Krystal and Saagar discuss Iowa Caucus predictions, why Nikki Haley support is hollow, Trump attacks Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis gets participation trophy.
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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Today is the Iowa Caucuses. People will begin voting later on tonight in their bizarre byzantine some would say system.
But before we get to that, we should actually go over.
As Crystal mentioned, the final Des Moines Register polls considered one of the gold standard polls in the state. Let's go and put it up there on the screen so everyone can see. We've got Donald Trump forty eight percent, Nikki Haley at twenty percent, Governor Ron desandis at sixteen percent, Vivik Ramaswami and eight percent, Asa Hutchinson a waffing and there and Ryan Bigley. I actually don't know who Ryan is, but uh okay.
Ryan whatever, there's always one.
There's a guy who always comes, you know, somehow He's what we find here is that Trump overwhelmingly winning with twenty eight percent margin. The big question, and we will reveal what we think actually about this is the Trump support soft?
Is it overstated?
And we were comparing a little bit to results from twenty and sixteen.
I have it in front of me here.
In twenty and sixteen, the Iowa Des Moines Register poll actually had Trump at twenty eight percent and Ted Cruz at twenty three percent. The final results actually had Ted Cruz winning the Iowa caucuses with twenty seven point six percent and Trump at twenty four point three. As you can see right there from the twenty sixteen results Marco Rubio coming in at twenty three percent. So the question, Crystal, is uh, is that going to happen again this time?
Is Trump's support going to be understated?
I personally think though, because the dynamics are so different this time around. Ted Cruise, if people remember, had a tremendous operation in Iowa. It also was at a time of much more uncertainty. That was the very first vote ever cast in official proceeding for Donald Trump. The juggernaut that he was politically did not yet quite exist, and there was a different evangelical turnout. He hadn't been president yet, his favorability numbers were not necessarily where.
They are right now.
And then the problem also in my opinion, Crystal, is that Ted Cruz was a far more formidable candidate than both Nicki Haley and Ron DeSantis kind of in their own way. Desanta's has tried to mimic the twenty sixteen playbook, But Nicki Haley is not running, you know, for the same conservative voters. She's actually winning a decent amount of Democratic voters. Fine, if you're running in a general election, but not when you're running an overall Republican prime.
Yeah, and let me explain that piece a little bit so people can understand. So traditionally, Democrats and Republicans both have Iowa as their first voting contests, their first caucus on the map of like famous political.
History, et cetera.
Because Joe Biden the DNC wanted to make sure to break the primary on his behalf and also because Iowa, let's be honest, last time around for the Democrats, utter and complete debucle So New Hampshire sort of put up a fight about getting bumped back in the lineup. They're still going ahead. They're being penalized by the DNC. We'll talk about that, you know, more as we get to New Hampshire. But Iowa, I think because they had such an embarrassing situation unfold last time, just kind of hung their heads in shame, we're like, all right, fine, we'll go to the back of the line. So there is no Democratic voting tonight. What that means is that theoretically Democrats who want to vote in the Republican caucus and try to sew a little bit of chaos or try to register their disapproval of Donald Trump, they can actually register as a Republican at the caucas site itself and go ahead and vote in Republican primary. Polls show, and I think we have the numbers we could put up in a minute, poll show a significant number of Democrats are actually planning to back Nikki Haley and say that if she doesn't win, they're going to vote for Joe Biden in the general election.
Now, I am a little.
Bit skeptical because I always see these narratives come up when it's election time of like, oh, the Republicans are going to cross over and they're going to cause chaos and the democratic vote or the Democrats are going to cross over and they're going to cause chaos, et cetera, et cetera. I've never seen it happen in such large numbers that it really makes a significant difference.
That's right now.
Independence are another story, and this is why Nikki Haley's doing well in New Hampshire because you have a large group of independents who historically do vote in the New Hampshire primary. And so those independence if they're looking to, you know, be able to participate in democracy, their only opportunity to do so is in the Republican caucus. So I could see a significant number of independence showing up to caucus with the Republicans tonight. So that's kind of the story of Nikki Haley's support, especially with Chris Christy dropping out. She is really consolidating that quote unquote hard like anti Trump vote, and based on the numbers the majority, this won't surprise you. I mean, it's a very like wind track, beer track kind of situation. Her support is overwhelmingly white, college educated, urban and so as you're looking at the map tonight and as things are unfolding, those are the places where if she's going to have a big night. They should be coming in really strong for her, and if she's not doing well there, then she's not really going to do well anywhere.
That's another good reason.
Whenever you're watching the returns, you know, usually these urban centers are the ones who can report more quickly, and they're also the easiest ones for reporters and all that to get to. So in some cases you can actually see overstated support for the urban backed candidates, the suburban people, people who would like to support Nicki Haley.
For example, let's put this up there on the screen.
As Crystal alluded to from NBC News, they asked the question, if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in the general election, would you vote for him, vote for Joe Biden, vote for RFK Junior, or vote for somebody else. Forty three percent of Nikki Haley supporters say that they would vote for Joe Biden, far more I mean near more than almost double of the twenty three percent who say that they would vote for Trump, eight percent say that they would vote for Bobby Kennedy, and then nineteen percent say they would either vote for another third party or they are not sure.
So it's pretty substantial.
The vast I guess the plurality of those Nicki Haley voters who will vote tonight in the Des Moines or at least who are slated to vote tonight in the Iowa caucuses according to the Des Moines registered poll are Democrats, and so that pretty significant crossover.
You don't want to see those numbers.
You don't want to see those numbers in a freaking Republican primary. Again, you know, that's something that you may want to see in a general election, but you had to get to the election first, and I think that's the major problem that they have right now. So as we mentioned too, in terms of the overall polling average, this can sometimes be even more significant. Let's go and put this up there please on the screen. So this is what we have for the RCP average, the average of all of the polls going into this over the last five to ten days. Fifty two percent for Donald Trump, eighteen percent for Nicki Haley, fifteen point five percent for Ron DeSantis, six point five for Vivek Ramaswami, and three point five for Chris Christie. Chris Christy obviously no longer in the RASO. You can kind of distribute that probably the majority of that to NICKI Haley, which does line up crystal with the numbers that we saw in the final Des Moines Register poll. But then the big question hanging over all of this is the same one blanketing Washington today.
What about the damn weather? The weather in Iowa is completely insane.
We have a local news clip here just to lay out how this is the coldest caucus literally on record, with minus thirty or so temperatures expected with wind chill.
Let's take a listen.
