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Welcome back. It's the Iowa caucus episode of Beyond the Polls. We're only a few days away from those key votes, and I've got the perfect person to give us a view from the grassroots. Steve Scheffler, Iowa's Republican National Committeeman. That plus an Iowa-themed ad of the week and an Iowa-themed rant all ready for you. Let's dive in.
My rants thus far have kind of been very negative, mainly about what somebody didn't do or how they missed an opportunity. But this rant is 180 degrees different. It's going to be why Donald Trump's campaign is cruising to victory. Now, at the outset of this campaign, it sure didn't look like Donald Trump was going to be cruising to victory. This is a guy who looked like maybe he had lost his mojo, his announcement back at the end of 2022. Can you believe it?
lacked the verve of his usual announcements. Most people said it was snooze-worthy, it went on too long, touching all the old themes. It didn't look like this was a guy who really wanted the job the way he did before.
Boy, has he got his mojo back now. Not only has he managed to convey enthusiasm, it seems to be growing the closer we get to the campaign. It may not be 2015. It's not your first love anymore. But if you fell in love with Donald Trump, you're still going to the dance with him.
But more than Donald Trump, it's also what his campaign has done. Because yes, unlike previous efforts, Donald Trump actually has a campaign. Strategists who work on issues, who do the nuts and bolts things that campaigns are supposed to do. And from soup to nuts, they have done a fabulous job. Let's start with the first thing that any campaign has to do. You have to know who you're talking to.
A lot of campaigns actually mess up at the start. They don't understand who they're talking to. They don't define their audience closely enough, or they don't understand what their audience really wants to talk about. But the Trump campaign has understood who their audience in the Republican primary is and what they want from day one. Their audience is the people who really like Trump.
Donald Trump and they understand that they like Donald Trump because he's a fighter. He's a fighter for them and they understand that these are people who are both fearful of and resentful of what they view as an establishment that's out to get them. The media, the academy, the deep state, the government officials, you name it, these people want to get rid of conservatives and they want to get rid of Donald Trump because
He is your voice. Now, you may not agree with that, but that's what the view from the grassroots is. And the Trump campaign understood this perfectly. They understood that the indictments, far from diminishing his appeal, were going to enhance them because they reinforced the sense of alienation and siege mentality that these voters have to begin with.
He used the indictments to his advantage. Remember that wonderful political photo, his mugshot that people wondered whether it was going to hurt him? Instead, he turned it into a single-minded picture that encapsulated the fighter that he wants to portray himself as.
He's also turned himself 180 degrees around from what he was eight years ago. Eight years ago, he rode the moderate wing of the Republican Party to victory. Even as late as the Indiana primary, when he was destroying Ted Cruz by nearly 20 percentage point, he lost the voters who told pollsters they were very conservative.
Fast forward to today, it's exactly flipped. The very conservative voters are Donald Trump's base. The moderate voters are the ones who want to get rid of him. Donald Trump did that during his presidency, and he has used that symbiosis between the Trump presidency
Loyalist who sees Trump personally as their avatar and the conservative who? Desperately wants to find somebody who they can believe in who won't betray them and made him that person They have understood his audience to a tee and they have played his Campaign to a tee to reinforce and cement that loyalty then what did he understand he understood his threat and
His threat was going to be from a candidate who could peel those people away. Mike Pence was never going to be a threat to him because Mike Pence wasn't credible to those voters. Chris Christie was never going to be a threat to him because Chris Christie is anathema to those voters. Tim Scott was never going to be a threat to him because Tim Scott's too nice a guy to actually convince a MAGA voter that he is going to be a relentless warrior for good.
Nikki Haley was never going to be a threat to him in this way because Nikki Haley was going to run as she has, as roughly the establishment candidates. Even in a magnified Republican Party, there's still lots of votes.
