Special MSNBC coverage of the Iowa Republican caucuses
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But at this moment, I'm going to interrupt myself because NBC News can now project at this hour.

At 8.33 p.m., 7.33 Central Time, it's 8.33 in the East Coast, 7.33 Central Time, that former President Donald J. Trump will be the projected winner in the Iowa caucuses for the 2024 presidential election. Again, about 33 minutes after the doors closed in the Iowa caucuses with very few actual results in, but based on the results that we do have and the entrance polling that we do have,

NBC News now projects that Donald Trump will be, at the end of the night, the winner of the Iowa caucuses. Well, no, I...

Ryan Binkley, I'm glad that we know his name and that he got a chance to get a little bit of fame, having been mentioned by the great Rachel Maddow. But the previous woman who the Trump surrogate, I wish she had not just loved it. I wish she had listed it. I wanted to hear what she was going to say, because I'm always curious when people say he did so much for us and he made America great again, like what specific policies they mean. Because the one policy that Donald Trump obviously passed was that massive, enormous tax cut. He didn't get the wall.

He didn't do. I really am always curious as to what they actually mean by that. But I do think the evangelical thing that Alex was talking about, I think that is the story for the night. The fact that in 2016, these were Ted Cruz voters. You know, he kind of had the evangelical lane there.

In this particular race, it was Ron DeSantis who originally went hard for evangelicals. Remember the God made a fighter ad? He did the God ad first before Trump did. And he really was attempting to appeal directly to the souls of evangelicals. His whole strategy is Iowa.

To be clear, Michael and I were talking about this, that his strategy is built around the idea that he would pull an Obama in Iowa and that he would pivot there. And even if he didn't win in New Hampshire, which is a state that's more built for Nikki Haley, he would then slingshot to South Carolina, where there is a similar percentage of evangelical voters. So he is the one that really has to win. To be honest with you, Nikki Haley doesn't need to win Iowa. It would be a nice thing for her.

did not win or to come in a reasonably decent sort of respectable second. It's really Ron DeSantis for whom this is do or die. If he gets mopped tonight,

He has to slink home to Florida having done nothing. He put all of his eggs in this basket. But you heard, and Michael was talking, we were talking to this offline a little bit, you heard that, I don't remember who it was that was saying that Donald Trump has a better ground game this time than he did in 2016 when he lost spectacularly to Ted Cruz. So I think for Donald Trump, we knew this was going to be the outcome, but the

person for whom tonight actually really does matter for their political future is really not Nikki Haley. It's Ron DeSantis. Richard, if I could, two points on that. One, on the ground game. I think not enough attention has been paid to the fact that Donald Trump came into Iowa with a very different mindset than the one he had in 2016, obviously.

from what I understand, he had not just a good ground game, but a very good ground game. So when Steve started putting up those numbers, you saw that ground game. You saw the turnout effort that his people were able to get in place when you look at the weight of the percentage of participants in this caucus. So I take note of the fact that Nikki Haley is running third in terms of those entrance polls.

in most of those categories. As a chairman, as a party guy, I'm sitting there looking, I'm doing the math going, this tells me two things. Both Trump and DeSantis focused on the ground game that Nikki could not get in place. That's going to hurt her tonight if these numbers hold up based off the entrance. She very well could slide into third place because of that turnout model.

The other side of that comes South Carolina to the last point that you made, Joy, about evangelicals. Unlike Iowa, there's a greater percentage of evangelical voters in South Carolina, where almost 75% of every Republican who will vote is an evangelical voter. So that sets up an interesting challenge and dynamic for her slinging out of Iowa where she, if the numbers hold,

into a third place wall, right? Right. With these voters. I mean, to Joy's point, though, I mean, big picture, what we've got here is Donald Trump as the projected winner in Iowa. The question is what's going to happen between Haley and DeSantis. Ron DeSantis moved his national headquarters to Iowa, his super PAC, which is effectively running his campaign, all in in Iowa and running his field operation there.

Everything in the Ron DeSantis campaign has been geared toward him winning in Iowa. And he did build a ground game in Iowa. Trump did, too. But DeSantis' ground game in Iowa is the best of all the candidates. We've heard that over and over again. Nikki Haley didn't really start doing anything on the ground in Iowa until late November. She was never expected to be competitive in Iowa at all because it is such a heavily evangelical electorate.

The place where she's really expected to compete is in New Hampshire. But if even if Haley comes in third tonight to DeSantis, I'd still rather be Nikki Haley coming out of Iowa because Ron DeSantis is in single digits in every single other state in the country where he isn't at a zero.

And Nikki Haley is within single digits of Donald Trump in New Hampshire. And then she goes home to South Carolina, where she is way down. But at least people know her and she's got a ground game. So you'd rather be her than him, even if he does beat her in Iowa tonight.

Nikki Haley seems to be facing two big roadblocks tonight. And by the way, from this point forward, I'm happy to cede the balance of my time, as they say in the Senate, to Iowa voters, because everything we've heard from the individuals that we've listened to there have been really fascinating. You had that young Republican saying that Donald Trump did not build the wall. He knows that. You know, it's nice to hear that there are Republicans who know that. He's a DeSantis guy. But we heard the Trump supporter, the one Trump supporter we heard say that

Donald Trump was chosen by God to be the person that he votes for tonight in Iowa. Now, if you want to talk about an insurmountable roadblock for other candidates, that could not be more clearly defined. And what was interesting to hear was the way he put it, which was that line about

You know, God sometimes makes strange choices. When I was a kid, the way they taught that in our Catholic theology, the phrase the nuns always used was, God moves in mysterious ways. And that is there all the time for that kind of deeply religious person to use sometimes.

any way they want. And whether Donald Trump made them do this or whether they wanted to find their way to be for Donald Trump, they have arrived at the spot where they believe that God has decided he should not just win the Iowa caucus, he should be president again, that he is God's chosen candidate. Nikki Haley's not going to be able to beat that anywhere. One more, I think, just layer to add to the sort of

what we're calling the evangelical vote, is that, you know, the Times did a good piece about this about a week and a half ago about, you know, that category itself is pretty capacious. And particularly within Republican Party politics, you have people that are regular church attendees, right? They're connected to a church. They might go to Bible study. They are enmeshed in the life world of worship. And then there are people who call themselves evangelicals who are basically unchurched, who don't go to Sunday services, who are not connected to a church. That portion...

has been one of the biggest growth areas for Trump. There's a whole great Times piece talking to those voters, people that identify evangelical both spiritually and politically as a sort of hybrid identity. And that has been a big part of the Trump growth as well. Let's go to this live event that we just saw in Council Bluffs. We don't have audio from Davenport, but this in Council Bluffs, this is a Haley representative.

Let's make America strong and proud again. I want to be a proud Republican supporter. I don't want to be a silent majority like, you know, they said back in 2016. I want to see new, young conservatives standing up and starting to lead our country. So thank you guys for listening to me tonight. I appreciate it. Anybody else for Nikki Haley?

So the next on my list I have for Trump. This is live right now in Council Bluffs, Iowa, sort of pinging around, looking at these different precincts and caucuses as people are hearing their speeches from the various campaigns. Steve Kornacki is watching results as they are coming in. Steve, as we're starting to get more information from these individual counties, what are you able to see about what's taking shape with this?

apparent Trump victory in Iowa. Yeah. Just, uh, again, it's, it's basically individual or just a couple of precincts per County. You were in council bluffs there though. I can show you that puts you in Pottawatomie County. Uh, this was one of Trump's best counties in the state in 2016. Uh,

you know, council bluffs right across from Omaha. And again, you see just in the very early returns, Trump at over 70%, we're seeing him in these early returns coming in and all of these counties, you know, well over what he was, it was in that final poll. We'll see as more precincts come in. If it holds this one again, I said earlier, we got Lyon County, uh,

The results we have in Lyon County so far, it's just this is not just deeply religious. This is a deeply church going county. Trump got 16 percent here in 2016, 72 percent with the with the first batch. Now, you do see there is one county here that's not colored in that Trump shade of red. It's a darker shade of red. That's the Nikki Haley color. We have a little bit in from Johnson County. What's Johnson County? It's the home of Iowa City. It's the home of the University of Iowa. Go Hawkeyes.

