Today is a day we make history. You're never going to have an opportunity to have your vote count more in terms of the punch that it's going to pack than tonight. Pretty cool to have a million people showing up and the impact that it has on selecting the next president. We're going to take this country back.
We're going to make it greater than ever before. Ah, there's the music. Welcome to Meet the Press. Now, you can't keep me away on Election Day.
I'm Chuck Todd right here at NBC's Election Headquarters here in New York City, where we are just a few hours away from the official kickoff of the 2024 presidential election season. And it all starts in Iowa with the Republican caucuses. Doors close at precincts across the Hawkeye State in less than four hours. So we're going to dive right in.
The best way to do that is to look at caucus night by the numbers. And you know what the first number you need to know is zero or below zero. If those negative integers in your head today is by far the coldest caucus day in Iowa history. It feels like 20 below across the state.
Once you're in negative numbers, it all feels bad. The nasty conditions over the weekend shut down some last minute campaign events and could impact turnout tonight. That's a big one. The next number, though, is 28.
It's the enormous lead that former President Trump in our final Des Moines Register NBC News media poll. A big win could send a strong message to the rest of the field heading into New Hampshire. Tonight is the start of the caucuses. Tonight is the start of primary season.
Could tonight be the end of primary season, too? How big could this be? Well, that brings us to the next number to watch tonight, which is 13. That's the largest margin of victory ever recorded in an Iowa caucus.
It was for Republican Bob Dole in 1988. By the way, Walter Mondale has the all time record for that going back in 1984. But on the Republican side, this is the biggest one. Trump is likely it would be a shock if he didn't break this record tonight at a minimum.
You would assume he's going to win by at least 20, but you would assume he gets north of 13. Beyond Trump tonight, though, could be a game of survival for the field because second place could very well come down to the wire. Haley had a narrow lead on DeSantis in our final Iowa poll, as you can see there, with four points. At least that's what and would allow her to potentially finish second here, sort of the upset in New Hampshire.
DeSantis has been big in Iowa and he needs second to keep his campaign alive. Well, with subzero temperatures, motivation matters maybe even more so than any poll that you will see there. And according to our poll here, Trump supporters are the most motivated to back their caucus candidates. And I look at that, the motivation number almost matches his ballot number here.
DeSantis is next. Twenty three percent call themselves extremely enthusiastic. But look at this yellow flag here on Haley. Haley may be second in the horse race, but she is way down the list on enthusiasm here.
A lot of her voters. And we know this. A lot of her voters are not for her. They're against Trump.
And in subzero temperatures where you're wondering if it's even safe to drive, are you going to crawl on broken ice for somebody you're not voting for in November? Because nearly half of her supporters already planned to vote for Biden. So this to me is what we're all watching. But look, second place only matters if Trump is under 50.
My colleague Haley Jackson sat down with Ron DeSantis earlier today, who said his campaign's ground game is going to protect him from a political deep freeze tonight. We have the organization. I mean, if you're snowed in in your driveway and you're maybe you're 75 years old, we can send a truck come pick you up and we'll bring you bring you to the caucus. And so we fortunately are built to where people can get the help that they need to be able to get to the polls.
But I would just tell people this. You're never going to have an opportunity to have your vote count more in terms of the punch that it's going to pack than tonight. Well, NBC News team, we are fanned out all over the state of Iowa to bring you every angle of these caucuses, including driving conditions. Vaughn Hilliard has been covering Trump events all day.
He's on the road driving from Fort Dodge back to home base in Des Moines. Dasha Burns is already in Des Moines. And Priscilla Thompson is in the northwest part of the state. Sioux City, Iowa.
It's the home of evangelicals, but she's also been on the road covering the road, how icy and snowy is everything and more bears in DeWitt, Iowa, in the eastern part of the state. We'll walk us through what is going to happen when caucus goers there. That is likely Trump country. But let's begin with Vaughn Hilliard.
So, Vaughn, Trump last night, I got to ask you, look, you cover the Trump campaign pretty closely. It's an impressive. You know, I were talking yesterday in Iowa. It's an impressive list of sort of MAGA celebrities that he's got crisscrossing the state.