The high temperature Monday will be just below zero, far colder than the coldest caucus on record that was sixteen degrees in two thousand and four. Now the wind chill Monday will be, as we mentioned, twenty to thirty degrees blow zero, again, much colder than minus twenty one degrees that was back way back in nineteen seventy two. So what does it mean? CASEYCIA political analyst Dennis Goldford says the weather likely will affect the Iowa caucus results. Fewer people may turn out to vote for their favorite candidate, and all those pole results and the outcomes certainly could change.
Concern for the various candidates Aside from not being able to get to schedule venues, is that their supporters just may not be able to get to their caucus sites, or they may decide it's a done deal or it's just not worth it to them.
Yeah, it would have to be worth a lot for me, Crystal to be able to go out there. So currently, as you and I are speaking, it is minus eleven degrees fahrenheit and des Moines, Iowa.
Is that the field at the temperature the according to the National Weather Service, that feels like is wind chills below as low as thirty five below zero.
So the lowest I've ever personal experience is minus twenty and that's when you're not actually freezes to your face.
So yeah, just to make it real for me in Minneapolis, Yeah, exactly, go outside. It like punches you in the face that level of gold. There's a couple of ways to look at this in terms of like, first of all, does make a difference at all?
Right?
Does it just decrease voter turnout overall? But in similar percentages across the boar is very possible. One way to spin it, if you're a nicky Haley or Ronda Santis person is like, oh well, Trump support is strongest in the more rural areas, where it's more difficult, the roads will be less treated, you've got to travel further in order to get to the caucus site, So perhaps it has more of an impact on his support versus the Nicky Haley support, which is in the more suburban urban areas. And I think Ron de Santis is kind of like evenly distributed across the state.
So that's one theory of the case.
The other theory of the case is that if you dig into the numbers in that Des Moines Register poll, Nicky Haley supporters like the support among her supporters is extraordinarily weak. Yes, nine percent of people who say they're gonna caucus for Nicky Haley say they're extremely enthusiastic, about nine percent. The equivalent number for Donald Trump is forty nine percent. For Ron DeSantis, it's twenty three percent of his supporters say they are extremely enthusiastic. So you would think that when it requires so much to be able to go out in freaking minus thirty degree weather, in the driving snow and with the iced over roads and whatever to go caucus, that you better be extremely enthusiastic to go out and do that, that would, you know, augur more in the direction of Donald Trump.
So take that for what it's worth.
But again, I do think even though the top line number for Nicki in this De Moines Register poll was pretty good, especially the fact she jumps ahead of Ron DeSantis and she really has staked her claim on New Hampshire. That's really where she wants to put in a great showing. So if she's able to pull off a strong second in Iowa, that would be a very good finish for her. But if you dig into these numbers and Seltzer, who does this, pulse that it was jaw dropping the lack of enthusiasm for Nikki Haley evidence by those polls. And then you add to what we were saying before that much of her support is like Democrats and independence, are they really going to brave the conditions to go out and vote in a Republican caucus.
I think that's a gigantic question.
Mark Yeah, she says.
Quote her enthusiasm numbers again, I think are on the edge of job dropping. Sixty one percent are just mildly enthusiastic or not enthusiastic. It just seems at odds with a candidate moving up, she actually says according to her own poll, her own poll vastly over states Nikki Haley's support. And don't forget Chris. We have to explain like the bizarre caucus system, the way that it actually works, where there's a first round, but then there's also second round before we get to the eventual vote total. So let's say that she does have soft support number one, that's going to be very difficult in terms of getting people out to the actual polls. And then in the various wizard precincts where she doesn't rise to the percentage that she would need to in the first vote, then her voters would then be able to scatter. But then the question is if they don't support anybody other candidate than her, are they going to leave the caucus? And this is where the actual voting system gets just completely awry.
We saw this actually previously.
Part of why it was so difficult and the whole software meltdown or whatever for the DNC. This was part of what broke the actual software is that they weren't able to account for the second count voting in this system.
Yeah, it was just total complete meltdown of the tech that they were relying on previously, they'd used sort of more just like by hand or atiquated methods that turned out to be a lot more reliable than they paid some you know, Rising Democratic consultants star to build this crap who happened to.
Be affiliated with Pete boodhagine. But we'll just leave all of that in the past.
I will never forget though, when we were covering that, Yeah, at Rising, we were doing like a live stream.
We're waiting for the results.
Anytime the results are, the results are sure to start coming in.
It kept coming in the year. They're like, it's coming now.
We're like okay, okay, And I remember being on Twitter and be like I don't think so. And then what we stretched it as long as we possibly could. And then at a certain point, I think it must have been like ten thirty or so, and we were like, okay, I guess we're just going to go home.
I don't really know what's happening.
And the Pete came out and just like declared victory based on nothing, and the video is like, okay, you won, let's move on to new handser. It was crazy anyway, That's why Democrats, you know that in the fact that I think I also want to make sure to mention Joe Biden and the DNC have just decided, like we're not doing democracy, We're going to kill democracy to try to save democracy. A bunch of states have just completely canceled their primaries, even though Joe Biden has challengers, he has Jan Huger and now there's questions constitutional about him, but Lee can let the courts resolve whether he is actually a legit presidential candidate or not. You've got Mary and Williamson who's been running for quite a long time, and you have a Congressman Dean Phillips who is running against him as well. And rather than having the confidence to say, Okay, we believe in our guy, we think and the polls demonstrate that he's overwhelmingly the favorite, let's have a contest and you know, let people go out and register their choice. A number of these states have just completely canceled their primaries. And in Iowa, as I said, they were part of the shift in the lineup to try to make sure to bolster Joe Biden because he did poorly in Iowa last time. He did poorly in New Hampshire, very poorly, in New Hampshire last time, so they demoted them because they did not align with the DNC's chosen candidate of Joe Biden, and Iowa's decided just to go along with that. New Hampshire's putting up more of a fight. Joe Biden will be only a write in candidate in the state of New Hampshire. But you know, that's why you have the Republicans going and not the Democrats in terms of Iowa. So when I look at all of this the weather, Niki Haley seems to be surging at the right time, But then again, i was not a great state for her, and you dig into these polls and you're like, her people don't really care about whether she wins or not, and they're like mostly Democrats and Independents and whatever. I feel like In terms of my prediction, I think Trump is going to more or less hit the percentage point that he is getting in this des moin registered pole right around fifty. Maybe I'm going to say a little bit under fifty. I'm gonna see he doesn't quite hit the fifty percentage point. I think Ron is actually gonna be able to come from behind and get the second place win from Nicki and maybe get like eighteen to twenty percentage point. And I think Nicki's support in this poll is a bit overstated. That you can knock off like five points when the des Moin registered poll, and that's roughly where Niky'll come in. I think the vehicleill be a little bit stronger. I think the one registaple had him at eight. I put him at like ten. Yes, because he's done so much and we'll put the map up on the screen a little bit when we talk about more about him and Trump. He has done so much work on the ground. I just have to in my head believe that that counts for something. That you know, his people because they met him, because he was there, they feel some sort of commitment to him to actually turn.