And it's also home of the highest concentration of college degrees of any one of Iowa's 99 counties. Now, remember, we were talking earlier how Marco Rubio came pretty close in 2016, and he did it with a coalition that looks like Haley's has looked like in our exit poll and in the polling leading up to this. So this is a county that Marco Rubio won. This is a county that Nikki Haley, with that support she has among those with college degrees, with higher incomes,

those who don't like Donald Trump in a general election, Johnson County is going to be the most Democratic county in Iowa. All the ingredients are there for Nikki Haley. So she is again, it's just a scattering that's coming in right now. But this is exactly the kind of place where she needs to be doing this and to have it hold tonight. And again, very curious. It's not just the scale of the turnaround in a place like Lyon County, the scale of a turnaround in a place like Hancock County. It was Ted Cruz's

Best county in Iowa in 2016. It's not just that story for Trump. It also becomes a story for Ron DeSantis here. Clearly now it is a race for second place here between DeSantis and Haley. The exact significance of that, how far behind first place they'll end up, is to be determined. But these are counties where even if DeSantis is not winning tonight...

He's got to be doing better than this. He certainly wanted to be doing a lot better than this. In a county like this right now, to be at 12%, this is a place where he wanted to be over 30%, certainly, at a minimum and probably more. He wanted to be winning some of these. Again, we've seen now several of these counties. We said the 42%

42, Huckabee, Santorum, Cruz counties. You win the evangelical vote, you win Iowa, and DeSantis put out all stops trying to get that evangelical vote. We've seen reports now from a bunch of those. None of them is DeSantis, even in the

ball game in in any of the precincts that have come in. So, again, it's still a scattering here. But again, you see the lead Donald Trump has statewide right now. You do see Nikki Haley asserting herself in Johnson County. That's what she's got to do. Places like Polk, places like Johnson, Dallas County, as it starts to come in later. Again, these are two core Trump counties out here in western Iowa, Woodbury, where Sioux City is, and Pottawatomie, where Council Bluffs is. But it leaves you in this situation.

Just a benchmark for Donald Trump. I think we mentioned this at the very top of the broadcast. The record, the all-time record in an Iowa Republican caucus for vote share is 41 percent. I don't know if you can see that. Forty one percent. OK, that's that was a very low threshold for Trump to clear. I think the question now is if he's going to clear 50 percent statewide when all is said and done. And again, the biggest margin before tonight over a second place candidate was 12 points. That was by

Could I just put an asterisk on the framing of this margin?

Donald Trump, whatever he gets tonight, is going to be the lowest margin in the history of Iowa caucuses by someone who has already been president. Because every other person who's already been president...

wins the Iowa caucus by default because they don't even bother to have it. Right. Right. So they're not having one because the Democrats don't need one tonight in Iowa. But if you want to go broader and say, OK, what is the actual biggest margin? It was Tom Harkin in 1992. Seventy six percent.

The next one down was Paul Tsongas at 4%, Bill Clinton at 3%. Tom Harkin was, of course, the senator from Iowa, so everyone gave up on the state. But Trump is not going to set any kind of meaningful statistical record. This is, in effect, an incumbent Republican president who...

who finds himself in an Iowa caucus. And so why can't he harken like numbers? Yeah, I think Lawrence is making such an important point because there's so much perception games that comes out of this. And if you had full control over the party,

There wouldn't be one, right? If a popular, non-indicted former Democratic president... Joe Biden's doing a lot better in the Iowa Congress than I have in the Donald Trump. That's my point. If you run a hypothetical where, for whatever reason, former President Obama had lost and was running, I don't think we'd be talking about it at all. I think he would come in with 80, 90, 95, or the examples you just gave. And so we're seeing two things tonight. On the one hand, we can report NBC projects Trump winning Iowa. So we start...

This cycle very differently than we started 16. In 16, tonight, Trump was 0 and 1. And everyone's going, oh, maybe he doesn't have it. After having been favored in the polls. After having been favored. That's the prize lost for him and I in 2016. Exactly.

This time, eight years later, he starts 1-0. Last time when Iowa came, most establishment Republicans and members of Congress wouldn't publicly go near him. This time, he has scared or willed or beaten them into it. Joy, Chris, and others have talked about that and the looming violence that some Republicans even admit.

The other big difference, of course, last time he was unindicted, a lot of civil cases, but unindicted. Now he's quadruple indicted and hanging over all of this is whether he's convicted before Election Day. So I think there's a lot of differences. He starts in the one hand stronger than.

But as Lawrence just said, so much weaker. And remember, in 16, 55 percent of Republican voters, when it was all said and done, picked someone other than Trump. And tonight in Iowa and other places, there are maybe 30, 40 percent plus Republicans.

at least open-minded to it, even if he's just won Iowa. I have to interrupt. I have a little bit of an update from the decision desk. So as you know, the most important call is one that Ari just mentioned, which is that as of right now, based on the entrance polls and based on the results that we do have, NBC News projects that Donald Trump will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses. But we have an additional report

from the decision desk, which is interesting. Based on the entrance polls, based on what has been observed tonight at caucus sites in Iowa, the decision desk is projecting lower than expected turnout tonight in Iowa. Now, we don't know how much of this is due to the weather and how much of this is due to political fact,

Thank you.

Trump in Iowa in 2016. And by the way, I mean, I think that the problem for Nikki Haley, as you said, is that you need passion to caucus like it requires passion. But whatever happens with her tonight, I think we must remark upon the absolute tragedy of Ron DeSantis as a human being and as a politician. And I say this as somebody who spent 14 years in the great state of Florida.

This man torched the state of Florida's education system by turning it into a grand apologist for slavery. He passed a six week abortion ban that he signed at midnight so that no one could see him do it to match Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, in essentially condemning rape victims and incest victims to give birth at 10 years old, if that's what it takes in order to get evangelicals to like him. All the things he did, he completely...

took the Republican Tallahassee entire Senate and House delegations, put them in his service. They had to essentially work for him. And they passed everything he asked them for, for one reason only, because he was going to win Iowa. He put it all on Iowa. His whole ground game is Iowa. His whole strategy is Iowa. And he destroyed his political career in his home state, neglected his home state during two hurricanes—

Wore weird high boots and humiliated himself when he finally ran home to pretend that he was going to help his state and neglected it. The highest insurance rates. It's impossible to get insurance in the state. Workers are leaving his Latino workers. Hispanic workers are leaving because of draconian immigration law.

that his Republicans passed for him. It's hurting the agriculture industry, the construction industry. He's ruined the state, made it an anathema for business. He sued Disney, put himself at war with Mickey Mouse and lost and got humiliated by them. What has he not done that was stupid politically? All for one purpose. He did the ad where he said God created a fighter to get evangelicals to love him.

And he's going to finish maybe in the 15s, maybe in the 20s in Iowa. And he's finished as a politician in Florida as a result. Also, when Rachel said, of course, he has moved his whole operation to Iowa, I was like, all right, the dude's still governor. That's the case. Like he's moved and he's making me making jokes about it. He said it's like a setup for a sitcom. Florida family moves to like Iowa in the middle of the cold snap. And it's like.

Right. You are like still like, you know, it's one thing. I think Lawrence will agree with me. It's one thing to be a senator and do that. We're like you fly back to D.C., whatever. But like Florida is a big state. Managing the state is some work. And it's pretty wild that he has also just taken leave of this incredibly important job by and large for months. While the Florida Republican Party has just had to forcibly oust its state Republican Party chairman. Right. For the worst possible reasons. Google it.

I have to tell you, we did just get that additional, that updated projection from the decision desk about the expected turnout, lower than expected turnout projected by the decision desk, expected to be around 130,000. That is 56,000 fewer people than turned out in 2016. Steve, do you have any insight for us into that call and what that means in terms of that turnout projection?