But boy, Donald Trump himself seemed to be lacking some energy last night. He seemed very tired, more so than we've seen. Is this extra campaigning getting to him? I mean, this is the part here.
These are tough conditions here as I try to drive and do this with you at the same time. Speaking of conditions, Chuck, this is for Donald Trump here. This is a moment here in which he launched his candidacy now 14 months ago. He had the option to wait and ultimately, I guess, jump into this race a little later.
But instead, he decided to enter in November of 2022. And so for Donald Trump, what tonight will speak so much of is the extent to which he feels he needs to campaign ahead here. Is this race over if he hits 45 or 50 percent support here? This sends a clear message that the maybe not majority of the Republican Party, but the plurality of the Republican Party is handily behind him here.
And if you're looking at New Hampshire and South Carolina, for him, there's more pressure than on the actual criminal trials and civil trials that await him as opposed to the actual his own political future, at least in this Republican primary process. And so for Donald Trump, this will validate for him to what extent does he focus on the trials or does he need to actually focus more on Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis and actual substantive issues that come with running for president of the United States typically? You know, it's always interesting. I do feel like Trump and his campaign are always nervous that they're in a hot air balloon with a whole bunch of holes in it.
Right. And it's constantly leaking if they're not constantly filling it with gas. You've had a you've had quite the relationship with caucus goers going back eight years now. And you've done a tremendous thing that I think a lot of reporters ought to be doing, which is you kept up with some of these caucus goers.
What have you learned? And look, it's anecdotal. And, you know, you can die by the anecdote when it comes to political reporting sometimes. But it's fascinating to watch people who are anti-Trump eight years ago start to fall in line.
Right. There was one voter, Lou Bada, who I just called up after eight years of not having talked to him. He was 27 years ago and 27 years old back in 2016. He was caucusing in Sioux City for Marco Rubio, an evangelical voter.
I just called him up here this afternoon, asked him where his heart is at coming into this evening. He said he intends to caucus for Donald Trump over the course of eight years. This is a party that is, you know, really cemented itself as Donald Trump's party. And a former Marco Rubio voter, a young voter like him, is sort of evidence of that.
I want to let you listen also to two other women I talked to because it's not just only the converts of the last eight years, Chuck, but it's also those first time caucus goers, folks who only became involved in this process in the last couple of years. Take a listen to two that I met this afternoon. Eight years ago, who did you caucus for? Okay, I didn't caucus, but this is why I am this year.
Otherwise, it would have been Trump. You guys didn't caucus? No. Have you ever caucus or is this?
No. Why is this your first vote? Because it's crucial for Trump to win. We have to do it this year.
What is it that made you guys compelled to not only go out and caucus? You guys are here right now for this event. What is it about Donald Trump in 2024 that is so crucial for you guys? Because our world is falling apart completely.
Immigration and the economy. I'm retired and my 401k is going, yeah. He loves America and we love him. Chuck, you and I in 2022 had conversations about Donald Trump remaking the Republican Party in his image by getting out several members of Congress who voted to impeach him.
Tonight will be evidence to what extent is the electorate continue to remake the image of the Republican Party in Donald Trump's view. I think that is what tonight is going to be a wholly a testament about. All right, we shall see. Drive safe.
That's more important than getting your hit right with me anyway. Vaughn Hilliard, always a pleasure, sir. Vaughn, thank you. Be safe out there.
Move over Hasn't. It's about to turn out. And so we'll see what it's looking like in the caucus rooms tonight. Will you brave these conditions to support somebody you don't plan to support in November?
That's the question Nikki Haley is asking herself right now. Priscilla Thompson on the road. Be safe, obviously, out there as you cover these dangerous conditions. Priscilla, thank you.
Let's move over to the other side of the state. For what it's worth, the eastern part of the state has been Trump country in Republican caucuses, but more is here to really give us a little bit of a logistics tick-tock tonight. You know, this is more like a firehouse primary than it is a caucus and that it's secret ballot. One person, one vote.