out there to be had by campaigning as essentially the restoration of the pre-Trump Republican Party. It's counter-programming what Nikki Haley has done, but it really never posed a threat to Donald Trump in Iowa. The only candidate who did was Ron DeSantis, and he has hammered Ron DeSantis since before Ron DeSantis has gotten the race. He came up with the nickname Ron DeSanctimonious. He started running ads highlighting how DeSantis wasn't favored
favorable to populist themes like not cutting Social Security and Medicare early in the campaign. He has kept up the attacks on Ron DeSantis ever since spent over $20 million in television ads attacking Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has not been able to break through. A really good candidate can take the attacks and turn back on them, but DeSantis has both resisted engagement with Trump. He still
a few days away from the caucus, has not made Trump the focus of a single negative television ad, and he continues to only refer obliquely to Trump. That conveys weakness to the very voters that Donald Trump had and that Ron DeSantis was trying to get. So,
A, the campaign understood who the audience was and what they needed to do to tighten them in. B, they understood who the threat, who could take that audience away, and they hammered the guy down. Then what they did was they reinforced that with the no engagement strategy.
They treated Donald Trump as if he were the incumbent. They limited his engagement with other candidates, never appeared on the same stage with any of them. No debate appearances. Basically, he said, force me to pay attention to you. I'm above all of you.
And clearly, for the people who didn't like Donald Trump in the Republican Party or preferred somebody else, that was not going to be a winning strategy. But they're a minority. Again, he's trying to cement the people who like or love him and keep them there. That's what they want to see. And nobody has been strong enough yet to force him to engage with them. And then the final thing they did was did something they didn't do before, and that's built a strong organization.
Really, only Donald Trump can meet, match Ron DeSantis' organization in Iowa. He's the only other candidate with chairs in all 99 counties. He's the only other candidate who has the resources in Iowa that's building the sort of information that helps turn out caucus voters.
Between understanding his audience, understanding who his opponents were, understanding what their weaknesses were and what his audience's strengths were, and building a campaign that was designed to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, Donald Trump has...
has managed to run a near textbook campaign for the Iowa caucuses. Maybe the polls will be off in a historic way. Occasionally they are, but it looks like he's going to be moving in
to not just the frontrunners status, but near nominee status with a massive blowout win in Iowa. And that's why Donald Trump deserves the attention and deserves the plaudits from a campaign perspective as somebody who knew what to do and went out and executed it.
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Well, it's only a few days before the Iowa caucus, and we're waiting for the first event of the regular political season. Yes, I used a baseball metaphor to refer to Iowa. And here, who's been watching this from the ground, yes, he's been watching the spring training, if you'll continue the metaphor, is Steve Scheffler. He's the Republican National Pennyman for Iowa, and he's also the president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Iowa. Steve, welcome to Beyond the Poll.
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here today. Well, Steve, you are the veteran. You've been, as you said to me, doing this for a long time. You're neutral in this race, so you're not coming with any particular candidate preference in mind. What have you been seeing? If you were the average voter who was considering whether to participate in the caucus, how have they been experiencing this in the last couple of weeks?
Well, first of all, you can't go anywhere without hearing TV ads or seeing candidate events around the state that were caucus goers have an opportunity to go hear these candidates. And I can tell you from going years back, most of these caucus goers will probably have attended each individual candidate's forums or rallies or whatever, probably two, three, four or five times.
And then you might have a small minority of people, say 10, 15% people on caucus night who will not still have made a complete decision
Hardcore decision. And so each of these precincts will be allowed to have a candidate representative speak from anywhere from three to five minutes. And so that might be the frosting on the cake for that 10 to 15 percent by hearing a presentation from whether it's, you know, Trump or Nikki Haley or DeSantis. So there will be 10 to 15 percent, I'm guessing, that will not have made a final, final decision until that night.
One of the things we hear a lot is that organization matters. And it sounds to me like if you've got 10, 15 percent of the attendees who are swayable literally on the moment of decision, that's where the organization plays in not only getting your people out, but having somebody there with credibility who can actually deliver that five minute speech. Is that where we see the organization in operation? And if so, whose organization have you been impressed with so far?
I think you're exactly right. And here's the deal. I think a caucus in many respects is more difficult and it's more intense than even a primary or general election, because first of all, you've got to figure out who's going to go to a caucus. Secondly, you have to kind of kind of make them work with them, try to get them on board. And then you've got to put them in your database and then you have a mechanism to turn them out.
And so if you're not highly organized in all those respects, you're probably not going to go any far. You can use all the TV ads in the world. I'm not saying those are bad, but that's not going to cut the mustard. What's going to really matter is actually people that are staffers and committed volunteers identifying who's going to caucus for you, getting the database and making sure you have a mechanism on caucus night to make sure that they're going to attend those caucuses. So it's very intense.