Up on a difficult caucus night.
So I put him more in the ten percentage points, which is kind of why I'm thinking maybe Trump stays under fifty percentage points because out of all of these candidates, Vivek eats into Trump's margins the most because they're running the most similar type of campaign.
Yeah, so my numbers are I agree with you.
I think Trump is roughly going to be where he is he's going to be around forty eight fifty percent.
It's possible that he goes over it.
Actually, I would say it's more likely just because of the whole second system.
I agree completely.
I think Nikki Haley's support is vastly overstated, So she's going to come down probably to third percent. Ron will come in in second, but likely where Haley currently is around twenty. And I also believe that vivek Ramaswami, I think he could go as high as fifteen percent. Possibly, I think he may. It's possible he could even beat Nikki Haley. This could be totally wrong. And actually this is going to be a big task. We're going to talk a lot about this in our avake section. Is I still have to believe, as you do, that this stuff matters. Handshaking matters, going to ninety four out of the ninety nine counties in Iowa matters, spending millions of dollars, you know, traversing the state. He's got all of these endorsements of these local politicians. Steve King, you know, the former congressman. Also, Listen, he matters in Iowa.
Okay. He was a very popular man, and.
I'm not that popular.
I mean, he almost lost in like an extraordinarily Republican.
District amongst Republicans. He is pop didn't he.
Lose in a primary Republican primary.
It's complicated. Yeah, more and I would say is amongst Trump people.
So that's who i'd want bagging.
Among the Trump people. That's who I would want on my side.
So he's got enough of these like he's got these MAGA Every MAGA influencer in the country is down with Evic right now in his suburban traversing the state. You've got people like canvae Owens who've been going around with him. My point only being that I think it's understated to a point. I've also seen some polls as well that have either left him out or they're diminishing his support. So if there is to be an upset, I think it would be him maybe coming in third. And look, maybe this is hopium on my part. I just want to believe that campaigning still matters. Yeah, but it's possible it doesn't.
It may not at all. I think it's totally wrong for me.
My thinking on Viveke cuts in two directions, which is why I only give him like a couple point bump over what the de Wine Register poll has him at, which is on the one hand, yeah, I think that in person stuff matters. On the other hand, I feel like the like internet fueled candidates typically underperform.
I'm thinking about Andrew Yang.
Yeah, last time around, where you had all of this online, he was everywhere and there's huge support, and you're thinking, this has got to count for something in the polls, and he's got Dave Chappelle and other people who were campaigning for him, and then when it comes down to caucus night, he actually underperforms where it was in the polls. And you know, I feel like that's sort of a case with these candidates who are very online, which I would characterize Viveke as being. So that's why I give him a little bump up for all the work that he's doing on the grounds. But the other problem for him is, like you know, his supporters and we'll talk about this more when we get to the Vivike versus Trump thing, but like they're basically Trump supporters.
They still like Trump.
I mean, Vivig's still out there like he's the greatest president of all times. So why are you going to vote for vivec instead of Trump. Then it doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's why he struggled to achieve lyftoff. But I mean, fundamentally, it's kind of the same problem that all of these candidates have faced, which is that they all ran campaigns that were predicated on something will take Trump out of the equation. I'm not going to be the one to make the argument to take him out of the equation, but something maybe will happen that will take him out of the equation, and I'm going to position myself to be the top Trump alternative that simply hasn't manifested itself. Trump is still there, He's in some way stronger than other I saw. Ever I saw I think it was a CBS News poll that came out this weekend that had him at his highest level national support in terms of Republican primary. Yet, so if they were betting on Trump just vanishing and going away or being imprisoned or whatever, that certainly hasn't panned out. Has left them all bizarrely squabbling for a meaningless second place position that doesn't even make any sense.
Yeah, I saw a DeSantis kind of I guess influencer if you will, And I was reading some of his thought process. Yeah, it's Will Chamberlain. Just so people know, I've followed him now for quite a long time. He was actually why he interests me is he was a mag guy and now he's DeSantis guy very much on the case of like Desanti's the guy who will actually get it done, and he's like, look, at the end of the day, like RDS tried his best, like he ran out race, which is one about actually getting things done, but the dynamics of the race just were fundamentally difficult after the mar A Lago raid. And I do really think, you know, history is very different if that mar A Lago raid does not happen. I'm not saying you wouldn't win, but I don't know necessarily if he would be able to win as much. If you look, and it's very interesting if I've gone through and read the quotes that you know that in general that the reporters are able to find amongst these people who are like I'm all in with Trump no matter what, almost every single one of them are like look at Colorado, look at mar Lago, look at what happened here. They're out to at him, you know, I mean, Tucker even he was like, listen, you know, you can't let that stand. Maybe they would all come up with different excuses. It's actually incredibly possible. Yeah, if they're running, but it's convenient enough that it's enough to just be like, no, I'm not even going to think about it.
I mean, if you're a Desanta's person, I think that's reasonable.
Cope.
But I do think it's cope because.
Maybe even before the mar Alago raid, we were looking at this thing and saying it just doesn't make sense because you have to give people a reason to abandon this guy, and you're not willing to do that. And by the way, they still really like him and he's still extremely popular, So I don't really think that it maybe like sharpened the dynamics or consolidated them more quickly. But you also have to look at the fact that once Ronda Santa's actually got out on the campaign trail, he's an awkward dude. He's not charismatic, he's not compelling, he's like kind of hard to watch and kind of hard to be around, and he's not that great on a debate stage. So even if you hadn't had the mar A Lago raid, I don't think that Ron de Santis would have worn well over time and been able to maintain the margins that he was hitting, which he was still trailing Trump even right after the midterms, when you had this dramatic demonstration of like, oh well, the Trump back candidates got their butts handed to them and Ron DeSantis romped in Florida. You know, I always think those memories we're going to fade pretty quickly, especially when you just look at these two people and putting aside however you feel about them, which I don't feel great about either one of them. Trump has just so much more of an in factor. He is so much more of a star player. DeSantis is so much more of a like B League player. It's just manifestly obvious when you see the two of them out there on the campaign trail. So even without mar A Lago Colorado or whatever, I think this was going to be the inevitable results.
Look, we will never know.
That's what I always believe too. I was just trying to give the case. What I would say with Trump is, to your point, he's funny, man, don't. I don't know what else to say. He's good, he loves he loves the game. He loves being up there as evidence of that, and he's funny. Just take a look at what he said to people about why they need to come out and vote for in the Iowa caucuses even if they're sick as a dog.
