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By Mia McCarthy, Calder McHugh and Charlie Mahtesian

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks at a campaign event at Bella Love Event Center on Jan. 11, 2024 in Ames, Iowa. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO

COUNTDOWN TO THE CAUCUSES — In three days, America will see the first test in the 2024 Republican nomination fight. The results in Monday’s Iowa caucuses are likely to illuminate the strength of former president Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP, reveal whether Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ground game is underestimated and demonstrate if former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s surge in the polls is occurring outside New Hampshire.

With so many questions still left to be answered in Iowa, POLITICO sat down with six of the state’s top political reporters and editors to get their perspective on what’s happening on the ground.

They had a lot to say. (If you’re interested in a deeper dive, you can find the entire roundtable discussion here.)

Here are five takeaways from our conversation about the first event of the 2024 primary season:

The evangelical vote: Iowa is home to a high percentage of conservative Christian voters — 62 percent of Iowa Republican caucus goers were white evangelical or white born again Christians, according to 2016 entrance poll data. In 2016, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won them pretty comfortably over Trump, who still faced a considerable amount of skepticism from evangelical voters. But things have changed quite a bit since then and Christian conservatives have warmed to Trump, especially because of his Supreme Court picks.

Our panel noted that DeSantis is trying to peel away some of that support, particularly in conservative northwest Iowa. But perhaps the most interesting observation was the consensus on how much the evangelical vote has changed since 1988, when Pat Robertson surprised the nation with his strong second place finish — ahead of the sitting vice president at the time, George H.W. Bush. “These voters are now in a party that embraces their issues,” said O. Kay Henderson, news director of Radio Iowa. “There are no longer people in the Republican Party like there were in 1988 who supported abortion rights. So it’s a completely different party than it was in 1988.”

Ed Tibbetts, a former Quad-City Times reporter and editorial page editor who publishes the Along the Mississippi Substack, said: “I don’t think evangelicals today are the same as evangelicals eight years ago or even further back. I think that makes it very difficult to compare one cycle to another because the definitions that are being used just aren’t the same anymore.”

The ground game: A campaign’s field organization is essential to victory in Iowa, a state with 99 counties and a caucus system that requires voters to attend one of the more than 1,600 caucus sites.

DeSantis’ super PAC Never Back Down has been on the ground since April and, according to Brianne Pfannenstiel, a reporter at the Des Moines Register, he’s had “the most extensive ground game, most consistently in the state.”

DeSantis is betting big here that shifting significant resources to the state will pay off with a surprisingly strong performance. Henderson explains about his team in the state: “I went to a DeSantis event on Saturday night in Ankeny. There were a number of people getting orange hats that say “precinct captain” from the DeSantis campaign. Talking with some of the people [at a DeSantis event], they’re being given names to call in their community, to encourage them to attend. They’re talking to people online. And then they also will be a point person in each precinct, to speak for the campaign.”

But he’s not the only one with a humming operation. Unlike in 2016 when his campaign in the state was fairly disorganized, the Trump machine looks well oiled in Iowa. “They’ve got boots on the ground everywhere, you’ve been bombarded by text messages, by mailers, by emails,” Iowa Starting Line reporter Ty Rushing says. “They’re not just relying on Trump’s Twitter account to get the word out there and to fire up people.”

Winter weather: Nearly all of the 99 counties in Iowa are scheduled to be under a winter storm warning Monday into Tuesday, which means the weather will undoubtedly have an effect on the caucus.

“The people who want to caucus for Donald Trump really want to caucus for Donald Trump. And there’s less excitement for DeSantis and for Haley, and Iowans have thick skin but this is a really serious weather situation,” said Pfannenstiel. “The temperatures are going to be in dangerous territory for people to spend a lot of time outside.”

Kathie Obradovich, editor in chief of Iowa Capital Dispatch agreed the weather will have an impact, but disagreed on who it would hurt the most. She said Trump has the most to lose in this scenario.