And, you know, campaign and the campaigns that I think are the most organized in that regard were a Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump is much more organized than he was eight years ago. I've gone to a lot of rallies with all the candidates. And I was impressed with the Trump rally that I went to recently, that there were actually three times during that rally where they walk people through the process, telling them what to do, where to go. They'd be in line by seven o'clock.
So they're very organized. They seem to have a well-managed ship, no big boo-boos. And then I would say the second one that's very organized in similar fashion would be the Ron DeSantis campaign with a lot of boots on the ground. I don't think Nikki Haley was as organized. I think she's getting there. You know, as you know, Americans for Prosperity endorsed Nikki Haley, and so they have a lot of people on the ground, paid staff, volunteers, volunteers.
that are working their tail off. So I don't know if they're quite as organized as the other two, but certainly DeSantis and Trump have their game together.
One thing that we've seen in recent years is a rapid shift in opinion, not only on caucus night, as you mentioned, but in the polls. That in 2016, Marco Rubio went from something like 8% a week before the caucus, and he got 23% on caucus night. And Rick Santorum is the poster child of this zoom up going from fifth place to first in the span of about eight days.
Do you see any beginning sense of a groundswell in one direction or another? And do you think that the debate could be something that sparks that? And what might that be if it could? First of all, can I just mention a little bit? You mentioned Marco Rubio. So when Marco Rubio ran here eight years ago,
They concentrated a lot of time and effort in the urban counties like Polk County, Scott County, et cetera, et cetera. And they did very well there, but their campaign didn't go a lot of rural counties. And if you look at the caucus results, he actually came in very close, respectable third place. But had they spent as much time as Cruz in those smaller counties, I think he probably would have pulled it off. The thing that's unique about this cycle is you've got a former president who has a track record, who delivered on promises that he made.
And most of these caucus goers have been around for a while, know that we've had prior Republican presidents, as good as they were, many times they told conservative people what they wanted to hear. And then when push came to shove in terms of pushing hard against the leftist agenda, a lot of them were not willing to do that. With Trump, they saw something completely different. So I think the challenge that the non-Trump candidates have this cycle is to convince people not in,
regard to mimicking uh donald trump's uh mannerisms or personality but the fact that they will uh push hard against the leftist agenda and i don't think they probably have quite made that case so this one is kind of unique there could be a surprise on caucus night i just don't see that um you know going back to when you talked about santorum of course he worked his rear end off he went to every single county and you didn't have a kind of a um
A figure like Trump that he had to be concerned about. So I think that was a difference. He did work. So if this were any other cycle without Trump in there, I think DeSantis' work would pay off. But I just I don't see that this time around. It could, but I'm not going to second guess what the good people of Iowa might do on a caucus night.
I mean, one of the things that I wonder about is whether or not there'll be a way for towards DeSantis or Haley that, you know, the Trump figure, if you believe the polls, has been unbelievably steady for seven months.
And, you know, maybe that goes down a couple of points. Maybe it doesn't. But the DeSantis and Haley numbers seem much less committed. Is there a possibility that, you know, some of these factors, the debate, the 15 percent of people who show up on caucus night not knowing for sure who they're going to vote for, could that mean there would be a surprise, not for first place, but for second place? It could be, and probably the minor surprise.
would be if Nikki Haley came in second and not Ron DeSantis. And Ron DeSantis, as you know, when he goes on to New Hampshire, their electorate, both among Republicans and with independents, is more of a moderate crowd of people. And so my personal view is that Ron DeSantis either has to win the caucuses outright or he has to come in very, very close behind Donald Trump in order to probably have a path forward. Nikki Haley, I think, has a path forward as long as she doesn't get
totally annihilated and come in really in a bad third place location. But if she comes in a fairly relatively close position behind Ron DeSantis, then I think she can fight the next fight in New Hampshire. But with DeSantis, I think it's less possibility because of the makeup of the electorate in New Hampshire.
