It's a special covert show of the Iowa caucuses on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
We thank you for joining us.
The race called early for Donald Trump, but we've got a long way to go here in figuring out second, third and the margins of victory. Bloomberg's Julie Fine joins us for more from the Iowa Election Center, where she's got her eyes on the numbers right now. Julie, how long do you think we'll wait to learn more?
I think it's going to be a while before we really determine second and third place because if you look at the numbers that have come in, they're in the smaller counties and they're smaller groups of people. So let's talk to our global audience a little bit. In a caucus situation, people come together and vote. The numbers that they're getting now are from smaller groups, from more outlying areas. You're going to need a big dump from Des Moines or the bigger cities to really get that picture on
second place. And right now, the numbers are really showing that Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor NICKI Haley, the former ambassador to the UN, they're really locked in at seventeen percent. But again I really want a caution here, we're looking at just about one percent of the vote. So the former president right now is well above fifty percent. But to really dissect the seventeen percent, you're going to have to see bigger numbers from bigger counties.
Now, the former president.
Of course, Joe and Kayley we have talked about this, needed to make a very big number tonight to make a statement over fifty percent. Right now, he is there. So now again the race is for second place. What I'll really be watching is Sue County to see how that goes. For Governor DeSantis. You also have to really pay attention to Des Moines and the Des Moines suburbs to see where that plays out. For Nicky Hayley, those
numbers appear not to be in quite yet. So again there is a long way to go in that race for second place. Now is something you really have to keep keep your eye on. Why you really have to keep your eye on that For the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, his eggs are in the Iowa basket. If he does not do as well as Nikki Haley or their neck and neck here he goes to New Hampshire, where Hayley has really been putting on the press for
votes and for the win. This is a critical, critical night for Ron DeSantis and for the Desandas campaign.
Kaylee and Joe the Bourbon Vitory.
All right, Bloomberg's Julie Fine at the election Center, thank you so much. Back with us now around the table, Rick Davis and Jeanie shan Zeno.
So, Genie, she was just.
Making the point there about how invested DeSantis has been in New Hampshire, how this feels, at least to many of us who have been watching it, like something of a make or break moment for his campaign. Even if he gets second place, if Trump's lead is commanding enough, can his campaign realistically move forward from here?
You know, I think he probably will, especially he comes in second. But I do think it's a real uphill battle when we look at some of the models. You know, it becomes increasingly harder for either DeSantis or Haley if they lose in Iowa, lose in New Hampshire to get the number of delegates they need to beat Donald Trump. So I think it's an uphill battle for him even if he comes in second, because we talked about the fact he doesn't have much of a game in New Hampshire.
He's going to try in South Carolina. He's not pulling well there. Nevada has been completely pulled out from under them due to what Trump has done there.
So it's really.
Really tough to see where he goes from here, especially even if he comes in second numerically and in terms of the actual percentage to lose counties, not when any which could happen.
I think it's.
Really hard to make the case that there's a pathway forward for him.
Boy, this is remarkable the extent to which the narrative has changed since we came on the air this year. Evening Ronda Santis, to Julie Fine's point, put his eggs in the Iowa basket.
Nicki Haley put her eggs.
Somewhere in New Hampshire, and I wonder how she can control the narrative in the next four days moving into Manchester to spin whatever happens here tonight is maybe not a positive, but something that could be followed on by a big win in the first of the nation primary state.
Yeah, I would say Nicki Haley is running a multi state campaign, right. Ronda Santis is running a single state campaign. She did come in late off of some momentum that she was generating, and spent heavily.
In the last two weeks.
She's dominated the airwaves, spending much much more than Donald Trump and Ronda Santis combined. So she played here, she just played in a different way without the ground game. We're going to see whether or not that materializes as a second place finish for her. But she does have a very strong operation in New Hampshire, starting with the endorsement.
Of the incredibly popular gup.
Chris Snuda and his entire state organization is behind her, in addition to the fact that, as Genie has pointed out, she has built her own impressive organization there and has attended and put on many town halls that New Hampshire voters love to test their candidates in. So she actually starts well ahead even before the night is over, well ahead of ron De Santis in New Hampshire and frankly on par with the organization and the support that Donald
Trump has there. So she knows the game starts for her in New Hampshire tonight as soon as she gets on a plane and leaves here. Whether it's to night or first thing tomorrow morning. She has a fresh start with some momentum. She hasn't been written out of this narrative yet. And and you know it's game on in New Hampshire tomorrow.
Well, you say she's running a multi state campaign, DeSantis maybe has been a single state campaign to this point. Either way, we've seen them. It's very expensive. So the donor question is raised here as well. DeSantis has been going after Haley in recent weeks on the idea that she's in this for her donors issues, whereas he says he's in it for voters issues. But he struggled in the donor department in a way that she hasn't. Their
fates almost in that regard have reversed. How does the outcome in Iowa impact their ability to access resources going forward? How do you fundraise if you haven't just won?
Yeah, you have to live off the land, and unfortunately I've been involved with a lot.
Of companies you go foraging.
Had to live off the land, and it is possible. Yeah, you find other ways to compete, you do. Frankly, what Ron DeSantis has been doing here is going and putting yourself out there with five six events a day, And part of the advantage Nikki Haley has is she's been working that hard, she's been doing those events every day, but she's also got a little bit of moment where
the money has rushed in. Look, there's a reason that front runners usually win because they have the money, and insurgents usually complain that, you know, it's a money game for them, voters don't care. In fact, I think most voters respect the fact that a campaign can raise money because at the end of the day, whoever is the Republican nominee, they're going to have to raise a lot of money to beat Joe Biden.
He is sitting there.