Yeah, I mean, it's a question here. Look, the race was very different, obviously, this time around than it was in 2016. So there's a question there. You know, just more candidates, more dynamic nature, three candidates separated by about five points for the lead. So is it that? How much of it is the weather tonight? But just to put in perspective, yes, it was a huge number in terms of turnout in 2016. But 2016...

by itself in Iowa Republican caucus history. I can show you, this is the turnout for every Republican presidential caucus in Iowa since 1980, when the whole thing really began with Reagan losing to George Bush senior. So yes, you had 186,000 in 2016. Uh,

The last comparable atmosphere, we had a Democratic incumbent, no real Democratic caucus in a Republican caucus in 2012. This was Romney. This was Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry. You had one hundred twenty one thousand turnout. You know, 2008 was the year that Mike Huckabee won it. You think back to 2000 and I think this one might be worth pointing out as well. Look at the turnout you had in 2000. That was the lowest ever turnout.

The race in 2000, the dynamics of the Republican race in 2000 more closely resemble this one than any other Republican race, meaning that George George W. Bush in 2000. Donald Trump is the first Republican candidate since George W. Bush in 2000 to enter the primary season with a national polling lead this big in excess of 30 points. Donald Trump is the first Republican since George W. Bush in 2000 to

come to the Iowa caucuses with a Des Moines Register poll showing anything like the kind of lead Donald Trump walked into this with. So it was expected and it was assumed in 2000 that George W. Bush was going to win Iowa. And the question was, what would the margin be between him and Steve Forbes? And it created an atmosphere where there was pretty low interest overall on the Republican side. Bush got the win. Forbes got second place. He said he had momentum. He went absolutely nowhere. They moved on to New Hampshire. It got interesting. But I just I say it.

The dynamics in 2000 when he had the lowest ever are the most similar to 2016. And in terms of drawing a correlation, you know, one thing to do to keep in mind here, you know, in 2000, lowest ever, that was George W. Bush who went on to win the nomination and did go on to win in contested fashion the presidency.

Right now, it's just coming up on 9 p.m. Eastern, which is 8 p.m. in Iowa. Most caucuses, if not all caucuses, are still underway in Iowa. At this point, NBC News is projecting that Donald Trump will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses tonight. But we are watching closely as Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis vie for second place. We've been talking a lot about what the implications might be for each of these candidates of a second place finish.

We'll have more on that as these results continue to come in right after this.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. I have an obligation to find a way of telling this story that is fresh, that has angles that haven't been used in the course of the day, to bring my experience working in the Senate, working in journalism, to try to make sense of what has happened and help you make sense of what it means to you. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

Welcome back to our special coverage of the Iowa caucuses, the Republican Iowa caucuses.

Tonight here on MSNBC, Steve, we obviously have the overall projection from the decision desk that Donald Trump will be the overall winner. But in terms of the total amount of vote in, we're still pretty light. We've got 2 percent in total statewide. As you're watching key counties come in, though, are you learning more about the contours of this? Yeah, we're seeing the patterns emerge that we were talking about beforehand in terms of Trump's strong pretty much everywhere right now. It's just a question of how strong.

But where Haley's strengths are and where DeSantis' strengths are, and you do see there are two counties now that are Haley's color, where we have partial returns in here. So you've got Johnson County, again, University of Iowa, Iowa City. You know, this is a Rubio County from 2016. And we have some precincts in and look at that. Haley is leading here.

This is exactly the kind of county she needs to be winning. She needs to be trying to get a margin here. So let's see if that continues for her. The other one is the other big college county in Iowa, Story County, Iowa State University. Well, let's say hello to the cyclones who are watching out there. And again, this is Haley. And look at that, Ramaswamy. This is only a small number of votes. But again, Haley doing extremely well there. Now you see also one county with the DeSantis color. And this is interesting because we showed you some returns from Lyon County. Lyon County is...

And then there's Sioux County. And Sioux County is, in terms of Republican caucuses, it punches way above its weight. It is heavily, heavily religious. Turns out huge numbers. Ninth biggest vote producing county in 2016, despite being a relatively small county population wise. And you see DeSantis.

in the early returns there is actually leading Trump. Remember, this was Donald Trump's worst county in 2016 in the entire state of Iowa. Donald Trump got 11% here. You can't even see him on this screen. He did so poorly in Sioux County. Now, Donald Trump with these early returns has tripled

But there's DeSantis actually ahead of him in the early returns. So it's interesting. This is a this is exactly what DeSantis wants to see there. He's not seeing it so far in Lyon County, which is very, very similar. But Sioux County is one of those 42. That is Huckabee, Santorum and Cruz.

And DeSantis wants to see that color popping up in a lot more of those counties. And he wants to keep it in suit. This is only 10 percent. But keep an eye on Sue, because, again, hugely evangelical church going. And this was Trump. This is as bad as it got for Donald Trump in 2016. So Haley doing well in those college degree, high education, high income level counties so far. And there you go. In evangelical Iowa, there's one that right now the DeSantis is getting some votes out of.

Steve, can I ask you a question about the entrance polls? There's two questions that were asked in the entrance polls that I just wanted to see if we could pull up. That first one there on the left, did Biden legitimately win in 2020? Yeah. So, yes, 30 percent here. No, 66 percent. And

and see if I can give you the actual breakdown here. This is the statewide entrance in Iowa? Yeah, this is among all Republican caucus goers that we got into our entrance poll here. So among the yeses, the breakdown in vote is Nikki Haley, 53%, Ron DeSantis, 26%, and Donald Trump getting 10%, not surprisingly. And among

the nose on this question here who said Joe Biden did not win it. It is 68% for Trump. It is 16% for Ron DeSantis. And just double checking my math here, it is 6% for Nikki Haley. So just a stark divide there. You know, in the smaller group here, a little bit less than one in three who say Biden legitimately won it. Trump's getting buried. But two out of three said Biden didn't win it. And look at that. Trump's getting more than two out of three right there, more than 50 points ahead of DeSantis. Can we just pause?

Pause for a second. I want to say something about that.

thirds of Iowa Republican caucus goers believe that the president of the United States right now is a fake, is not actually the president and is running some sort of scam wherein Donald Trump really is the president and Joe Biden is pretending to be. Two thirds of Iowa Republican caucus goers. Yeah, and I would just say that, well, that adverb legitimately, there's some wiggle room around, but I will say this.

To Lawrence's point about Trump being a quasi incumbent here, which he is. Right. I mean, he was the president United States before. The thing that makes it weird is that usually when you lose, you get turfed out. So George H.W. Bush isn't running around after he loses in 92. People don't want to hear from him. They don't want to hear from John McCain. They don't want to hear from Mitt Romney. They do want to hear from Donald Trump. You think yourself, well, why? Well, that, you know, that answer goes a long way. Right. The big lie is I didn't.

I didn't lose. I'm not a loser. They stole it from me. I'm secretly still president. I'm secretly still president. So when you look at that, it's like, right, why is this different than what we've had in the past? The other thing I'm curious about, Steve, if you don't mind, is that other question about the possibility of conviction, which we talked about the meteor that may land at any moment, which, you know, people who are there know that that's possible.

Take us through that one. Yeah, no, I mean, to ask the question here, if Donald Trump is convicted, do you consider him fit to be president? Again, this is our entrance poll of Republican caucus goers. So, yes, similar, you know, very similar spread here. Yes, is 63 percent. And I can just show you the breakdown on this is those who say he's fit to serve.

71 percent. Then we'll say they're going to vote for him tonight. It's 13 percent for DeSantis. It is 6 percent for Haley. Among those who say no, Trump would not be fit to serve. Number is Haley. Remember, Haley seems to be gobbling up the lion's share of the anti-Trump votes. You see 50 percent for Haley with this group. DeSantis is getting 30 percent. Trump is getting 9 percent. And actually, Trump is barely edging out Ramaswamy, who's getting 8 percent with this group. But yeah,

This is about a one third, two third divide about the legitimacy of the 20 election, about Trump's legal situation. And you could just see how it that is the divide you're seeing there in the party. Again, the big picture is the big picture here. This means that of.