Campaign surrogates: It’s not just the candidates who are traipsing around Iowa in the run-up to the caucuses. They are accompanied by a host of surrogates who are campaigning with them in an effort to generate energy and excitement, amplify the campaign message and provide validation.

Trump has brought in a host of surrogates — Pfannenstiel refers to them as “the Trump cinematic universe” — among them Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Former HUD Secretary Ben Carson and two of Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have also appeared in the state on their father’s behalf.

“Anytime Roger Stone or Kari Lake or Mike Lindell is at a Trump event,” said Rushing, “there’s a photo line for them, right there on the floor.”

Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky are among those who have campaigned for DeSantis; New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu appeared in Des Moines last week for Haley. The Iowa roundtable wasn’t convinced any of the surrogates made a huge difference, though Siouxland Public Media’s Bret Hayworth noted that one of them made a splash in northwest Iowa when she campaigned there — Noem, who represents a neighboring state and shares a media market.

Trump’s hold on Iowa: For all the talk of campaign infrastructure, weather and surrogates, every reliable poll of late has shown that this will not be a particularly competitive contest. The only real question is the size of his winning margin — which will be closely scrutinized.

That’s very different from the last competitive Republican primary cycle, when Trump underperformed his poll numbers and lost Iowa by four points to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. In the aftermath of that defeat, Trump cried foul, saying on Twitter, “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it.”

Trump is not taking the state for granted this year. He’s been in Iowa more than he indicated he would in the fall, making multiple appearances at big rallies. Henderson suggests that’s a sign of a change in direction internally, and that “you’ve heard him say on the campaign trail that he wants a thunderous victory here, that he wants a blowout victory here.”

The experts had a hard time envisioning any scenario other than a Trump victory. When we asked the room whether anyone thought Trump might not win in Iowa, we were met with dead silence.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s authors at mmccarthy@politico.com, cmchugh@politico.com and cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Reporter_Mia, @calder_mchugh and @PoliticoCharlie.

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— White House readies more student debt relief as Biden loan plan enrollment nears 7M: President Joe Biden is adding a new tool to his arsenal for canceling student debt in the coming months as his 2024 reelection campaign ramps up. The White House announced today that the administration will implement earlier than planned a provision of Biden’s new loan repayment program that forgives debt for borrowers who initially borrowed less than $12,000 and have made payments for 10 years.

— Johnson says bipartisan spending plan ‘remains’: Speaker Mike Johnson defied his right flank this morning, suggesting that he would maintain a bipartisan spending deal that they despise. Delivering a written statement to reporters, Johnson nodded to conservative anger about the agreement that he negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But he added that “our top line agreement remains.” Conservatives have criticized the speaker both publicly and privately over the deal this week, calling on him to negotiate a new agreement with steeper funding cuts. That fury from his right flank grew this morning, with Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) raising the idea of booting Johnson from the speakership.

— Federal prosecutors to pursue death penalty against Buffalo supermarket shooter: Federal prosecutors announced today that they intend to pursue the death penalty against the perpetrator of a 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. In a court filing, prosecutors argued that the actions of Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who intentionally killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo’s predominantly Black East Side neighborhood, rose to the level warranting the death penalty under federal law. Prosecutors pointed not only to the high level of planning involved with the attack, but also the nature of the attack itself, as grounds for capital punishment.

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MANCHIN TO MANCHESTER — During an eyebrow-raising visit to New Hampshire today, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia name-checked friends who are elected officials in the Granite State and complimented the discerning nature of its voters, reports the New York Times.

He paid homage to the state’s first-in-the-nation primary tradition and swiped at President Biden’s decision to undercut New Hampshire’s power in this year’s Democratic contest.

And when pressed on his own ambitions, the conservative Democratic senator offered a message that would-be candidates have often deployed as they flirt with this traditionally influential early-voting state: He declined to rule anything out.