Let's take a listen. You can't sit home.
If you're sick as.
A dog, you said, Darland, I gotta think even if you vote and then pass away, it's worth it.
Even if you vote and die, it's still what's worth it.
As long as he come out for Trump. I'm incredible. There's nobody else who would.
Say Ronda Santas was not going to compete with them.
Yeah, it's just too.
And there is no alternate timeline in which Ronda Santas wins.
That's right.
We got a friend, James Johnson who helps conduct our focus groups. He's on the ground actually in Iowa and he's going to join us now.
Let's take a listen.
Joining us now is our very own James Johnson from JLP Partners.
He conducts our focus groups.
If you can't recognize him there in his cold weather guard, but he's actually on the ground in Iowa City, Iowa. So James, welcome to the show. Thank you for taking the time, Thank.
You for suffering on our behalf. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Two pairs of trousers on.
It's a smart man, man man.
Yeah, So we're going to keep this as short as possible so that you can get yourself inside. James, you've been conducting interviews with caucus goers. Tell us a little bit about what you're learning speaking to voters on the ground, who you were hearing from in terms of the type of support for each individual candidate, and what do you expect to happen tonight.
Yeah. Well, the first thing I think to say is that we put out a recruiting call when we try and get our interviews, so we can try and make sure that we're getting a fair range of people, people who might represent the middle of Iowa politics. And I have to say, the number of Trump supporters we've had in return is really quite significant, and that obviously mirrors what people are seeing in the polls as well. Trump is clearly the favorite going into tonight, and the voters who are backing Trump, it's interesting, they're not factional, they're not sort of you know, really hardcore trumpists ready to go out and rally for the former president. They're middle of the ground Republicans who simply see him as the incumbent. They see him as strong, they see as someone who gets things done, and they see him as somebody who's had an effective first term. I was speaking to a chap last week in Davenport in Iowa, and he said that he was worried about the economy prices going up. He thought Trump would fix that because of his record. He's worried about the southern border. He thought Trump would finish the wall, and he's worried that under Biden we need to quote prepare for war because Russia and North Korea would take advantage of him. He sees Trump as the strong man to counter that. So there's definitely a lot of that ground spell of support for Trump here, but there's also good support for Ronda Santis as well. He's clearly had a very effective ground campaign in the state. People who are a bit less sure on Trump but still want that sort of hard conservative politics, fiery conservative politics are going with rohnd De Santis, Nikki Haley a little bit more muted. It's interesting if you look at that Seltzer pole that came out just a couple of days ago the final Iowa pole it showed Nicki Haley in second place, but it also showed that half of her support came from Democrats and independents. And you might be able to see from me now that it's very cold here, and I'm not convinced that Nicki Haley is going to be able to turn out loads of new registrants to the Republican Party tonight to get her over the line.
And how about the vig Ramaswami who Trump has just gone after they've been Vivik had an interesting responseing basically like, I'm sort of protecting Trump from himself. They're going to take him out. A vote for me is a vote to protect Trump? Is expectively the case he's making there. But Vivik has spent more time in Iowa, done more events than any other candidate. Do you see any signs that that has moved the needle for him in a way that may not be been getting picked up in the polls.
I think the vake Ramaswami might slightly overform his polling, but I think that's going to be hard for him to break ten fifteen percent. And the reason why is that for a lot of voters. They're not paying attention to the minute shy, They're not going to all these IORA events for them. They just look at the news and they see Trump and then there's the Santists and Haley who are close who are behind him, and that's sort of their calculation. I do think the Backgroundswami's clearly ran a punchy campaign. If there's one impact of it, it might be an accidental one. His straight talking and plain speaking has shone a bit of a light on Ron De Santis and Nikki Haley for being a little bit more polished, a little bit more manufactured. A chap I was talking to again last week in Iowa. He was saying that I like the Santis, but he's a bit of a wanna bee, he's a little bit of a politician wanna be And they didn't like that too much at all.
I could see some of that, So I mean, in overall, James, could you just tell us about any unexpected things you think the weather obviously, as you can see behind you, you think that's going to play a major role. Anything else that our viewers should look out for.
I think the big number to watch is Trump support. If Donald Trump gets below forty percent, then he is going to be in trouble. In those later primaries, people are going to say Trump hasn't got the support he wanted. He's in a dangerous position. He's going into this race with high polling numbers, and Iowa and these primaries are all of our expectations and beating expectations, so he is He's going in with those high expectations. That he gets below forty percent, that's going to be a lot of scrutiny on Donald Trump's sport. If he gets over fifty percent, then I think a lot of people are going to be saying, let's just wrap it up now. And if he gets in between forty and fifty, then we may well see a competitive New Hampshire, But ultimately he'll probably succeed in those super Suesday states. So that's what I'd say to watch out for. Yes, the race for second place is interesting, but it's going to be whether Trump goes below forty or over fifty that will really make the difference.
Tonight, last question I got for you, James, and then we'll let you get back inside where it is hopefully a little bit warmer.
One theory that I have seen that.
I don't particularly buy, but I want to see if you see any signs of this. Is that people basically take for granted that Trump's going to win. So, yeah, his supporters are numerous. They are excited about Donald Trump. But when they're looking at like minus thirty degrees and snowpiled up, they might think, like, this guy's got in the bag anyway, he doesn't really need me to come out and caucus for them, so I'm just going to stay home and be warm and cozy. Do you see any signs or any possibility of that coming through?
Yeah, so definitely, Donald Trump supporters are more likely to be first time caucus goers. You're absolutely right, O. Interesting, They're also the more likely to be enthusiastic across the board. So in that Seltzer poll, eighty eight percent of Trump supporters said they were enthusiastic about turning out for him. That was the highest of all the candidates. Now, when you drilled down to very enthusiastic, the santist fit the post. But I still think those overall numbers of enthusiasm for Trump will get his people, his people there if anybody's not going to be turning out it will be Democrats and Independents. You can register to be a Republican on the night tonight, regardless of how you voted or how your registration.
Has been in the past.
But can I see droves of Democrats and independence coming out and registering Republican onlyed to reregister as their existing party a couple of weeks later on a night like this. On let's face it not the most exciting primary season of the last twenty years or so. I can't see it. And I think that's going to mean that the Santas and Trump do quite well tonight.
Yeah, well, we really appreciate you taking the time, James. Go get inside, drink some tea as I know you guys would like to do, and get warm for us, and we will talk to you very very soon, my friend.
Yes, stay safe, James, thank you, great to chat.
Guys.