People turning out to caucus in Iowa, a third of them think that if Donald Trump is convicted, he is not fit to be president. In this incredibly conservative electorate where Trump is going to run away with the Iowa caucuses by a mile and then some, still a third of that electorate says if he's convicted, they're going to nominate him nationwide? When even a third of Iowa caucus goers say, no, he can't be president if he's convicted? I'm sorry, but he's

Rachel, there's overwhelming evidence in several of these cases. So I can't say what's going to happen, but there's very strong evidence. I cannot. So we all know the limits of polling. And I think the audience and the citizenry knows the limits because we've seen polls go sideways. If you poll Chris and I and say, are we going to follow our New Year's resolution all year? So, yeah, I've been running this this month. Right.

But we might not. In other words, our answer to the pollster about certain things may not hold true. And so let's say that the 32 percent is high because some of it involves motivated reasoning by people who oppose Trump and other people who don't like the idea of admitting that they would stomach this. But even if it's triple, let's say it's 10 percent and it's 10 or 8 or even 5 percent. And Jen Psaki's here. I can't wait to hear what you think.

Five percent minus the seven million that Trump came up short last time doesn't get you to another electoral college or national victory. Independents and Republicans outside of the caucus going universe are at a higher percentage than this, according to polls. So if your stage whisper is right, and I know you to be frequently right. Right.

Okay, if you're right... You're the only one who thinks that. ...that there's a conviction, then there is overwhelming data, new data tonight among Republican activists and a bunch of other indies, normies, and otherwise who say, no, I don't want a felon running the country. So that would be, and I don't say this as anything other than observation, that would be bad news for Trump in general. Right, look...

I also think we're going to see tomorrow and we saw last week that Trump is basically running a campaign in the courtroom, right? He was there more than he was in Iowa over the last week. Is that going to work for the Republican electorate? Seems pretty clearly from these entrance polls, yes. But to your point, the whole electorate is an entirely different population of people.

And Trump loves his own strategy. So it's very possible he may keep doubling down on that. Right. Yes. The worst thing we've learned about the Republican primary electorate is not yet in these entrance polls questions. CBS poll of their final poll before the Iowa caucuses national poll shows that 81 percent.

of Republican primary voters and caucus participants, 81% of those people agree with Donald Trump that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country. That means that 81%

of the Republican primary electorate believe Nikki Haley has poisoned blood and is poisoning the blood of the United States. So that as a roadblock for Nikki Haley is impossible. But it also shows you what you're up against in any kind of campaign campaign.

against voters like that, the convertibility of voters like that to anything other than the Trump view of the world is impossible. There's no campaign ad. There's no speech you can make. There's no, you know, Republican who Chris Christie might be able to convince some of them, not them, not

any of the 81%, not one of them can be converted. And the bottom line is, you know, as much as we, you know, we want to respect, and it's been interesting listening to these voters, you must understand that the Republican base is overwhelmingly those people. It's white evangelicals for whom supporting Trump is a matter of

faith. It is a matter of their religion. It is a religion. And therefore, Nikki Haley is unacceptable for the reasons Lawrence has just said. She is one of the people poisoning the blood of the country. Vivek Ramaswamy's wife went out into Iowa to try to convince people to vote for her husband. What she got back is people saying, well, you know, where are you from again? Again, were you born

United States because you know what religion are you again oh you were Hindu I don't know if that's acceptable to me and saying that to her face and he suddenly discovered at the end that I don't know he went sideways with Trump somehow and Trump started attacking him and saying he actually he went birther on him you know at any moment

moment, those voters could do the same thing. The answer to your question, Chris, is are they going to still nominate him despite his 91 criminal? Yes. Yes, they're going to nominate him. They're going to nominate him. The other thing we should keep in mind, again, I always look at these numbers coming from a son of New York City, from the Bronx, population of like 1.4 million or something people. We're talking about

140,000 people here. The people that are going to vote in a presidential election in Iowa, even for Trump, are going to be far in excess of this number, right? So this is the sort of most distilled essence in some ways. People coming out, negative seven degrees, two caucuses on a caucus night. Motivated activists for the most motivated people. So there are lots of people that are going to vote, you know, Republican vote for Donald Trump. And he might even told those pollsters. I mean, in that poll, that CBS poll,

It was the general electorate was like 46 percent agreeing with the 47 percent. 47. Disagree with Trump among American voters.

Fifty three. This is only 50. It's a very narrow thing of American voters disagree with Trump that immigrants poison the blood of this country, which is to say you have an electorate in the United States that is 53 percent sane. And that's all you got. That's not a good. I wouldn't. Not to be too dark here, but I think it's important to remember that Trump is the one moving the goalpost and people follow him. Right. So consistent with that.

Back in December, the Des Moines Register tested a number of the comments he had made consistent with this. Right. So they asked them to deal with immigration. Trump would authorize, quote, sweeping raids, giant camps and mass deportations. So that make you more likely, less likely to support him. Fifty percent more likely. That's great. That's our guy. The radical left thugs that live like vermin in the U.S. need to be rooted out. Does that make you more likely?

43% more likely, meaning they might not think on its own that's an okay thing, but when he says it, they follow. And so I think, again, the big picture takeaway from that, and I don't mean to be, again, too dark, as you said, on this, but

It is not, if we are worried about the rise of authoritarianism in this country, we are worried about potential rise of fascism in this country. We're worried about our democracy falling to an authoritarian and potentially fascist form of government.

The leader who is trying to do that is part of that equation. But people wanting that is a much bigger part of that equation. And the American electorate is made up of two major parties. One of those parties has been flirting with extremism on the ultra-right for a very long time. They've brought them in in a way that they haven't been central to Republican electoral politics ever before. And I know because I've been studying this. But

But once you have radicalized one major party so that those are the preferences of the people who adhere to your party, the leader is interchangeable. And yes, Trumpism is sometimes what we call it. MAGA movement is probably a better way to do it. But there is an authoritarian movement inside Republican politics that isn't being bamboozled by Trump. They are pushing Trump to get more and more extreme because the more extreme things he says...

The more they adhere to him. And that is coming from a very large proportion of the American right that adheres to the Republican Party. And that's why this is a Republican Party problem more than it is the problem of one man and his leader. Doesn't that tie together the two points you were raising? You're talking about religion, religious zeal.

Without religion. But it's a religious level zeal and it is for those people replacing or supplanting something. And really what you want is strong man government and democracy. And that goes just to the second point, which is what you were saying earlier and several people were speaking on. There's no reassessment about winning anyone back over, even though you got fewer votes in 16. You lost big time in the 18 midterms.

You got shellacked 7 million net negative in 20. You had a fizzle in 22 that underperformed. And 23, your great idea of overturning Roe v. Wade, which you and the judges promised you wouldn't do, they were lying and you did it, has also been rejected in states red, blue, and purple. And there's no reassessment. And why? I think it goes to exactly what Rachel's saying and what you've documented and what you've written about, which is when that many people

don't believe in the tenets of democracy, they don't try to adjust for the public. You don't need to be popular. You just need power. But it's not religion without. I mean, it's not religion without religion. It is religion. And I think what we have to actually confront and, you know, this is what the Democrats are going to face is this is now what white evangelicalism is.

It is Christian nationalism. That's the name of it, right? These are people who, to Robert Jones again from PRI, who does these numbers, they believe that God has promised them, specifically white evangelical Christians of a certain mindset, that they own this country, that immigrants, that brown people, that Hindus like Vivek Ramaswamy and his wife are illegitimate Americans. They are less legitimate Americans than they are.