AN UNSUSPENSEFUL END — When Nikki Haley walked into an arts district event space in Iowa, with a pared-down version of her stump speech, half a dozen chairs were empty, Semafor reports. When Ron DeSantis rallied with two of his best-known Iowa endorsers in the Des Moines suburbs, two dozen out-of-state college students had grabbed the best seats.

And on Thursday, while a “once-in-a-decade” storm pummeled the state, Donald Trump was in New York, on trial, accusing the Biden administration of “cheating” to slow him down.

After a year of campaigning, canvassing, and pricey advertising, Iowa’s caucuses are coming to an unsuspenseful end. Public polls show DeSantis and Haley deadlocked for second place as she looks toward New Hampshire, where the race is actually competitive. Snow and freezing temperatures have shrunk crowds and lowered expectations for the Monday vote, when wind chill in some areas will reach the negative 20s.

WAITING GAME — The Oregon Supreme Court today declined to hear a bid to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban,” saying it’s waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the issue, CNN reports.

The ruling comes after Colorado and Maine kicked Trump off the ballot, after judges and officials determined that his role in the January 6 insurrection renders him ineligible for office. However, those decisions have been paused to allow for appeals. The Oregon court did not rule on the merits of the challenge, specifically citing the ongoing litigation at the US Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments in the Colorado case on February 8.

PRIMARY PROBLEMS — A federal judge rejected a bid today to require Florida Democrats to hold a presidential primary in March, reports POLITICO.

Florida’s Democratic primary was scuttled because President Joe Biden was the lone candidate certified to state election officials. It was a decision that rankled other Democrats, including Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) who is challenging Biden and called it “intentional disenfranchisement.”

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An Iranian protester holds a Yemeni flag during a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people and Iran-backed Yemeni rebels in front of the British embassy in Tehran today. | Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

CHAOS COMING — Western warplanes and guided missiles roared through the skies over Yemen in the early hours today in a dramatic response to the worsening crisis engulfing the region, where the U.S. and its allies are facing a direct confrontation with Iranian-backed militants, reports POLITICO.

The strikes against Houthi fighters are a response to weeks of fighting in the Red Sea, where the group has attempted to attack or hijack dozens of civilian cargo ships and tankers in what it calls retribution for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Washington launched the massive aerial bombardment of the group’s military stores and drone launch sites in partnership with British forces, and with the support of a growing coalition that includes Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Bahrain.

Tensions between Tehran and the West have boiled over in the weeks since its ally, Hamas, launched its October 7 attack on Israel, while Hezbollah, the military group that controls much of southern Lebanon, has stepped up rocket launches across the border. Along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis form part of the Iranian-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ opposed to both the U.S. and Israel.

Now, the prospect of a full-blown conflict in one of the most politically fragile and strategically important parts of the world is spooking security analysts and energy markets alike.

Houthi leaders responded to the strikes, which saw American and British forces hit more than 60 targets in 16 locations, with characteristic bravado. They warned the U.S. and U.K. will “have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences” for what they called a “blatant aggression.”

However, following the overnight operation, Camille Lons, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said there may now be “a period of calm because it may take Iran some time to replenish the Houthis stocks” before they are able to resume high-intensity attacks on Red Sea shipping. But, she cautioned, their motivation to continue to target shipping will likely be unaltered.

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GO FISH — For the first time, researchers have created a global map of human activities in the ocean — only to prove we know less than we thought about our ocean’s surface. The team used AI and satellite imagery to track human activity on the high seas. What they found were untracked “dark vessels” fishing across the worlds’ oceans. Researchers found that roughly 75% of industrial fishing vessels are not being publicly tracked and are not being considered in reports on ocean use. In this deep dive for Smithsonian Magazine, Christian Thorsberg looks at the dark world of fishing and what this study reveals about underreported ocean activity.

On this date in 1978: A souvenir shop stands closed on the Atlantic City Boardwalk where some old shops who can't meet sharp new rent increases are giving way to new businesses willing to take a high-priced gamble on the city's future in gambling. After New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City in 1976, Resorts Atlantic City became the first casino to open in the city two years later. | Jerry Mosey/AP

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