Absolutely At the same time, as we've teased so many times so far, Donald Trump finally is a gloves off on Vivike Ramaswami. Let's gohead and put this up there on the screen. Broke over the weekend from Donald Trump's truth quote. Viveke started as campaign as a great supporter, the best president in generations. Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Viveke is a vote for the other side. Don't get duped by this vote for Trump. Don't waste your vote. Viveke is not maga. The Biden indictments against his political opponent, all capitalized for no reason, will never be allowed in this country. They are already beginning to fall maga. Okay, So making the case there that Vivek is a vote for.
The other side. So how does Avic handle this?
He basically is kept saying Donald Trump is the best president in my lifetime. I'm running actually to defend Trump because I'm the one that can get it done. He put out a very very long message on Twitter. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. He says, Yes, I saw President Trump's truth social posts. It's an unfortunate move by his campaign advisors. I don't think everything is never Trump's fault. I don't think friendly fire is helpful. Donald Trump was the greatest president of the twenty first century. I'm not going to criticize him. In response to this laced attack, then he goes on I've met thousands of islands, but here is a little bit of his message. I'm worried for Trump. I'm worried for our country. I've stood up against the prosecutions of Trump. I've defended him at every step. I showed up at the Miami Courthouse, et cetera, et cetera. I pledge myself to remove from Maine in Colorado ballots if they remove Trump.
But we have to open our eyes.
Last time it was a man made pan pandemic, big tech election interference. Now the same billionaires funding the lawsuits against Trump are the ones trying to prop up Nikki Haley. The same MSN blasting Trump is lavishing praise on her. They want to narrow this to a two horse race between Trump and Haley and eliminate Trump one way or the other and trot out their puppet into the White House. We cannot fall for that trap. One year from now, we won't look back and say we were shocked that happened, will kick ourselves for not stopping it. Our movement LA must live on, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it basically just comes and boils down to this, which is. It's a very nice way of saying, I like Trump, all you people who support him, but he's too dumb to actually do any of the things that he said he was going to do, and I'm the person that can get it done. Compelling message, one that appeals, though to only someone who thinks that Trump doesn't have the requisite skills to pull off what he does want to do, whereas the vast majority of Republican voters are like, no, actually, I'm totally cool with Trump. I believe in Trump. I think he can do whatever he is promising me. So part of the reason why Vivek has had a problem getting to the high level traction that we originally saw some flirtation with him, And just in general, why Vivike proving that you can be anti Trump as Haley was, you can be pro Trump as Vike was, you can be everything in between for all of these people, but if you're not named Trump, you're just probably not going to win this primary.
I mean, I'm sorry, but I think this is a really embarrassing message to be like, to try to persuade voters that the way to help Trump is to vote against Trump.
Who's going to buy that?
People are smart. It doesn't make any.
Sense, you know.
And so Vivic has this whole conspiracy that he lays out of, like they want to narrow it to a two person race, and then somehow something's gonna happen that's going to remove Trump from the race, and then they're going to trot Nicky Haley into the White House.
And so I'm helping Trump.
I'm helping to save Trump by having you vote against Trump. And so in a sense, I mean what Trump said there, if this is effectively like a sly campaign trick, I mean, I think that's basically like a cure is right, It's basically accurate.
That's true. Vivec is trying to posture life.
I am even more pro Trump than Trump himself is. And that way to support Trump the hardest and be the biggest MAGA supporter is to vote against Trump and.
Vote for me. And I just obviously that argument's not going to win the day.
Now.
Look, as we said before, do I think he can maybe get to ten percent and the iowacaccusus maybe, but all of these candidates, maybe no one more than the Veke Ramaswami really bet on.
If Trump is out of.
The race, then I've got a wayne, then I've got a shot. And especially because the people who like the Veke are basically just Trump supporters, Like there's very few people who are Viveke number one and Trump number two. Most people are Trump number one, and then a good number of them are the Veke number two. But if Trump is in the race, like your whole theory here doesn't really pan out. So this jiu jitsu move that he's trying to pull of, like the way to be the most pro maga is to actually vote against Donald Trump.
I don't think that's going to work out too.
The only way it works, Crystal is if Trump literally ends up in prison or disqualified by you know, to not run, then maybe, look, maybe it was a smart strategy, but in the interim where you can't really bet on something like that, it's just not going to work. We see there's an interesting there's video that's come out from Vi Veig on the ground in Iowa. This is actually being put out by the Trump people, not Trump campaign for itself, kind of showing the way that he's making his pitch.
To Trump voters themselves.
Pay very close attention to his language, to the way that he tries to convince this Trump voter to switch over to vote for him.
Let's take a lesson.
They're scared of you.
You're scared of Trump, and they.
Will stop at nothing.
But we're not going to let him get away with it.
I've got fresh legs, I'm not wounded. They're not going to let this man do it.
You know when you gave me a hill because.
I'm scared because you think it's false, because you think it's true. I think it's true.
I think they will stop as to stop them, stop Trump. I am.
It's sad, but it's the truth. It's the sad, but it's the truth. So I'm asking you do your partner, We're going to you know, we can do this.
We can do this. They say, how do you feel about the United States?
And I say, I'm worried and I'm fearful.
That you don't have to feel that way in this country.
But we're losing it.
We need people like you.
You're by doing this and that's where our founding fathers were. Yes, it's seventeen seventy six moments soon.
I want your support that iowall call distry. I need emotional.
I'm emotional.
About this country. I need your support on Monday night.
You do this, I'm gonna do my part.
Okay, you're picking at my shell, you are, but you know.
It's about this country. It's about this country you want to save. You want to save Trump.
You vote for me.
I'm telling you that you have.
If you vote for Trump, you're sending him a sledgeham. But you're sending him to his own demise. You're falling into the trap. Then not only a country's falling in that he's falling. You want to save Trump, you vote for me. I need your support at the Iowa Caucus.
That's a good argument. It's good.
It's not an argument, it's the truth. Do the right thing for him this country. That's what I'm.
Asking you for.
Interesting, I mean, I don't know if it's going to work out. It was took him over a minute in order to Did she get convinced? What do you think did she come away say?
The fact that she's saying the candidate to his face like maybe mean no.
That means.
No.
Even if the person says I am one hundred percent with you, discount fifty percent of those. But the one that's like yeah, maybe I'll consider it. No, they are not voting for you. But I mean this again, to save Trump vote for me. Who's buying that. That's it's silly, it's ridiculous, it's embarrassing to make that case. And I go back to what James was saying, which I think was various student analysis of effectively, like listen, Republican voters, they see Trump as the incumbent, they see him as the default.
And so if you weren't making.