And so they're not trying to convince people and win people over through politics. What they're saying is we own this country and everyone will bow down to us. And Donald Trump, Ben Carson was on right wing TV earlier tonight comparing Donald Trump to King David. Yeah, that's the big one. And saying that his vulgarity itself is not something that makes him unsuitable to be the leader of the Christian movement. It makes.

makes him a legend of the Christian movement. Because like David, his flaws are simply more evidence that God is using him. There's nothing he can do. No vulgarity, no cruelty, saying you should vote anyway even if you die. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. Religion is when your savior dies for you. A cultist

A cult is when your savior says that you need to die for him. But in authoritarian movements, the whole point is that the leader is beyond reason, right? The leader is the source of the truth. There can be no reasoning with it. There is no rationality behind it. There is no way to factually argue with it. And so if you want to put a religious argument behind supporting saving and that's why you support it, you can. But it boils down to whether you're religious or not. It boils down to the idea that I'm putting my faith in this one person and thereby I

insisting that our country get rid of democracy because my faith is in that person who should rule by any means. And you can call it, it can be religious. It doesn't have to be religious, but it's the authoritarian playbook, the world over and for centuries. Yeah. And,

And luckily, we have Garrett Haik at Trump Victory Party headquarters in Des Moines to talk to us about being there in King David's camp. Garrett, I know you have some reporting for us tonight on Trump's next moves, what he's planning after having been projected tonight's winner.

Yeah, that's right. And Rachel, we've talked for months about the ways in which Donald Trump's political and legal calendars are sometimes at odds. And there's no better example of it than what we're going to see tomorrow, when Donald Trump is expected essentially en route to New Hampshire to stop in New York City to appear for the first day of the second E. Jean Carroll defamation case against him, according to a source familiar with his travel plans. Now, I don't expect it to be a long visit in New York. And Donald Trump will end the day tomorrow with the kind of

triumphant next day in New Hampshire rally that we've come to expect from Iowa caucus winners here. But it is another example like we saw last week when he took two days off the trail here in Iowa to go up here in two different courtrooms on two separate cases.

of the way in which his legal and political entanglements are sometimes at odds with each other. And I just say sometimes because in the time I've spent covering this campaign, especially the last eight or nine days or so on the ground here in Iowa, I have to tell you that especially among his supporters, but even among Republicans I've talked to in Iowa who weren't planning to caucus for Donald Trump,

It is baked in now that all of these cases against him are part of an effort to stop him outside the normal bounds of how elections are supposed to work. The idea of election interference or Democratic prosecutors or Joe Biden's DOJ, whatever it may be, going after Donald Trump has become...

An article of faith, especially among the MAGA faithful who are caucusing for him tonight, but not just among that group. And I suspect you'll see that dynamic continue to play out after tomorrow's stopover for court in New York on the way to New Hampshire. Kids are the big kids. Alex Wagner is trying to jump. The reason we are paused is that Alex Wagner, I think, is trying to jump in there. Do we have Alex's mic? There we go.

Can I talk? I think you can talk. It's the dog cone. Hello from the dog cone. Garrett, it's Alex Wagner. My question to you is, at the big kids table on the main set, they were talking about this sort of interesting breakdown of Iowa caucus goers. Again, these are entry polls, but...

If Donald Trump were to be convicted of a crime, would you consider him fit to be president? 63% of respondents said yes, but 32% said no. You're talking about the sort of responses you've gotten from Iowa caucus goers about these federal trials and state trials. And they seem to be, these Trump supporters seem to be dismissing out of hand the notion that these are legitimate exercises in justice.

Who then? What crimes do you think 32 percent of Iowa caucus goers are thinking are legit enough that they might disqualify Donald Trump from being president? Do you think that they're like what? In other words, what is the sort of awareness level of the sort of ins and outs of these trials? Do you have a sense of whether that's any crime that or specifically these trials that we're talking about as being disqualifying?

I think it's a great question because when I talk to caucus goers about this, particularly the sort of Trump faithful who you find at these rallies, there's not a level of familiarity with the ins and outs of the specifics of any of these cases. And I think it's hard for me to say which one of them would be potentially most damaging to them. I don't think anything having to do with

election interference or January 6th would be there in part because again that narrative is so baked in that January 6th isn't what you and I witnessed it to be and that you know that there was a stolen election so many of these people truly believe in 2020 the classified documents case I think is a little bit different in part because I think people are even less familiar with that evidence but

This is part of a bigger phenomenon that I've noticed covering this campaign compared to 2020 and certainly compared to 2016. I cannot emphasize enough how different of a media environment the really committed Trump supporters operate in than do viewers of this broadcast. I mean...

Fox News is far downstream even from some of the other conservative outlets that these people are watching and consuming. They are operating in a totally different media ecosystem. It's just a very different set of coverage, set of facts that are presented to a lot of these folks. It is a completely different universe.

So determining what that information that would be that could actually be disqualifying and how it would get to these voters, I think are very, very useful questions as we continue to go forward and these trials get underway, because it won't be presented in the same way that we would present it on a broadcast like this. Yeah. Or perhaps they're crimes that have not yet been committed or been tried. Garrett Haig, thank you, my friend, for doing the hard work down there in Iowa.

Back to you, Rachel. Alex, wait, wait. Alex, I've got you here. We were having this very spirited debate on set here about what it means that two-thirds of the Iowa caucus going, Iowa Republican caucus goers say that Joe Biden legitimately is not the president. And then those numbers that you were just saying, given that, that a third of Iowa Republican caucus goers say that Trump effectively can't serve as president if he's convicted. Like,

How do you end up getting those—how do you get those two things, put them together, and end up with a national Republican Party that is going to pick Donald Trump as their nominee? Well, I mean, I think one of the things Garrett was saying is really important. I mean, the question, if Donald Trump were to be convicted of a crime, would you consider him fit to be president? It makes me think, given the sort of divide in the media ecosystem that Garrett's told us about that we know about anecdotally—

that I'm not sure those Iowa caucus goers are thinking about the crimes we're thinking of. I think generally as potentially a litmus test of a presidential candidate, if he were convicted of a crime, should and could he be president,

On its face, perhaps they're saying no. But if you drill down deeper, I would be very curious to know if you specified if Donald Trump were convicted in the special counsel's, you know, federal election interference trial in Washington, D.C., would he still fit to be would he still be fit to be president? I'm not sure the answer would be the same. I mean, I think that we are dealing with such a polarized partisan landscape here in terms of information and basic facts.

I would imagine a lot of these caucus goers have dismissed out of hand the notion that any of these trials will be fair in the same way that two thirds of them believe that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president of the United States. I mean, I guess what I would say, Alex, is that I think I mean, I think that's possible. I also think that I think that two thirds, one thirds partition is interesting and kind of a useful rule of thumb here, honestly.

Like, I think those two questions are pretty revealing about a big divide in that electorate. I mean, right now, we're you know, we'll see what it ends up being.

Let's say he got 66 percent tonight. OK, let's say Donald Trump got 66 percent tonight. He's going to get less than that. Right. But like there we talk so much about his dominance over the party, how he has come to control the party, how everyone's bent the knee to him, how he's going to waltz to this nomination. All of that, I think, appears to be true. And tonight, NBC News called it for him as a projected winner. Nine and a half seconds into the hour.

Approximately. But when you're thinking about, like, persuasion, you're thinking about democracy, you're thinking about this election, like, I'm interested in that third. Like, that's stuff to work with. And the same way that Ron DeSantis misunderstood what materially he had to work with for the popular pro-democracy majority in the country, which remains a democracy and remains a majority. Yeah.

That is something to work with in there. Who are those folks in the one-third? Like, that's where a lot of the work's going to be done. Like, who are those people? We've been so focused as a country with every step of the sort of legal accountability thing for Trump on what Republicans and what Trump supporters will think. But again, if you step back and you look at the big picture, when the first thing happened, which was the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, a majority of the public said that that was legal.

and that they supported it. And then there were the indictments. And we were all worried about what was going to happen with Trump supporters and Republicans, but a majority of the country said the indictments were legitimate and they supported them. And now you've got Donald Trump potentially facing disqualification from one or multiple ballots under the 14th Amendment. And again, a majority of the country, 56% of the country, says that they believe that Donald Trump should be disqualified on one or more,

being on the ballot in one or more states. We have been very worried about how it breaks down among his supporters and what he'll do and what will happen among the Republicans. But in the country broadly, people believe that he's committed crimes. They want him prosecuted for them and they want him locked up if he is convicted. And people should remember. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Can I say something super obvious? This is not as deep as some of the points that have been made. There's a reason why Republicans have spent decades

doing the politics of law and investigations. They did it first. They did it to Clinton. There were some legitimate things and questions, but what they did, the country ultimately rejected because they didn't think presidents should be removed over their trumped-up perjury. The Hunter Biden story obsesses them. That's not even about Trump.

the president of the United States. It's about a family member with a situation. And maybe he'll be convicted, but again, he's still an ancillary figure to people's daily lives. I'm not saying everything Republicans do is politically shrewd. I'm just saying the idea that it's debatable or an open question whether investigation, probe...

legal process and potential conviction hurts you. I think it's hurt people for decades. And that's why it's all they think. Don't overthink it. Remember, too, is that before he was indicted, not had 91 counts. He couldn't beat Joe Biden.

