Now to the Iowa caucuses, where it was a big
night for Donald Trump.
Yeah, The Associated Press declaring the former president the winner
of the Republican caucus with
87% of votes counted. The former president taking
51% of those votes. Trump win comes as no surprise.
The big question is who would come in 2nd?
And right now Ron DeSantis
is in second place with
21% of the vote, and Nikki Haley comes in a
point or so or two behind him,
Vivek Ramaswami in fourth place with 7%.
And here's Donald Trump speaking just a few moments ago
from Des Moines.
And I really think this is time now for everybody,
our country, to come together.
We want to come together,
whether it's Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative.
It would be so nice if we could
come together and straighten out the world and straighten out
the problems and straighten out all of the death and
destruction that we're witnessing.
That's practically never been like this.
It's just so important, and I want to make that
a very big part of our message.
We're going to come together.
It's going to happen soon
and we have team coverage tonight of the caucuses.
Amy Hawker We'll have more on the impact of tonight's
results,
but we begin with Rob Olson.
He's live in Des Moines tonight,
where the bitter cold did not stop people from coming
out of decent turn out,
it sounds like.
Yeah, it does certainly look like a very good turn
out tonight.
Mine is 5° here still,
so that's why I found a nice cozy indoor corner
to be in.
But a lot of questions persisting
whether that cold would impact the outcome.
The Iowa poll from this weekend showing that Donald Trump
could approach 50%
of the vote, which is what he did.
In fact, the results really falling in line with this
latest polling data from this weekend.
But a lot of questions as to whether this weather
would change those results.
I don't think it's that bad out there.
As I was walking in,
I've been through a lot worse here in Iowa,
with nearly the entire Hawkeye State still below 0.
Voters began turning out Monday night amid lingering questions of
whether fewer would The roads are cleared.
It's still very cold, but I don't know that it's
going to have as dramatic of effect as if all
of the cold and snow hit today,
two days removed from a Blizzard that dumped 10 inches
of snow in Des Moines,
leading no travel advisories in its wake.
It's not Saturday. Saturday was really bad.
Devoted caucus goers say even that would not have kept
them from this first in the nation vote that Iowans
pride.
It would have an impact on my skin,
but probably not on my voting
on your turn out. You'd make it to the caucus.
I would make it, yeah.
Every day
toe to toe with tyrants.
The Iowa caucus is held in hundreds of rooms across
the state at 7:00 PM,
precinct by precinct. This 1A high school cafeteria in West
Des Moines.
He has integrity, work ethic
and backball. He will make a great president.
They begin with five minute final pitches from candidate precinct
captains or surrogates.
In this case the wife of candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
He has come
to more events here in Iowa than any candidate in
history with the big question,
perhaps the big prize of who comes in second.
You know, I think the Trump supporters are solidly committed.
I think those that aren't committed to Trump might be
a little bit softer as far as who they're supporting.
The votes written on official slips of paper.
Each registered voter got one when they checked in.
He just ate my vote.
Oh, darn it. Collected and counted in full view of
anyone and everyone who wants to watch about his Transparent
is voting gets Nikki Haley at 88 votes,
Ron DeSantis at 74,
Donald Trump at 61.
So in that particular precinct,
you know, the order was reversed from what we've seen
statewide.
But again now the number crunching begins and what this
means going forward and for the candidates going forward.
Well, a lot of them
are out tonight. They all have campaign events scheduled in
New Hampshire are already tomorrow.
Guys, back to you. Yeah,
New Hampshire comes up fast.
Thank you, Rob. All right,
let's pull back a bit now and look at the
bigger picture.
Amy Hocker joining us to add some context to what
we're seeing in Iowa right now.
Yeah, Kelsey and Randy, Iowa.
Iowa will give us 40 of the
2429 delegates. So it is a small piece of the
pie,
but it's important. We talked with Professor David Schultz from
Hamlin University earlier today.
He describes the Iowa caucus as either a slingshot or
a stop sign.
It'll either give these candidates momentum into New Hampshire next
week or it could take the wind out of their
campaign.
So I asked him to break down these three top
Republican candidates in Iowa and where they might go after
tonight.
The polls in New Hampshire are suggesting still Trump has
a lead,
but the lead between him and Haley is is is
closer
than and in the other states.
So that's first Nikki Haley.
If she does better than expected in Iowa,
that gets her some momentum,
probably some more money, some more resources and she's in
a better position going into into New Hampshire.
DeSantis, this is make or break for him.
It really is at this point.
Again, if he doesn't come in second and a solid
second,
we're going to see a lot of the money dry
up that he needs and we're going to probably start
to see
even some of his supporters now drifting somewhere else packs
the Nikki Haley.
So he has, he has to do really well here
tonight.
So interesting as you just saw some of those results
coming in now
89% reporting that fight for second is really intense.
Ron DeSantis leading by just over
2300 votes to Nikki Haley for that second place spot.
So we'll see what happens here tonight.
Now the Democrats have a smaller storyline tonight.
President Biden of course will be their nominee.
So voters can really take their time and mail in
their choice,
and they have until Super Tuesday,
which is March 5th. And coincidentally,
that is also the day that Minnesota will hold its
primary guys.