see a lower turnout, and that can often bring with it a surprise. Obviously as a journalist, were always looking for surprises, it makes for good copy. But you are the expert in iowa on the expectations game. Beyond just a first place finish, do you think that theres a margin of Victory Donald Trump has to have before people start to think, oh, maybe he is a little vulnerable . I dont know that its a margin of victory theres two campaigns, trump versus expectations for himself, and Haley And Desantis fighting it out for second. If trumps clear Politics Average is 51 , if he falls