So this is really do or die for Ron DeSantis. He either hits his mark, breaks 25%, hopefully for him breaks 30%, and leaves Haley in the dust, or he's really got no shot. I think you're correct. Yep. So what about Vivek Ramaswamy? He's been running around the state, going to every place that'll have him. What's the pizza chain that you've got there? He seems to be there all the time. Pizza Ranch.
but yet he is mired at 6%, 8% or so in the polls. Is this really Ramaswamy's swan song that despite all of the efforts and the money that he's spent and some good reviews from people who have attended his town halls that he's going to get pretty much wiped out on caucus night? Again, I don't want to second guess what Iowans are thinking. They're going to go to the caucuses, but this is my guess about the vague.
especially among Trump people. They like his message by and large, but many of them may think, well, it's maybe, you know, before your time, you're only 38 years old. Maybe there'll be another data fight. And so these, again, these Trump supporters who know what Donald Trump did, they're just not, they're not ready to get off that reservation, you know? So I think that's his big challenge. And I think that's why he's had a challenging time to, you know, go upwards in the polls and everything. So,
It's a similar message, not on every issue, of course, but on a lot of ways. He is probably the closest thing to Donald Trump on issues, and probably some people think maybe he's just not ready for prime time yet.
And one of the things about this caucus is, you know, first of all, it's held at night. And secondly, it's not a voting situation. You just don't go in and cast a ballot and leave. You have to sit around, whether it's in somebody's home or whether it's in a basketball gym or a church or wherever you do it for, what, 30, 60, 90 minutes or more.
and we're hearing weather reports that the wind chill is going to be like minus 35 on caucus night. Are Iowans, obviously somebody's going to go out, are Iowans really going to go out in their car and hope it doesn't stall to these places and sit? Iowans are hardy people. I would be more concerned if we had a full-fledged big snow like we did here on, what was that, Monday night or whatever.
Yeah, I could deter a few people, but I don't really see that, especially among the hardcore committed people to their candidate. And of course, I think that probably bodes well for Donald Trump and maybe to some degree Ron DeSantis. But I just don't see the cold keeping people away. But I would see people maybe staying away if you got blizzard conditions and all that. But, you know, the turnout may be down a little bit, but I suspect it would be pretty robust on caucus night, you know.
So walk us through the next few days. You know, you're in Iowan, and starting Friday all the way through Monday night, it's kind of like the 96-hour blitz. Is it going to be more of the same candidate here, candidate there, can't turn on the news without hearing an ad, can't look around without seeing a sign? Or is there a way to insulate yourself from all of this? I don't think so.
You know, and then, of course, your mailbox is going to be filled with mailers from all these candidates, or most of them. Certainly the top four, you're going to see those mailers, you know, and text messages. I mean, text messages, I can't tell you how many I've gotten. So I think people are going to be inundated, and I don't think most caucus goers are insulted by any degree because they understand that Iowa's unique, that
No other state has this opportunity to vet the candidates one-on-one, asking the tough but respectful questions. So I don't think people, I mean, yeah, they may tire of it, but I don't think they're really offended by it because they know this is Iowa and they know that most states don't have this unique opportunity.
So walk my listeners through what it's actually like to be at a caucus. You mentioned the three to five minute speeches, but, you know, you presumably are going to caucus somewhere. What's the experience like from start to finish? Yeah.
Well, naturally, these caucuses will vary in size. You might have 20, 30 people. Another one, you might have six, seven, eight, 900 people, depending on how Republican that precinct is. And so sites have been reserved that they're anticipating a crowd that was maybe comparable to eight years ago when we had a multi-candidate field. And so this has been well publicized. You know, most of the campaigns have publicized where you have to go.
because the side of your caucus could very well be different than where you vote on election day. And so, you know, all the campaigns have done that. The Republican Party of Iowa has done that. So most people should be able to go to the right caucus. And, of course, once you go there, they'll have a list of the registered Republicans in that precinct. And if you're on that list, you'll be checked off. If you're not on that list, whether you're a Democrat or an independent or whatever,
somebody that's not registered at all, as long as you register on the spot as a Republican, you will be able to participate. Now, just take note, though,
that even with people on the list and the people that come that are not on the list that need to get registered, you'll have to show, you know, like a driver's license, military passport, you know, water bill, power bill, something that identifies that you are that person. But as long as you're a registered Republican and you come to that caucus and you go to participate. So the caucuses, so basically anybody that's in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to participate.