There's no changing your vote, things like that. What else should people be aware of of tonight, how to watch tonight, and how long is it going to take us to find out who finished second? Well, Chuck, it could be a lot quicker than a lot of people might be anticipating, because it's important to note the Republican caucus is very different than the way the Democrats run it. We don't expect to see the chaos and the way it broke down last cycle, as you and I talked extensively about.
But basically, we expect to see people can arrive at their caucus site anytime between 5:30 and 6:00 as the doors open, depending on where your precinct is. There's 1,700 precincts across the state, and in some areas like where I am here in Clinton County, those rural areas, they host multiple precincts in one location. We'll actually be at a high school. Later today, we'll have three precincts in one auditorium, about 500 people total there caucusing together.
And once they come in and the doors close just a little bit before 7:00, and that is when people gather, they run some official local party business, but then they'll also hear the caucus goers will hear from candidate captains who will make a speech, a last-minute pitch to these caucus goers about why they should choose their candidate. And then, like you said, they cast their ballot. They count them up. And ideally, we should have a sense of definitely the winner, potentially because of the polling that we're seeing with former President Trump.
We'll probably get a sense of that a little earlier on, and then because we're seeing such a close run for second place between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, that might take a little longer. But all in all, it should only be a couple hours of this caucus. You know, it's interesting, Morris, that the places where Haley is going to do best are the places where the turnout will be the largest. Those will be in the more population centers.
And those results will take us the longest to get. So you really may see some, it may take time for us to see what the second and third place picture looks like, even as we see the first place picture. Morris Barrett on the ground for us there as well. Morris, thank you so much.
Well, there you go. That was a nice start to our big Iowa caucus coverage. Football hasn't started yet, folks, so keep it right here and do our briefing for Iowa. Then you can start watching football after that.
Tonight, we'll have live analysis and breaking news coverage of all the results. We will be here starting at 7 p.m. Eastern on NBC News Now. Coming up, it is caucus night in America.
We're going to dig deeper into what to watch for as caucus goers prepare to cast their votes in less than four hours from now. You're watching Meet the Press Now. And we are back every minute is another minute closer to the opening of the caucus doors. And we're less than four hours until those doors will get closed to start the actual process itself.
We'll dig deeper into what we're watching tonight. So joining me now is one of the more knowledgeable people out there about the state of Iowa, Kay Henderson, News Director of Radio Iowa. Kay, you and I have both been covering caucuses since the 20th century. We'll just leave it at that.
We won't say how far back into the 20th century. But let me start with sort of what makes tonight unique. I mean, you don't really have to go back to 1984, the last time where everybody was expecting a landslide. Right.
And to some extent, in 88, people expected former vice president at vice president at the time, George H.W. Bush, to sort of have a cakewalk. And he didn't wind up having one here. But this has been an unusual campaign because you have Donald Trump campaigning as with, you know, sort of the wraparound that looks like a presidential campaign and being president while he is not president and actually going to places that he needs to win, that he didn't do as well in last time around in 2016.
So what's something that I, you know, one of the things about Iowa is that it usually does blow up expectations more often than it doesn't. And you've seen it happen so many times. And I'm sure you're sort of almost half expecting it. I am.
I'm just trying to figure out what is it that we're not expecting tonight. Is it a bigger number of Democratic crossovers? Is it turnout is a disaster or whatever? Right.
Like I'm expecting an unexpected. What's the what's the wild card? Right. What's the wild card here?
You know, did people look at the Iowa poll and see that Nikki Haley surged into second in the Iowa poll and they think, let's get on that bandwagon? Or has the DeSantis organization on the ground been formidable enough that they are going to turn people out in bitter cold temperatures? Or are Trump supporters who have joined the Trump campaign going to be so intent on giving him a sizable victory? He's won.
He said he wants a thunderous victory here. He wants the campaign to be over after Iowa. I mean, we just don't know what's going to happen. What's the are you surprised that Governor Reynolds's support for DeSantis hasn't at least doesn't look like it has been as impactful as I think a lot of us thought it would be.