A very very very compelling case to move them off of Trump to you, not for some elaborate conspiratorial argument confusing our forty chess argument about how really by voting against Trump you're saving Trump, et cetera. If you aren't making a straightforward, compelling case of why you need to move on for Donald Trump, it's not going to work out. And here's the other thing with Vic that I also want to say, is like this man has really changed his colors to to suit what he thinks is like where he should be both for this campaign but also for whatever like potential media opportunities he wants for the future.
Right after January.
Sixth, he said that he cried when he watched What Habit on Jerry six and then this year he's like tweeting out happy in Trapman Day. So what he said in his book very different from the way he's positioned himself in this campaign, et cetera. You know, his whole book also was about like anti wokeness and esg the moment he realized that that wasn't really selling, he shifts messages again.
So I also think there is a little.
Bit with voters of a sense of this man as trying to just position himself to what he thinks we want to hear.
Yeah, I mean, he definitely is all over the place.
His defense is that he didn't know about the entrapment on January sixth. I mean, listen, I think there has obviously been a lot of political calculation behind it. What's interesting to me actually was the question of why Trump has decided to come out against him now, because Trump nothing Trump loves more is the meant to see somebody who is on television who is not named Trump, who is defending Trump.
So he's held his fire on him. Now.
Part of the reasoning is, let's put this up there on the screen. Bloomberg and others quoting people inside the Trump campaign, is that Trump is pissed because, according to his internals, Vivek Ramaswami is one of the people who is keeping him from under fifty percent. He desperately wants to get over fifty in Iowa and then over fifty again in the state of New Hampshire to seal everything up before it even gets to South Carolina, Florida and to Super Tuesday. The eight percent of Ramaswam, Yeah, I think it's pretty unquestioning to say, it's obvious that almost all of that would be going to Trump if he wasn't in the race. The question, as we alluded to previously Crystal, is how much does ground game in any of this matter. Viveke has put in more work than all of these other candidates honestly combined.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
As you can see, the Veke has done two hundred and thirty nine events in ninety four counties. Nikki Haley, by contrast, has done fifty one events in thirty counties. Rohnd De Santis ninety nine events and fifty seven counties, and Donald Trump has only done twenty four events Crystal in nineteen counties. He didn't even show up in del Iowa till yesterday. He didn't do the traditional week long stretch. He did much more on the ground. Now, obviously he didn't necessarily have to do that. So if the Vike does overperform, and it's possible also that Trump's internal show a lot of that second choice stuff going on, which with Trump for Vike Ramaswami voters, that could be why he ended up attacking him. And I think really one he wanted to do is undercut Vivic's permission structure of like vote for me to save Trump. He's like, Trump is like, just to be one hundred percent clear, that's not what it is.
You should just vote for Trump.
Yeah, and to be clear, this is not it's basically which I think people will be very receptive to hearing because it's kind it's an absurd case that he's making. But if you look at this number of events in the state based on the Selzer poll, it is entirely possible that you end up with an inverse relationship between the number of events that were conducted in the state and the success in the state. Because Trump did the fewest events and he's obviously in first. Nikki did the second fewest events, and according to that, polschas in second ron did you know the next he did ninety nine events and he's in third and Vivek is in fourth with the most events on the board. I don't know what Asa Hutchinson has done, how many events he's done, so I'm not sure where he fits into this calculation. But I mean, that would be a pretty stunning repudiation of like our self conception of how politics work, and especially how the Iowa caucuses work and what actually moves voters in these states.
You saw a lot of this in twenty sixteen.
I can stay anecdotally from speaking to people who are involved in many of the races Trump, Rubio, Ted Cruz and others. They all told me the same thing. They've said a lot of this ground stuff it doesn't matter at all now. For Cruise, it did push him over the edge. But Fox News is really what the primary was all about. All of them said that in most cases they were better off doing Fox and Friends than they were trying to hold an event driving two hours across god Taking state in the middle of the snow, and that they could almost always reach more people that earn media would eventually find its way out there and that in general, the national mood or the Fox News primary was ten, fifteen, twenty times more important to people's votes. Now, like I said, it can help you if it can, you know, to push you over the edge quote unquote maybe four or five percent something like that in the case of Ted Cruz, but it cannot bring you from zero to fifteen.
And that's what Vivek is trying to do.
Basically, events at this point, campaign events, wherever they occur iowaen to Hampshire, whatever, they should be seen by campaigns as generating media content to be distributed through social media or to generate some moment that's going to be covered by traditional media. But you know, going schlepping three hours to somewhere in Iowa to speak to thirty people, obviously, that's not a great return on investment in and of itself. If you again have like you know, Bernie Sanders did this well, if you have a campaign team, a videographer that you're creating, pumping out your own content based on your interactions with voters. This is getting put up on various social media platforms to generate buzz an interest far outside of Iowa. Yes, then that can make sense. But you know, these little campaign events in the diner, you know, or in the coffeehouse or whatever, in and of themselves.
It's just not the way the campaigns.
Work now, right exactly.
I mean because if it but unfortunately, you know, if let's say he underperforms, what message does that really tell us. It's like, you don't need to spend any time on the state at all. He should just be the incumbent. You should get as much earned media attention as possible in the circles or whatever that matter to you. I think that's sad, but you know, sometimes it is what it is. We're a far cry from two thousand and eight, where Barack Obama, I mean, bet his entire case on these little Iowa towns. I mean, he spent he spent so much time there, and you know, had all these college students who flocked across the country they're organizing, and all that mattered. It was like a traditional story in American politics. But you know, the farther we are away from that, it just looks.
Like ancient history. Unfortunately.
Now let's move on to Ron DeSantis. Okay, so things I could see.
Things going two ways.
We could have a narrative out of tonight where if DeSantis overperforms expectations by beating Nikki Haley, maybe he gets a good news cycle. But let's say he still gets beaten by thirty points. Friend Ronald Trump, Well, it's going to be difficult for him. DeSantis has also boxed himself now into a corner where there's no not like vi veg there's no job for him waiting on the other side.
Yeah, but you know, the bridge has been burned.
Even just today, DeSantis put out a quote at an event and he was like, look, he can be the most worthless person in the country, but if you say you love Trump, then he'll shower you with praise. True, accurate. Not necessarily something you want to say, though, if you want to remain in the man's good graces. But he's burned a lot of bridges with Trump people. It's clear also that a lot of the Trump campaign, Trump voters and others have genuine like personal enmity. Now at this point for him, none of that was best. All that was on display when a voter walked right up to his face to try and present him with a participation trophy.
In Iowa.
This is especially brutal to watch because his wife had to step in to try and save him.
Let's just take a lesson real quick before we get started.
Thank you everyone.
Governor DeSantis. I want to present to you this participation trophy.
Probably not gonna win the election, right, but we're crowding trying.
And he's our little snowflake and here you got. Man.