And then they'll check people in. You'll have a temporary chair that will call the meeting to order. You'll have, in most cases, a prayer and a pledge. And then you'll have an election for the permanent chair and the permanent secretary, which is usually the same people that are the temporary ones going into the meeting. And then, depending on what the caucus wants to do, each candidate representative will be able to have one representative that can speak anywhere from three to five minutes.
And then they'll pass out the ballots, just simple pieces of paper, write in the name you want to write. Volunteers will pick up those little pieces of paper and they will go to a location that's in that room that everybody can see, like to a counting table. And then likewise, each campaign will be allotted one representative who can observe that vote to tally to make sure it's correct.
And then there will be a call-in number or an app that you can call into. And, of course, when they call in or they use the app, they'll have to repeat those numbers twice to make sure that those numbers are correct. And, of course, these representatives will be hearing all this or seeing all this.
And so then they'll announce the results and it's inputted into the big data center downtown. And as those results come in, you'll be able to start seeing them. And of course, after that, you'll do the party business where each precinct will elect two, what they call county central committee members, which are basically the governing board of the Republican Party of that particular county. And then you will elect a lot of number of delegates and alternate delegates to the county commission because each of the 99 counties in Iowa
We'll have county conventions on one day, but in, of course, different locations on February 17th. And, of course, at that point, they'll let delegates go on to the state, the district and state convention. So basically it's, you know, the voting for president, and then you'll have the party business electing two central committee members, a lot of number of delegates and alternates to the county convention. And then lastly, which I didn't mention, is there'll be some time if people want to bring forth
resolutions like we, the people of Precinct West Des Moines 312, we support life from conception until natural death, or whatever resolutions they want to bring forward. And there could be debate on those things, or they could just have people present those resolutions and then they would be passed on to
the county party and then a county platform committee will begin to put those things together in a platform. So I don't know if that's what you're looking at, but... Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. It's from stoop to nuts. And I think everyone who's been listening to this now has an idea exactly how this is going to run.
When do you think we will start to see results coming in? If you said that anyone who's standing in line at 7 o'clock Central Time can participate, obviously it's going to take some time in some of the larger places to process people, and then it sounds like you'll go through business, business, business. When would those of us who are eagerly awaiting the decision of Iowans find out, start to find out who has selected whom?
I'm guessing maybe possibly you'll see a few trickling in around, excuse me, 730. And of course, as we proceed 740, I would imagine by nine o'clock, you're going to see 80, 85, 90.
maybe a percent that will be in at that time, you know. But the nice thing about it, of course, is you know the caucus is a party function. It's not a state of Iowa function. All these activities, all these volunteer activities, all this data system, that's all paid for by the Republican Party of Iowa. And so they have spent umpteen hours training. So campaigns have done it, and the state party have trained people how to conduct a caucus,
and to make sure that they're prepared, you know, having the pieces of paper ready that night, making sure if you're opening the caucus that you get to the building at 5 o'clock, not 6.30 or 7 o'clock to get set up. So these people will be, there have been umpteen trainings around the state, both that have been done by campaigns, the more organized campaigns, and the state party to make sure that people are ready because we want there to be no major hiccups on caucus night, kind of like the Democrats had
Four years ago, if you remember that. Oh, I was just going to ask you about the apps because they had everything set except their app. Four years ago, the Democrats didn't even check those apps and they crashed. So you had no idea. And so it's no wonder that the DNC, you know, said, hey, you know, Iowa Democrats, you're not going to do this anymore. So anyway, I feel very confident with our state party.
and the leadership they've got, very organized, and we shouldn't see any major hiccups on that night. Maybe a minor one or two, but nothing that's consequential. So one final question then. When I was in Iowa in the summertime and we met then, others told me that the governor's endorsement might be the only one that really moved people. And so then, of course, she has endorsed Ron DeSantis somewhere around Thanksgiving time.
Nothing has shown up in any of the polls. Is that something that people were just wrong about? Did the Trump campaign effectively neutralize her endorsement in some way? Why is it that Kim Reynolds' endorsement of Ron DeSantis, which was so anticipated by that campaign, ended up being apparently such a dud?