I mean, I have watched Reynolds take the Branstad machine and make it her own. And it appeared to be something that was formidable until she ran up against Donald Trump. Right. Donald Trump is the most popular Republican nationally, and he's the most popular Republican in Iowa.
I think it was not a calculation that she expected to make early in the campaign. But as things were on, she felt compelled to jump into the race and let her own, I guess, stand in this race be known that as she explained in November, that she doesn't think Donald Trump can win the general election. And that's why she's asking Iowa Republicans to make a different choice tonight. And obviously, that has really rubbed the former president the wrong way.
He routinely criticizes her. So I think from, you know, the Iowa perspective here, what happens to her after this campaign is her brand here damaged? Can she get the Iowa legislature to do the things that she wants in the future? OK, I'm curious about the entire elected delegation, really, in Iowa.
It is it is shocking how they've all been disciplined. They could say it's about the caucuses, right? They hung their hat on it. But everybody, right, that entire Republican delegation stayed neutral.
Chuck Grassley stayed neutral. Joni Ernst is neutral, but then showed up at a Haley event introducing her. She was at a DeSantis event on Sunday night, too. Interesting.
I mean, is there is do you detect that the Trump forces will look for retribution or or will these sort of the institutionalists in Iowa survive this? Well, Governor Reynolds won reelection in 2022. She's not up for four years if she chooses to run. Joni Ernst is not up this year.
Chuck Grassley just won reelection. He has a six year term that he's in the middle of. These are people who are not going to face retribution in this coming campaign. So I think they looked at the long view here.
Also, obviously, they didn't want to alienate parts of the base. When Donald Trump campaigned in Iowa in advance of Chuck Grassley's reelection bid, Grassley got on stage and said it would be foolish for me not to accept this man's endorsement. I mean, these people are looking at the numbers. They're looking at where Iowa Republicans are and they're making that calculation.
So that makes the decision that Governor Reynolds made that much more remarkable. No, it is. And it is something that certainly Iowa political reporters like yourself. This will be the story because who knows, will this impact the caucuses in the future?
They've already alienated the Democratic institutionalists. What happens if Iowans end up alienating the leader of the Republican Party for the long term? Kay Henderson, great to see you. Happy caucus day.
Right back at you. All right. Up next, we're going to get the view from the various campaigns, including the Trump campaign. The former president looks to win Iowa by historic margins.
Senior advisor to the Trump campaign, Jason Miller, Jason. Happy caucus day to you, sir. Great to be with you, Chuck. Eight years ago today, you were with another campaign and you were with the campaign that won the caucuses.
Perhaps you will be known as the strategist that knows how to be with the winning candidates. But do a little compare and contrast. You were on the other side. You knew what a caucus campaign organization looked like, a good one.
And you knew what one you thought was weak looked like. Compare Trump today to eight years ago compared to DeSantis today to Cruz. Yeah, great question. And really, there's not even a comparison.
The But we're going to put up a big win tonight, then I think everyone is going to join the team pretty shortly after that. Do you expect that the president's attack on Vivek Ramaswamy, that seemed to be an attack out of nervousness? Was he worried that Vivek was taking votes away from him? No, I think that Mr.
Ramaswamy messed around and he found out. And quite frankly, when you have that picture that Vivek posted on Twitter of people saying, save Trump, vote Vivek. That's just nonsense. As President Trump said, he's trying to be a little bit too cute and someone might be, have supportive things or positive things to say about the president.
But between those T-shirts, between the video, the hot mic moment where Vivek was caught talking to the lady and trying to, I mean, for lack of a better term, Chuck, he's trying to calm this lady into thinking that the only way to help President Trump was to vote for him. Enough of this charlatan type nonsense. This is, uh, this is the first contest. You're running for president.
Enough of the funny business. And as we saw with President Trump, he made sure people knew what he thought. All right, Jason Miller, senior advisor to the campaign for Donald J. Trump.