So I think we have to remember that I'd still rather be Biden in this because he beat him when Trump was unindicted. He couldn't mount an electoral college or a popular vote majority against Joe Biden before. And it's hard to imagine he's gaining voters by becoming indicted and by having the E. Jean Carroll case and all the rest of it. So, I mean, I think that Republicans, again, it goes to the point that I think that our

was making earlier that they have abandoned the idea of growing their part because he has lost everything he has touched has turned to poop.

Since the last four years, he hasn't actually endorsed winning candidates. He hasn't produced winning candidates. He's actually been a loser for them over and over again. All you're left with is the faith of his voters that he's the better candidate and that he can beat Joe Biden because they don't believe he lost. Right. I mean, Joy, as you just said, the election deniers lost in 2022. They lost. Many of them lost in the primaries. Many of them lost in November. And leading up to it, it was still like, well, people...

We didn't know. We didn't care about democracy. We sat at this very desk not knowing. Right. And they did. Right. Because meaning the democracy, the good the good white hats turned out. Right. Defensive democracy. It's it's not it's a question that has been proven over and over and again, including in polls, but also when people vote. We need one more exit poll question for New Hampshire. And it's a conviction question.

And it for Republican voters. If Hunter Biden is convicted of tax evasion, can Joe Biden be elected president?

Would that be would you still that bar Joe Biden from being president? Because I want to see the people who answer the two thirds who say, oh, you can convict Trump of any crime and he should still be president. And then I want to know how many of them believe that if Hunter Biden is convicted of tax evasion, Joe Biden can't do it. Right.

Broadly in the electorate, they'd say, who cares? We know that. Who's after Biden? Trump supporters. Let's go back to Ottumwa, Iowa, where Jacob Sobroff has been at Ottumwa High School, watching all these different caucuses rolling out over the course of the night. He was able to talk to the local county Republican chair. We saw some of the speeches from candidates there. Jacob, how has it been rolling out over the last couple of hours?

Well, you know, I heard what we had said about the projection that turnout was lower than in previous years. And while it does look like a lot of people are here, about 1,000 showed up, it's far less than nearly double that in 2016. And, Rachel, the final tabulations are happening right now. And I'm going to try to sneak through here and see if we can get an up-close look at this while everybody's... Sorry to split your handshake. Excuse me. Pardon us. Excuse us.

So what they're doing here, these orange pieces of paper, excuse me for one second. I just want to get a close-up look at that board. Come on in, guys. Yeah, just looking at this quickly, it looks like Trump has really cleaned up at this location. So these are the different precincts. If you look vertically, horizontally are the results. And then just take a look. It's not hard to see. Let's start here. But Trump 16, Trump 17, 2 for the

for desantis 26 in this precinct uh five for hailey and i just want to stress these are unofficial results until they're reported by the gop um but this is what it's looking like on the county on the precinct level 39 three for almost 26 for haley uh 28 31 um 38 uh compared to 12 for desantis so second place here looks like desantis uh

I haven't added them all up, but you get the idea, guys. It looks like Trump cleaned up here and everybody, let's just turn around so they can see. Everybody's watching to get the results here in O'Tumbo. And Jacob, have things run smoothly?

Things have gone relatively smoothly, and in fact, to make them run even more smoothly, I'm going to just move out of the way just slightly. Go ahead, you guys. Come in. The whole process is doing exactly what she's doing, Rachel, taking the precinct-level results with those orange pieces of paper and then reporting the results out on this whiteboard. But, yeah, I mean, it's 8.29 p.m. local time, 9.30 where you are, and this is exactly what...

what Trudy, our friend from earlier, was telling me she thought was going to happen in the time frame she thought it was going to happen. And Trump looks to have a significant advantage here, guys. And if nothing else, Iowa is a testament to the importance and beauty of excellent handwriting. So please pass on to those who are posting on that board that their Roman numeral, their Arabic numerals there are very impressive. Thank you, Jacob. Much appreciated, my friend.

With Trump now the projected winner in Iowa, we are watching Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis slacking it out for second place, which could be a very consequential thing. We've been talking all night about how all of this is going to be a very, very, very

Ron DeSantis essentially moved his entire campaign to Iowa. He is not above single digits in the polling in any other state besides Iowa. Nikki Haley is. She does have that advantage. This could be a do or die night for Ron DeSantis as he battles it out for second place with Nikki Haley. We're expecting a lot of votes to start coming in in the next few minutes. We're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about that battle for second place and what else we're seeing roll in with Iowa results. Stay with us.

Sunday on MSNBC. One night, two documentaries. At 9 p.m. Eastern, To Be Destroyed. The story of one community's fight against book banning. My book, along with four others, was pulled from the shelves. Followed by It's Okay, a short film about embracing differences in small-town America. Can I share some stories with you? It's okay.

Okay. To be different. Back-to-back documentaries, Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. Go beyond the headlines with the MSNBC app. Watch your favorite shows live. Get analysis from live blogs to in-depth essays and the latest updates on the 2024 election. Visit msnbc.com slash app to download. ♪

Looking at live images there of frigid Iowa tonight. NBC News is projecting that Donald Trump will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses as we continue to see the vote trickle in. Very small amount of the actual vote in thus far. What we're watching is both the margin by which Trump will win by the

by which he will beat the second place finisher, but also who's the second place finisher between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. It's more than just bragging rights to see who can be runner up, who can be the silver medal way behind Trump. It's also a question of whether or not the two of them or either of them have a reason to live, proverbially speaking, whether they have a justification for keeping their campaign going. Nikki Haley probably won't,

heading into tonight had the better case to make for that just because she's polling very well in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire electorate looks very much like a Nikki Haley style electorate. And then the next state after that is her home state of South Carolina. Ron DeSantis really put everything

thing into Iowa. And so his result in Iowa is not going to be what he predicted at one point during the campaign, which was a win. But the strength of his finish and whether or not he is a second place finisher to Trump or a third place finisher to Trump and Haley may be an existential question for Ron DeSantis. For more on that important

distinction between the second and third place candidates, whoever they may be. We go back to Steve Kornacki to look sort of inside some of these results that we're getting. Steve, when you're looking at these results, focusing not so much on Trump, but on DeSantis and Haley, are either of them either overperforming or underperforming what you would have expected from the polling?

Yeah. And again, it's a little tough to say because in so many of these counties, we still are looking at only one, two, three, a very small number of precincts. So there could be still a lot of variability to come in. But the thing we've been stressing with Haley is the more college degrees you have, the higher the incomes are, more suburban or even urban areas, the better she's expected to

do. So we talked about that again. Nothing's changed here, but even at the 1%, this is a county she would want to be winning. This is where Iowa State University, where Ames is. This is where the University of Iowa is. We've got a little more in here now. And again, Haley continuing to lead there. These are the kinds of counties she wants to be doing very well in. Here's another big college county. This is Blackhawk County.