See, here's a little history. So I actually worked as a full-time paid staffer for Bob Dole back in 95 and 96. And 95% of the current Republican elected legislators at that time endorsed Bob Dole, as did then Governor Brandon said, as did Senator Grafson. So you had the whole gamut of Republican parties endorsed Bob Dole. But in spite of that, he only beat Pat Buchanan by three percentage points. And then if you go back just eight years ago,
When then Governor Branstad said vote for anybody but Ted Cruz because of the ethanol thing, Ted Cruz still won the caucuses. And then if you want to look at another endorsement, it's Bob Vander Plaats. 13% said that was a good endorsement. 13% said it was not a good endorsement. 74% said they really didn't care. And so people may respect you.
But the thing I've learned about Iowans is, and this constituency, this pro-life conservative constituency, may agree on 95% of the issues across the board. But when it comes to picking an individual candidate, you, me, Joe Blow, Mary Smith, we may come to a different analysis of why we're going to vote for Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump or Nikki Haley. So endorsements may be nice to have, but I don't see in the end that they really move the needle.
Steve, I really appreciate your insights into the caucus, into the process, into Iowa itself. For my listeners, where can they follow your work with the Faith and Freedom Coalition? So they can go to Facebook at Iowa Faith and Freedom, or they can go to Twitter at
which would be at Iowa Faith, or they can go to ffciowa.com. Well, Steve, thank you very much, and I look forward to having you back on Beyond the Polls. Well, thank you very much. It was an honor to be with you today. Thanks so much.
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You've heard me praise Donald Trump's Iowa campaign, but somebody else has won a pretty decent Iowa campaign, and that's Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley wasn't considered to be a strong contender here, but she's now fighting Ron DeSantis for second place and may very well be the person who emerges not just as Trump's competitor in New Hampshire, but also in the Hawkeye State. She's been mainly focusing on upscale traditional Republican voters, but she's made a recent play to broaden that base out in her television ads.
Let's listen. My passion for the unborn comes from my own unplanned pregnancy.
My name is Marlis Potma. I'm the former president of Iowa Right to Life and I'm supporting Nikki Haley for president. Nikki will keep the radical left from ruining our culture. She won't let boys play girls sports and she'll stop the assault on our values. Nikki's a sister in Christ. She has guts. Nikki Haley will make us proud. I'm Nikki Haley and I approve this message.
This is the first ad that Haley has run that really talks about the religious conservative element. Religious conservatives are traditionally the largest caucus-going group in Iowa. Their choice has won the caucus in each of the last three elections.
And while no one thinks that Nikki Haley is going to take this caucus, if you're an undecided religious conservative, this ad gives you something to think about. It features somebody who is credible, somebody who's the former president of Iowa Right to Life.
It also features a lot of ideas that religious conservatives like, things like values, things like opposition to transgender men competing in women's sports. The ad also talks about abortion, but does so in a very careful way. Notice that Nikki Haley doesn't say she's pro-life.
The chyron on the screen says 100% pro-life, but doesn't say any details about what she would support. The president of Right to Life talks about her personal commitment, but doesn't actually say Nikki Haley supports such and such. Nikki Haley supports such and such. What that does is allow her to give a sense of Nikki Haley as being somebody who shares all of the touchstone values
that a religious conservative would have. But without providing any detail, they would alienate Haley's Iowa base, which is the moderate voter. Remember, this is a television ad. Moderates are going to see this too. So there's nothing that will drive away a moderate voter, but there is things that will attract them.
Other things that stand out to me in this ad says that Nikki Haley is a sister in Christ and the word Christian pops up on the screen. Shows Haley praying with some people. Again, these are the sorts of images, these are the sorts of things that people want to see and hear, but it doesn't have Nikki Haley's voice providing the all-out testament of faith that one often sees from a candidate who is making courting religious conservatives
the touchstone of his or her campaign. It's a very deftly done ad. It's not going to make her the choice of religious conservatives, but if it can move her up by a couple of percentage points among them, it could be the difference between finishing a close third and finishing second. And if she finishes second, she has put a stake through Ron DeSantis' campaign's heart.
Playing all the angles is always the hallmark of a smart campaign. This ad does that, and that's why it's this week's Ad of the Week. Next week, we don't have any rest. We're going to move right on to the next primary, New Hampshire. We'll dissect Iowa, and we'll look at what's going to happen in the Granite State. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the polls. ♪
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