Thanks for coming out, sharing your perspective. One more time. Let me bring in my panel today. Editor in chief of Washington Free Beacon, Eliana Johnson, and a former senior advisor to Tim Scott's campaign, Matt Kormann.
Hello, guys. Hello. Matt, you're here not in Iowa. I say this because perhaps Tim Scott was the first victim of this sort of Trump stampede that we're seeing now.
What did you learn out there being on Scott's campaign and what you learned? Do you ever do you regret trying to even try to find somebody else out of the Trump? No, I think when Trump suddenly started winning general election matchups against Joe Biden, suddenly the non-Trump folks, us, Nikki, Ron, lost the best talking point, the best argument we had for why there should be someone else. Literally, if I were up 10 points right now, Donald Trump would be in big trouble.
I totally agree. Because I can't tell you how many times you go up to people in Northwest Iowa, the most conservative part of the state, like, I love the guy. Voted for him twice. I just don't think he can win.
Oh, wait a minute. The New York Times even saying he could win? Well, they had that excuse now to go vote. Eliana, over the weekend, this sort of, like I said, it feels like a going out of business sale.
Support Trump now or you're not going to get inauguration tickets or you're not going to go speak inside of the convention. Whatever it is, it seems to work because you've got a whole bunch of people who thought, all right, and you could even tell some of them, I think, wanted to wait till they saw the last one registered poll before jumping aboard Timmerich. Marco Rubio as well. We've got Bergam.
If you're going to do it, he at least threw himself into it and tossed pizzas with the guy. It's shocking because we have all these different old times where they all said they were embarrassed by Donald Trump. That's clear. The Republican Party.
And here they are. Well, that's nice that you are idealistic. And we're hoping for maybe a better, you know, more principled from our politicians. But I read these as totally craven and self-interested endorsements.
And I think there's two things we can draw from them. One, these guys believe Trump is going to be the nominee. And they do want to get behind the winner. They're hoping that he will win in 2024.
And they want to be able to call in favors with the president. It's much more fun to be in a majority in Washington. And number two, I think they know endorsements don't matter. You know, you ask Jason Miller, hey, you guys haven't wrapped up any endorsements in Iowa.
The governor, Vanderplass. We learned in 2016 Trump had no endorsements. Well, he had Chris Christie, but he didn't need them. You know, the party doesn't decide anymore.
And yeah, Jeff Sessions. But, you know, so I think they know, like, we can do it. It's going to help us. And it doesn't cost.
It doesn't have a cost. What happens tonight? I mean, look, when I say what happens tonight, let's assume it is a, you know, Trump sitting around 51. Maybe Haley ekes out a point ahead of DeSantis, right?
But if it's a 20 plus point gap to second place, does it matter? It matters if it's Haley, because at least Haley seemingly has a path to continue as the winner. Exactly right. Even if DeSantis comes in a strong second, he'll physically be in South Carolina.
But really, does he have a shot at winning it? That's the big question. There's no clear answer right now. Well, I mean, if you're Trump now, you almost want DeSantis there second.
You almost want to start helping him. I don't care if we get 45. Make sure that dude's in second. You want to wound Haley going into New Hampshire, right?
Because these things aren't backing anymore. The idea that you can play in Iowa and then hold on to New Hampshire. No, no, no, no. The momentum will carry.
So if Haley has a good night, relative good night, however you want to spin it, with a weak gap only between New Hampshire and tonight, then that will help her relatively. I also think, Chuck, to this point, I think this is a little bit about 2028. People thought the post-Trump Republican Party might come in 2024 about a year ago. And now I think people are looking to 2028 and there's been talk about, well, would Ron DeSantis be a viable candidate then?
Would Nikki Haley be a viable candidate then? And to that end, I do think the kind of campaigns these other guys have run, people are going to think about four years from now. So how does DeSantis do this? Because he's now gotten, he's now moving into Ted Cruz territory.
It's funny, right? Ted Cruz learned that Fox doesn't do things honestly after the Wisconsin primary last year, eight years ago. And now DeSantis is learning this. Can he come back to it?