That's that's tough to watch. Crystal's wife's got to step in for him. He is also so awkward because that, you know, what you gotta do in politics. Somebody like Vivek would have. Vivek has been doing this thing where every time a protester shows up, he like engages with them and he talks them and rhetorically spars and does like a Ben Shapiro level like beat down. Trump would be like, get him out of here, go back to mommy, like look at this loser, something like just belittling, you know, and like inside in the crowd because.
Sander just sits there and take it. You can't sit there and take it, man, can't.
You can't let the wife stand in front of you something like that. He's just so awkward when he stands. It's kind of like when Patrick bet David trying to give him those shoes and was asking him at his foot size, so he got play. You got to turn this into a game otherwise. I mean, it's just it's deeply emasculating. And look, I mean you could say that all the stuff shouldn't matter, and that the you know, the policy and all that shit. I wish that were the case, but it's not. Like, let's be real, like, this part of politics is that people do not find him relatable. They find him to be an incredibly awkward person, and that's a that's a big problem, and that was a lot of that was on display right there.
Yeah, I mean, this is not the first time that it has occurred to me that he would have been better off if Casey ran rather than him. His wife has way more She's way more comfortable in front of a crowd, way quicker on her feet in terms of answering questions, delivering a speech, all of those things. But you know, it's it's a sign, this little embarrassing troll moment, which was spread far and wide, by the way, speaking of social media and what things actually matter on the campaign trail, it's just emblematic of how far he has fallen since he initially launched his campaign and coming off of the midterms looking like he was the guy. You know, all this media love, lots of sort of soft Len's features on him and conservative amount lets Fox News throwing all the way in with him, to now where he is scrapping and hoping that he can beat Nikki Haley right on caucus nights. I mean, this is just so far beyond what he thought where he thought he would be coming into tonight.
Yeah. No, you're absolutely right, Crystal.
And this is also the problem with DeSantis's entire strategy, trying to recreate the Ted Cruz moments and all that. And we can actually see here whenever we looked through how Trump is going about this, he no longer is even taking DeSantis all that seriously. He instead has been returning all of his fire and pointing it all of it on Nicki Haley. And actually, what we've now seen is that, given the polling that came out in De moin register, the Trump campaign's actually been running ads against Nicki Haley on MSNBC and specifically targeting her for her comments on trying to cut social Security. Just to show you how the dynamics of the race here are changing. Let's take a listen to what the Trump campaign has been saying Americans.
We're promised to secure retirement NICKI. Haley's plan ends that social security medicare. How would you manage the entitlements?
We say, the rules have changed, we change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. What we do know is sixty five is way too low and we need to increase that increase that.
Bailey's plan cut social security benefits for eighty two percent of Americans.
Trump will never let that happen. I'm Donald J. Trump, and I approved this message. Donald J. Trump, and I approved this message.
Interesting to attacking her that way and also doing it on MSNBC. Smart move because so much of her support does come from Democrats.
Go ahead, it is, and it isn't.
I mean this Obviously, social security isn't issue that a lot of people are very passionate about. I think any ad that ends with I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message on MSNBC is probably not going to gain a.
Lot of traction.
They would have been better off if it had been a connected super pack that didn't have to say I'm Donald Trump and I approved this message at the end, and I also think that they would have been better off with a message about Nicki Haley, of how she loved Donald Trump right up until it was no longer convenient for her, Because you if there are Democrats who show up to vote in the Republican Caucus tonight, it's not going to be because they love Nicki Haley or they support her position on Social Security or whatever. It's going to be a vote against Trump. That is the animating force among these liberals. So I think a much more effective message for them to put out there would be this woman is basically a wolf in shape's clothing. She does whatever's politically convenient. Sure, she claims she's opponent to Trump now, but when it was convenient for her politically, she was singing his praises, she was doing his bidding. And personally, I think that is probably a message that would land more effectively with anti Trump independence and anti Trump Democrats. Partly, I'm saying this because of the brilliance of my own mother, who shares basically these views, because I asked her yesterday, just very neutrally, like if it was Nicki or Biden, you know who would you be a mom's been kind of like an independent voter for a long time, so she's my barometer a.
Lot of ways.
And that was exactly what she said, as like, this woman just does whatever's politically convenient. She loved Donald Trump right up until right up until now. I guess she's an opponent of him, but I don't trust her whatsoever. I think that probably would land better, but who knows how this will all shake out.
The question here is how this is going, what's going to happen? Because if Desantist gets number two, then we can guarantee that the Trump fire is going to return right back to Ron DeSantis in going into New Hampshire.
Some of it will also depend.
The thing is, though, is that we're all seeing this like lack of enthusiasm amongst Nicki voters. Is that her quote unquote surge in New Hampshire, who the bottom could fall out too if she comes in third. That's why she actually argued was more at stake tonight than everybody else, and things right now in New Hampshire are not bad for her.
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
We've got the real clear politics polling average as you guys can see Trump is at forty three point five percent, he would love to be at fifty, but Nikki Haley's at twenty nine point three. And this previously is when Chris Christy was there with eleven point three percent, DeSantis's sixty five, and Vivek at five. You can assume that a large portion of that Christie vote would go to Nicki Haley, which.
Would make her virtually tied.
So that means if she does come in third tonight, I do expect to see a lot of that support just drop out, and the narrative will generally just be like, look, she was overhyped, she didn't have the ability at the same time she had second you could actually see that number go up and conceivably she could actually win the New Hampshire primary. I mean unlikely, but still possible, you know, very much in this realm. So I actually think she's got so much at stake here. The thing is too for Santis, though, is it? Because he's so low right now in New Hampshire. It's clear he's got Iowa first in terms of his campaign. Definitely, if he does come in second, you know he will have to work incredibly hard to boost those New Hampshire numbers, and I'm not so sure that's as realistic.
Actually, both Ron and Nicki have big problems, yeah, they do.
For Nicki, the biggest problem, I mean, aside from the fact that she's losing to Donald Trump by double digits still in Iowa and every other state by New Hampshire. But putting that aside, let's imagine the best case scenario for Nicki. Right, she outperforms in iowhich she clinches that second place and narrows the gap and keeps Trump under fifty percent. She goes to New Hampshire and actually wins in New Hampshire and go the media is loving her and they're pushing her, and maybe she's really got.
A chance to defeat Trump.
She has the same problem Elizabeth Warren, Kamala, Harris Pete Boodhagee. Pete is probably actually the best example going into the rest of the states. Her support is almost entirely college educated, like suburban white college educated voters. Now that's okay in New Hampshire, it's really not okay basically anywhere else. So if she doesn't show an ability to grow beyond that college educated suburban base that has an affinity for her, there's just a hard ceiling on the amount of support she's ever gonna get. So without any demonstrated ability to really cut into Trump's working class base, it's like hard to see how this really.