The University of Northern Iowa is here. The city of Waterloo is here. This is interesting because we do have a fair amount of the voted now from Blackhawk County. Compare it to 2016. So, you know, Cruz and Rubio is very tightly bunched three way race here. But Cruz and Rubio were bunched together. I think it is interesting that Haley has at least in the early going a little bit of distance from DeSantis here. This is the kind of county, you know, if you're between Haley and DeSantis, I think this could be kind of a

potential barometer because of the mix of the population here. There are, you know, there are, it's not a huge number of college degrees, even though Northern Iowa is there. There's also the city of Waterloo. You know, there's Cedar Falls. There's a lot in this county. So I think this is one where show me who comes in second at the end of the night here between Haley and DeSantis. I think that could be very telling. Another place to look is just the obvious place to look here. The biggest county in the state, Polk County. And we are, we're starting to get a little bit more in now from, from Polk County than we had earlier. It was just a precinct. Again,

In the past, like 17 percent of all the caucus vote has come out of Polk County. And again, you're talking about a high concentration of college degrees here. Obviously, the city of Des Moines is here, a lot of suburbs in Polk as well. And again, just look at how this one went in 2016. Trump lagged here a bit. If he'd done better in Polk, he could have potentially had a win statewide. But Rubio and Cruz, this was a Rubio County. Cruz ran about 15%.

500 behind him. This is the kind of, you know, it's a point and a half basically between them. This is the kind of place I think pay close attention in Polk to that Haley DeSantis margin. If Haley's getting some distance on DeSantis here, potentially that means a lot of raw votes. And that means something that could really help her in terms of getting that second, second place statewide. If, uh,

if DeSantis is able to keep this close, keep it close with Haley in this county, and you see in the early going, he's actually ahead of her right now. If DeSantis is ever able to get second place here or just keep it close with Haley, I think he's doing himself a world of good. And as we said, we're looking, we've got a little bit more in now, you know, Sioux County, again, this was Trump's worst. This is deeply religious, deeply evangelical looking closely in this Northwest corner of the state here. How,

many of these, you know, is DeSantis going to be? This is a good result for him so far in Sioux County. Again, Lyon County hasn't changed since we showed you this would be a terrible result for DeSantis or something like this state. But again, you go to this portion of the state, this is 11 votes, but these are the kinds of counties where DeSantis doesn't want to be at 18. He wants to be 30, in the 30s, I think, as a target. So we'll see as more precincts come in. But in the Northwest, if he wins them, that's great for him. It's

If he's in the 30s, I think that's probably hitting a target for him in those kinds of counties tonight. We just don't have enough voting to tell right now. But obviously, you know, I think a good bellwether potentially could be Blackhawk County. Take a close eye on Polk County as it comes in. Here's another interesting one. You know, Warren County, right south of Polk County. This is another one of those counties.

It was Huckabee, Santorum and Cruz. This is one of those counties that went with the evangelical candidate. And, you know, again, Trump now is winning here overwhelmingly. DeSantis probably wants to be in the 30s here. Now we've got 10 percent of the vote in statewide. And you can see DeSantis has jumped over Haley. We check here in a second, see what just came in here. It was what?

OK, I can't quite hear. But anyway, we got we got Mississippi River County just came out. OK, yeah, Clinton County. So, you know, Trump continuing over 50 percent here. Expect just these numbers, I think, are going to go back and forth. When you get more of the suburban counties in this number is going to go up. When you get more of the rural counties in this number is going to go up and more to the point. This number is going to come down because Haley doesn't seem to be doing particularly well in those rural areas right now. Steve, thank you very much. You guys thinking about what happens after this and sort of how many tickets out of Iowa?

there are, as they say. I feel like I can imagine what happens next for Nikki Haley, because I don't think she needs Iowa. It would be great, and it'd give her a lot of big momentum. Let's say Nikki Haley comes in third.

Ron DeSantis comes in second. Let's say it's 20% and 18%. What does Ron DeSantis do next? Because Ron DeSantis is at single digits in New Hampshire, hasn't had any campaign anywhere other than Iowa. What happens to him next if he comes in second? I mean, one of the most interesting things to watch tonight is going to be how these candidates handle it when they go out and speak, right? Because historically, candidates will go out and they'll claim victory even when they got second or third, like,

People stood for me. I had momentum. And you're like, wait, you didn't win. Hold on a second. That's happened long before this caucus. If you're Ron DeSantis, I actually think a second place is great for him. I mean, dare I say, because the expectations a little bit are that Haley was going to beat him in Iowa. And Trump even thinks that Haley is going to beat him because Trump yesterday said about Haley, you're going to find out a lot about her in the next short period of time, which is very mob

be, but it also means he's threatened by her. And Don Jr. went to a caucus site where she was tonight to attack her specifically. Wait, he physically went to the same caucus site where she spoke? Same one. The reporting suggests they didn't interact.

But they clearly, she's the one who makes them nervous. So if DeSantis beats her, she still has her pathway in New Hampshire. But if you're DeSantis, you're going to claim victory. But those are also very different voters because with immigration being the top issue for Iowa voters, Nikki Haley doesn't represent what they're looking for. Sure. So she's going to take a turn here and think about

all the classic Republicans, the business set. You know where they are tonight? In Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. And when they hear the people who overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump are anti-immigrant, they're certainly not. They're certainly looking for comprehensive immigration reform. We have a huge labor shortage in this country. And so there's a big portion of classic Republicans that are scratching their heads now. They're not the majority of the electorate, though. Correct. That's the thing. Of the Republican electorate. They may be the majority of the overall.

overall electorate. The other thing that helps in New Hampshire, obviously, is that it is an open primary, right? I mean, the caucuses are technically open. You can come and register that night. But New Hampshire is fully open for independents to come and vote. And we've seen that vote carry people that might perform differently than Iowa. Nikki Haley has that obviously going for her. A huge

part of the issue here, when we talk about Trump's dominance of the Republican Party, one of the things I think we don't talk about enough is that he's just chased a lot of people out. Like, there's a bunch of Romney voters who just watch MSNBC all day now and vote like Democrats, like straight line. Like, there's ton high, everyone. Like, there's tons of those people. So those voters are not in there in the caucus anymore. Yeah, but I mean, it's not like the Republican Party isn't competitive in the national polling right now. In NBC's national polling right now, Trump is beating Biden. Oh, no.

I'm not saying anything about the competitors. I just mean the kind of person who considers himself a Republican has been changed by Trump enough that some of the votes that would be needed for a Nikki Haley, for instance, are not there because they're not Republicans. So that makes the math a lot harder. The question then, I think if you're the campaign, if you're running the campaigns for Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, you each have to do one specific thing. If you're Ron DeSantis and you do come in second,

You then need to have you to make a choice. You either need to move your entire operation to South Carolina and try to pull a Barack Obama. Right. Where he's going there first before New Hampshire. Right. Because you have to remember, it's the other evangelical state. So since he's built his strategy on getting white evangelical voters to come to him, he needs to go immediately there. But then you have to remember, you can't lose Florida to Donald Trump without

being completely ritually humiliated and going down in flames. So you have to make a decision how much of your resources go to South Carolina versus Florida. If you're Nikki Haley, you go immediately to South Carolina, right? I mean, well, you have to obviously win New Hampshire. I'm saying win when I say come in second. So she'll do decently in New Hampshire, but she absolutely has to perform well in South Carolina. It's the other event. She has a chance to win in New Hampshire.

She is within single digits of Donald Trump in New Hampshire. It is not going to help her do that if she comes in third tonight. She'd be better off if she came in second tonight. But she has to throw all the way down. She has to go to New Hampshire because she is. And she can't lose her home state. What I say, this whole thing about how many tickets out of Iowa just depends who you ask. The political professionals, the press, which is interested in this, everyone who loves to follow politics, how much...

How many tickets? Let's follow this as long as it goes. But if we again return to the fact that there is an anti-Trump wing of this party, it might be more in battle than last time. But as I mentioned last time, it was over 50 percent. If you pulled all the other votes, that wing and the donor class would like to find the alternative now.

Trump just won Iowa. They'd like to find it now, which means forcing out one of the candidates with whatever mechanism and pressure and money they can do. So the mob thing that I think Jen's right. Trump's saying that if he's in a one on one. Right. But the Trump campaign and status quo MAGA would love for this to just play out over a couple of states. If DeSantis comes in second tonight in Iowa, I think we have a relatively long Republican primary.