Like, you know, Cruz eventually bent the knee. Can DeSantis? That's a tough question. Because, look, nine months ago, a year ago, what the platonic ideal of Ron DeSantis was then and where he is now is very different.
And that really, in my opinion, is something with Fox about how he ran the campaign and what he was shown to be once he started running. And that's not going to change in four years unless there's some dramatic, massive personality change. Right. That's what I mean.
It feels like he's, it feels like he's not thinking about 28. DeSantis has crossed that Rubicon. He's now really like Cruz did at a point, but I can't believe I'm losing to this guy. You know, I think all these guys are thinking about it.
And then they're thinking about it right up until they make the decision that they're not going to do it. What strikes me about DeSantis is that the national stage is so different from the state stage. And, of course, we saw this with Scott Walker. But I do wonder if DeSantis himself has had that thought and if it would dissuade him from running again.
Because whereas someone like Nikki Haley was successful, you know, as a governor of South Carolina. And she's been moderately successful as a presidential candidate. You know, per campaign, we don't know that yet. We don't know that yet.
But I think in terms of expectation setting, her, you know, she's done well in the debates. You know, her ability to manage the internals of a campaign, it has not been beset by these media narratives that DeSantis' campaign has been set by. It does matter. Well, it helps, though, Matt, when you're a campaign of like five people.
I mean, I don't. I mean, and that's been Nikki Haley's advantage until it's a disadvantage, which this weekend, the disadvantage of being a small campaign. We're starting to see. Agreed.
And look, Florida, Florida governors, Jeb Bush, Raleigh. Can you head of steam and enter into a race? The only place you have to go essentially is down. Right.
When you start small, low expectations. She was in, you know, there was more hype on other guys from South Carolina. I used to work for a lot more hype, a lot more hype. She had room to grow.
And I think she's ably really outperformed expectations. And, you know, whether 2020 is the card or it's 2024 or whatever, she does right now leave or at least stand better than she started. If you're Nikki Haley, are you glad that Larry Hogan went on CNN and endorsed you this weekend? Or do you kind of or is that one of those where you're like, well, that's nice.
But why are you doing this to me now? I from my vantage point, I didn't think that was helpful to her. And I think the same is true with the articles that you're seeing about Democrats coming to vote in the Iowa caucuses for her. I don't think it's helpful to her in that it cements a narrative that, you know, that Trump is out there saying that she's I just go worse and say, I think he's trying to be able to say, I tried to support somebody in the Republican Party.
And this is why I'm Des Moines Register NBC News Media poll, of course, it is known as the gold standard for a reason, folks, with a lot of tea leaves heading into tonight. So joining me now is Dan Selzer. She is the pollster behind the famous Des Moines Register NBC News Media poll. And no other pollster, when they put out their analysis, actually has their name quoted by other reporters.
It's always great that they actually pay attention to your analysis and your analysis about the Nikki Haley number seems to have it is everywhere, as you know, she may be in second, but it sounds like you don't feel good about Haley's chances of finishing second. I wouldn't say I don't feel good. I think, you know, Chuck, you're a numbers person. You look through the cross tabs at every single page and little by little page by page, a story begins to gel.
So the first story was, look, she's at four points and she's now by herself in second place. That hadn't ever happened before. But as we started charting through, well, what was underneath all of this, that some of those numbers are just jaw dropping. I've never seen anything like it.
And I don't know if you have, but for her to be increasing in terms of the number of people supporting her, but those supporters expressing low enthusiasm, it's just an interesting thing. And I'm fascinated by it. I can't wait to see what happens tonight. Can you remember a candidacy that relied on people that are not members of the party to do well in the caucuses?
I mean, Obama famously re-registered a whole bunch of new people. I think a lot of those were more independents. Yes, there were some Republicans in there. But, of course, it was that was a massive turnout, almost turned the caucuses into a primary.
Any other example that comes to mind here? No, I think it's unusual for candidates to think that they'll do the hard thing, which is go find new supporters instead of trying to convince people who already go to caucus because that's just that's just one thing you have to do to get the others. You've got to convince them to go to caucus in the first place. That's that's much harder, more expensive.