Works out now.
Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, has a similar college educated problem, but not as severe as Nicky Hill. He's demonstrated a little bit more of an ability to appeal to some working class voters. But if Ron doesn't really outperform in Iowa, he's completely dead in the water. I mean, his campaign is really hanging on by its fingernails at this point, so he is in a lot of ways more imminently threatened by the results tonight. I would not be surprised whatsoever if he doesn't pull off second place in the Iowa caucuses, which is massively in doubt at this point. I would not be surprised if he drops out of the race really really quickly, because he has really staked his whole potential political trajectory on the state of Iowa. And if he's getting third to Dickie Haley in Iowa, I don't know how you come back from him.
He's got big questions, right, so he could stay in all the way to Florida, and he could bank it all on his own home state and hope that he beats Trump.
There's not currently a single poll that shows him beating Trump in Florida.
Just to be right the other case, you know, but look, listen, what if Nicky Haley fails in South Carolina? She has to drop out because if you don't win your home home state in general, you're not supposed to stay in the race. Then it becomes like a two man thing, and he becomes stronger, and then there's some fantasy narrative.
I can make up a whole lot of things.
I've heard a lot of hope, you know, in politics now over these years. Let's put this up there on the screen just to show you kind of where the problems really arise for him. From the Wall Street Journal, it demonstrates that his quote big bet on Iowa risks not paying off the slipping into third place from all of the tens of millions of dollars at him and then never back down people, which is a super pack. I spent in the state trying to recreate the cruise victory. We're not seeing the magic kind of play out in the same way. And the thing is is that we even saw Krystal, the same person Jeff Rowe who ran the Ted Cruz campaign and kind of pulled off that Iowa win running his super pack. They ended up resigning from the super pac. There was all this controversy. You know, Ron Destaniels was attacking his own superpack. It was a total mess. To your point of whether he's going to drop out or not, he spoke to Jake Tapper on CNN yesterday.
He says he's not going to Let's take a listen to what he said. What happens if you finished third? Is that the end of your campaign?
Well, happy fifteenth anniversary, Thanks for giving me on We're gonna do well on Monday. Our voters are very motivated. This is I think it's very hard to pull at Iowa caucus a period which the sixteenth poll was not accurate predicted, but especially when in negative twenty degrees. And so these are folks who are very motivated. Our voters are very motivated. We have spent a lot of time in Iowa because we've gone door to door getting people to commit to caucus. To us, We've got a huge number of people that have committed to Caucus, and we expect that these are the people that turn out. So there's a lot of excitement on the ground.
So there you go, Crystal.
Let's see what actually happens with Ron, whether he'll drop out or anything.
I do think the big problem for.
Him is not even going to be voters or whether he wants what if the donors are like, look, dude, it's over, You're done, Like you're done. Yeah, we're pulling the plug on something like this. He doesn't have the same level of grassroots energy.
That's that again.
I do want to say if he does come in second, it's not a bad world for him. You know, I think that buys him. I think the bis him at least until Florida. If he comes in second, you know, New Hampshire, he was never going to do particularly well. See what happens in South Carolina. You can always say let's go to my home state, just like Marco Rubio did back in twenty sixteen.
Yeah.
Maybe, I mean, I guess at this point, even though I just lay down the case against NICKI originally I think is very compelling. I do think she has a real like wine track problem. I also do think that she is almost crystallizing in the Republican base's mind as a kin to like a Chris CHRISTI like hard anti Trump gear. Even though she's been much more careful in her criticism of Trump, but they still have put her on that side of the divide, which is causing her negatives to really spike, etc. But I like to play devil's advocate here. I like to lay out the case. Is it theoretically possible that we could end up with Nikki Haley beating Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
Here's how it would have to go.
She outperforms tonight in Iowa, she gets second place, she narrows the gap, Trump stays under fifty percent. She goes in New Hampshire with the head esteem and she comes from behind, and she actually beats him in New Hampshire. And guess what state is up next? Her home state of South Carolina, where, yes, the polls have her down significantly to.
Donald Trump right now.
But if there was any state where you could see her coming from behind and being able to make some inroads even with Trump's working class base, you would think it would be her home state of South Carolina. You know, the media liberal media, Fox News, whatever, They're going to be going crazy for her. She's able to pull off this series of upset wins and then who knows anything could happen at that point. That would be the case, that the best possible case I could.
Make for her.
But I do think that there are you have to ignore a lot of realities to imagine that that is going to be how things actually play out with Ron. I just have a hard time even being able to come up with a theoretical scenario where he's able to come from behind and pull this thing off, because he unlike Nicki. You know, Nicky's got a real shot at winning in New Hampshire. Ron doesn't have a real shot at winning in Iowa. There is no state where you can see a path of like, oh, he could actually win that state. So if you can't even see a single state where you're likely to beat Donald Trump, it's hard to imagine a trajectory that's going to put you over top of him.
You know, at the end of the day.
I don't disagree.
The other problem Nikki has, I think, just to add to this is what do we just talk about with Desanta's donors are fickle as hell, you know, they abandon DeSantis.
What if NICKI comes in.
Third and they pull the plug before New Hampshire, I could see, I'm sure you could as well, where they're like, okay, our dream is gone. And then they, I don't know, they all start funding Dean Phillips' campaign, like you know, I mean, Billland just gave him a million dollars.
So he gave him more money than he's ever getting to anybody else.
You know, our producers just sent us this bill Bill Ackman and Elon are doing a Twitter spaces today. Elon did one with for Dean Phillips with Dean Phillips, So I mean, maybe Dean becomes like the guy of the day.
It's I don't know, Crazier things have happened.
But that's the problem is if you're if you're playing the billionaire race like Nikki and like Dean, and like a lot of these other I don't want to be as mean to Dean. I actually have a soft spot for Dan, just because I have a stoft spot for democracy and challenging Biden. I have a soft spot for, you know, anybody who's like trying to play in this race. But I do know that when you're relying on them, that's a problem. And that's where I could see for Nicki Haley, they could rug pull her instantly if she doesn't do nearly as well, and then you know, the bottom could fall out like that. It's not that long really, it's only two weeks till the New Hampshire Boy.
Yeah, this this thing could be over very it could be tonight very quickly. Last thing I'll say just as a reminder, so I'm gonna be watching the results tonight. Once we have some sense of where the race is going, we'll go ahead and give you an update and our analysis of what is unfolding, So stay tuned to that, and we'll have Ryan and Emily in study. Will do a full panel breakdown tomorrow in the show, so lots to look forward to there