And if DeSantis gets shellacked in Iowa tonight, I think we have a relatively short Republican primary. At least in terms of it being reduced down to two. Yeah. And the problem for Haley is she if she does well tonight or even if she just does really well in New Hampshire, she has to have a path after that. Right. And the electorate in the states after New Hampshire is much more like Iowa than it is like New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a unique unicorn in some ways in the early primary states. It's much more independent. It's much more of the people Steph was talking about.

And that's her challenge. She could have money, but it's like, how are you going to win? How are you going to do in your home state? If she wins New Hampshire, she gets to Super Tuesday no matter what. Yes, yes. But she still has to have a path to winning in those states that are more like Iowa than New Hampshire. And I think to the point that you made, Steph, I mean, it's the elephant in the room. She's still a brown lady.

That's got to try to win in a party that is deeply anti-immigrant and which accepts the notion that you can say immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. She's getting, you know, birthered by Donald Trump.

And I don't care how much the donor class likes her, which will ramp up a lot the better she does in New Hampshire. So it's still a challenge. I don't see how she becomes the nominee of that party with Donald Trump still around. I can't picture it happening. Maybe it could happen. Ron DeSantis' only argument for staying in it is he's the white guy, that he can still make the appeal to Whitey McDonnell. While we have been talking, if you look in the lower left-hand corner of your screen, you will see that a big chunk of vote has come in.

We were down in the low double digits in terms of how much of the statewide vote we had in Iowa. Now we are up to 34 percent. Steve, can you tell us what's come in and what this big chunk of votes? Oh, yeah. A whole lot of it. A whole lot of it here. We went from about seven to thirty four in a span of 10 minutes. And I expect it to jump significantly further.

Very shortly. So a couple of places now where we've got we've gone from a scattering to the majority and nearly all of the voting in some places. I think the most notable return we just got is from the suburbs just west of Des Moines. This is Dallas County. Again, this is a broken record with this, but this is one of those high income, high cost.

This was a Marco Rubio County in 2016. You can see this. Look at it. Rubio got 34 percent of the vote. This was a double digit win. This is the classic Republican bedroom suburban community right outside the state's biggest city of Des Moines. And you can see now how much of the vote we do have in here. Three quarters about Donald Trump, who finished third here in 2016, comfortably ahead. Now, Nikki Haley is in second place. But look at that.

It's Haley 25.8. It's DeSantis 25.8. That's a difference of two votes at this point between Haley and DeSantis. It seems clear Trump's going to get the win in Dallas County. And I think that's significant just given, again, there's that college non-college divide we've been talking about for Trump. If he gets a win in a county like this, you know, this is sort of this is hostile territory for him, relatively speaking. But Haley coming in second here, that's got to be her goal. But it's got to be second with some space.

If she wants second place statewide, it's got to be a second. It's not two votes ahead of Ron DeSantis. Because for her right now, I think the story is forget about the Trump number. In a county like this, it's Haley versus DeSantis. She's got to beat him. And the margin between Haley and DeSantis, she's got to get

pad some vote here because the other places where we're starting to get a lot of the vote in, you know, take it. This is a very small rural County, but again, you know, look at the result here. Donald Trump, look at how the improvement for Trump, by the way, he's up 40 points almost from where he ran in 2016. This is, these are the kind of, uh, political, um, bridges he's built in the last eight years in these kinds of counties. These are rural, small population, uh,

low college degree attainment. And look where Trump is performing here right now. Again, Haley, it's second place here. It's just a question of a few votes. This is actually better than Rubio did in 2016. But again, she's only seven votes there ahead of DeSantis with what you've got. And also Haley got caught. We were tracking Johnson County earlier. This is in general elections today.

the most Democratic county in Iowa. This is where Iowa City is here. Haley was leading in the early count here. She's now been passed by Donald Trump again. That would be somewhat significant if Trump were able to win a county like this demographically. This is one of the most ill-suited to him in Iowa in a Republican caucus, certainly in a general election. But Trump now is ahead a little bit. Haley does have a bit of a pad here over DeSantis. You can see it's about 400 votes. But take a look.

In 2016, Rubio was able to get 800 more than the statewide winner Ted Cruz, who he was chasing, and about 900 more than Donald Trump. So again, Haley wants to have as big a pad as she can in a county like this. Forget Trump at this point for her. She'd love to see it colored in her color here, her shade of red, but she wants to get a pad here.

over DeSantis still remaining to be seen. You know, again, we're sitting at 29% in Sioux County. I think this is a little bit more, just a sliver more than the last time we checked in here. But again, this is the kind of county that DeSantis wants to be getting a pad over Nikki Haley. Again, this is a, this is a good number out of Sioux for Ron DeSantis. We're waiting. We only got a sliver more out of Lyon County. As we say, this is the kind of county for him only that he's coming in second. If the margin stays like this 12 to nine for second place, that's that,

not what DeSantis needs at all. Again, we'll wait for more vote to come in right there. But again, as we check in overall, 37% statewide right now. There's a difference there of 629 votes between Haley and DeSantis that equate to 1.3%. So again, population

Population centers, Haley wants to build up a gap between herself and DeSantis, and DeSantis, especially in the northwestern part of the state, but really throughout the state. All of these counties that went Huckabee, all these counties that went Santorum, all these counties that went Cruz. He'll take any wins he can get, but he needs a pad in all those counties over Haley. This is a very close race for second place. But again, I think you've been talking about this.

We're talking a little bit about this. We're also settling into a pattern here maybe where if this is just the difference ultimately between Haley getting 20 and DeSantis getting 19, DeSantis getting 20, Haley getting 19. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's sitting there 32 points ahead of them.

It does. What does that second place do? I mean, you're talking about it. Haley is set up in New Hampshire almost regardless of what happens here tonight to take her shot at Donald Trump there. That's the state where he's always looked the most vulnerable. But if DeSantis gets second place here and it's a couple points ahead of Haley and it's there, there you go. It's got a little more of an update here. And it's 32 points behind Donald Trump.

What does that position him for? Steve, can I ask you, while we're still looking at those Iowa statewide numbers, lower left-hand side there, there's a tiny little down arrow with a yellow shade. Can you hit that? I've been neglecting to show you the rest of the field. I'm wondering what's happening with these folks. Yeah, Vivek Ramaswamy, again, we saw him, I believe, at 7% in our final poll. He's at 7.7%. Asa Hutchinson right now, the former governor of Arkansas, didn't really, I think he made one debate stage.

Way back, two tenths of a percent for him. Chris Christie, name still on this ballot, sitting there with 20 votes. But there are some other candidates down there. Mr. Ramaswamy below eight percent. That puts him essentially on track with his with the latest polls. Yeah. I mean, this is I mean, this is very similar. Now, again, our final poll at Haley at 20, DeSantis at 16. The question to Mark about turnout. You know, we had Trump at 48 in that final poll. So, again, that final poll, the exit poll and the results so far.

all pretty much in line. And it really does look like it's going to be a close fight here for second place. We need to see more vote, obviously. I told you the basic dynamics that we're following, but a very tight race for second. But Trump just showing you those improvements he's had, whether it's in these rural counties where he's running 40 points better, whether it's in Johnson County where

for the moment, he's taken the lead over Nikki Haley. Johnson County, again, probably should be the worst on the map, one of the worst on the map for Donald Trump outside of Sioux and Northwest Iowa. So, you know, he's the inroads he's made here relative to 2016. And frankly, relative to the start of this campaign. I mean, it's hard to remember, but this time last year in 2023, the whole reason DeSantis got in, the whole reason Haley got in and for a time, a whole bunch of other candidates got in is

There was polling at the start of 2023 that had Donald Trump nationally losing to DeSantis. The average poll had him under 40 percent for a while, a single point national race. And so from that point to where he is, is finishing tonight. The turning point, obviously, being that first indictment in March of 2023. These are some gigantic gains that he's made. Yeah. And again, the previous record, as you said, Steve, for the biggest margin ever on Iowa Republican caucus was 12 points. And here we are looking at 32 points.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back on the other side of this as our coverage of the Iowa Republican caucus continues.