I think the single biggest finding in this poll partnership that we've had is not any is not any of these horse race numbers or enthusiasm numbers. It's the overall estimate of the electorate that you're finding of Iowa Republican caucus goers. This is going to be the most male heavy Republican caucus in the history of Iowa Republican politics. I mean, it's been a pretty big transformation from 16's electorate to this one, has it not?
Well, I think what you're seeing is that the Republican Party increasingly in our polling statewide, not just on caucus, is is led by a larger share of men and that women and this isn't just Iowa. This is nationally as well. Women are showing more cleavage to the Democratic Party. And so that we see that may be inflated a bit for like the caucus goers.
I'm not terribly surprised by that. A 60 plus number. I've been looking at that and just wondering, boy, is this actually a brick wall for Nikki Haley? That too many women have left the Republican Party and that, you know, whatever little I and we've seen it at Matter before, women candidates have done better among women in Republican primaries or caucuses.
And it feels like this is something we haven't talked about enough, but perhaps maybe the biggest brick wall of them all. Well, I'll point out that there's very little difference in terms of how men are thinking about casting their caucus vote and how women are thinking about casting their caucus vote. So you're right. They're more plentiful, but that we're not seeing a division within the people who are likely to caucus by that.
In fact, Donald Trump wins every demographic group that we looked at. And you've looked at pages of banner points. You know that that's if we had we were on to the fourth page. We've looked at a lot of groups and Donald Trump did less well with independents, for example, but he still had the plurality of that vote.
So there are a lot of things that are so interesting. And so, you know, do independents want to show up on a cold, cold night if this isn't really their party? And we've got some dem people who are currently registered as Democrats who are going to show up. And again, will they turn out and will their enthusiasm carry forward to their candidates?
Well, one phenomenon we've all seen since Donald Trump has shown up in our politics, turnouts have gone up in general. So let's see if we see that again tonight. It's been a pleasure working with you during this primary caucus. My pleasure, too.
You stuck with us through some tech issues today. So thank you for that as well. In addition, being Iowa caucus day, it's also, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. Day when Iowa Republicans chose to schedule the caucuses for today.
The party chairman simultaneously encouraged all the Republican candidates to, for the first time ever, participate in the brown and black presidential form. But none of the major candidates chose to do so, forcing the organizers to cancel. Joining me now is NBC News campaign. Namdi, they had never held a Republican forum before.
It had always been on the Democratic side. Why didn't this Republican form get off the ground if it if it had some institutional Republican support? Yeah, ultimately, Chuck, what I heard from organizers was that it didn't have enough candidates agree to participate. It's something that shocked and disappointed them.
They pointed to exit polls from 2016 that showed that more black and Latino voters were supporting the Republican Party. And to them, this would have been an easy opportunity for the candidates to engage with those voters. And like you mentioned, they did have the support of Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufman. The forum had also taken on new significance in the 2020 forum and won an Emmy.
So they were pretty confident that they now had, you know, the backing and standing to finally make a Republican forum happen. But ultimately, the only candidate that agreed to come was Ryan Binkley, who himself is a pretty relatively unknown figure. And they had to cancel. Is some of this just about needing more elected officials that are not white?
For the organizers of this forum, perhaps they often tell me that they're not partisan. You know, they would have had the same backlash for Democrats that had been Democratic candidates who didn't come to the forum. But for them, they said this was actually one of the more diverse fields. 13 candidates, many of whom were diverse.
So they were optimistic, but ultimately wasn't enough to get this off the ground. All right, Nandi, in storm Lake, which, for those of you that have a rock music background, you will recognize that dateline as well. Nandi, thank you. We'll be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press.
Now we'll be back tonight. Special coverage on NBC News. Now of the Iowa caucuses. It starts at 7 p.m.
Eastern. And the news continues with my pal, Tom Costello, right now. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest.
The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook.
The Drink is always about the journey to the top. And this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink wherever you get your podcasts.