With over one hundred million dollars cash in an account, ready to wage a campaign war against.
The Republican nominee.
See, we haven't talked about Joe Biden for most of the night. It might be the first time I've heard that name. Are they popping quarks here at Biden campaign headquarters? Because the narrative was that, you know, he wants to face Trump again, he is the one he knows he can beat. But numbers like this might make you think twice.
You know, I think they're popping them quietly they don't want to get out ahead of themselves. But the reality is, you look at the polls, and the national polls were showing that who could beat him. Nicky Haley, Bronda Santis and Trump were beating him within a margin in the latest polls, but Nicki Haley had a pretty commanding lead
over Biden. And so we've long thought that the Biden campaign would prefer to run against somebody as unpopular as the president is, quite frankly, and that is Donald Trump. So if that narrative continues, then I think they are quietly saying this is where we want to be. We beat him before we can do it again. But you know, I think that's a really dangerous game. Donald Trump is an incredibly good politician as long as he much as
he likes to say is not. He's great at this, and Joe Biden is as well, So I think they have to be careful what they wish for.
Of Course, the Bloomberg Morning Console poll Kayley in the seven swing states we've been following show Joe Biden actually has probably more to worry about.
The conventional wisdom might suggest we're going to.
Stick with Rick and Jeanie here and we'll be back with more of our conversation live from Des Moines. Coming up, we will add the voice of a real insider, a long time Iowa political strategist. David Kotchel is with us next on a special Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio. It's a special coverage of the Iowa Caucuses on Bloomberg TV and radio. We're live in Des Moines and joining us now a long time Iowa political strategist. They call him the Dean of Iowa politics.
That would be David Conchulu.
Is wonderful to have you at the table here in the throes of a night like this.
David, we had an early call.
For Donald Trump, but still a lot of questions about margins and turnout as we look at these very cold people walking by, knowing the weather was a real factor here.
What are you hearing about turnout.
At the stage the game, Well, it's going to be well under what was expected.
Yeah, obviously in twenty sixteen, one hundred and eighty seven thousand people turned out. Twenty twenty four, I think most people were setting the over under one hundred and fifty thousand, and a lot of people would have taken the over The truth is this campaign hasn't been that exciting because Donald Trump has had a big lead almost all the way through Iowa. So there's two campaigns now to watch.
It's Trump versus himself. Can he get over fifty? If he's under fifty, that says half of Iowa voters said no, thank you. And then the race obviously for second place. This high stakes for Ron DeSantis bets it all here. It's really the only place he's campaigned, spent a ton of money, and he and Nikki Haley are going to
go I think back and forth all night. I have a feeling that if they're deadlocked right now with just a few counties in the largest counties report latest because these are hand counted ballots on the ground by volunteers. So those big, huge counties in places like Clive in Dallas County in Marion and Lynn County, Bettendorf's big suburbs where she overperforms, if those come in late, that might her put her past DeSantis, in which case I think DeSantis has a lot to think about overnight.
Do you think realistically we could see DeSantis out of this race as soon as tomorrow morning?
You could if he finishes in third place after having Governor Reynolds Bob Vander plots a bunch of legislators over one hundred million dollars in spending from the super pack, the biggest ground game spend we've ever seen in Iowa started in the high thirties here when he got into the race and just kind.
Of fell over the summer in the fall.
What case can he make if he finishes third here, He's already well behind in New Hampshire, He's well behind in South Carolina. Those are the next two contests that matter. It's really hard to argue that somehow on March fifth, on Super Tuesday, he's going to be resurrected. So I don't see a path for him if he finishes third. If he's in second, maybe he has to go on to New Hampshire and see what happens. Maybe something happens
in the race that we can't foresee. But he's in tough shape if he comes out of Iowa third tonight.
Before seven thirty tonight when this race was called and some of the other things that you've learned since then, did you expect to hear concession speeches from anyone coming out of Iowa.
No.
I've been around this a long time, six presidential campaigns, a few of whom didn't make it the distance. It's tough for a campaign to drop out after all this investment. You want to get with your family, you want to get with your top strategies, you want to talk about it. Usually there isn't a snap decision on a night like this, so I wouldn't expect to hear any concessions tonight. I think tomorrow morning everyone's going to wake up reassessed, see
what their path is forward. If they can make a credible argument for a path forward, they'll try to stay in.
You also have the idea that.
If you don't do well here, if you perform below expectations, you're not going to expect any more money to be coming in over the next week. And these campaigns run on, you know, campaign donations. You got to have some money to go to New Hampshire. That's a Boston TV market costs about a million bucks a week. You know, I don't know that DeSantis is going to have the resources to continue to compete, especially if he finishes, you know, in third place, where he was not expected to finish.
We've talked at length about Governor DeSantis, about Inbassador Haley, about Trump. This evening, we have not mentioned another candidate who spent a lot of time here. For vig Ramaswami, he says he did a double grassley. He went to all ninety nine counties twice. Does that traditional Iowa politicking not matter anymore if he's barely even registering enough for us to bring him up until we're an hour and forty five minutes into this program.
I think vivek Is is a special case here. If you liked to eviake Ramaswami and you showed up at his events, you were voting for Donald Trump. He's kind of the mini Trump in this race. He had that message, and I kind of think he really wasn't running to be president. He's kind of running to be a mega celebrity. Maybe Alex Jones. I just think his campaign hasn't been serious for a while. The first couple of debates, he was two completely different people. I think Iowan's you know
they up close. I think they found him to be phony and I felt like he wasn't going anywhere for the last two months, and it's.
Proved to be true.
Well, if he's pulling at eight percent and he drops out to those votes go straight to Donald Trump. They do.
Yeah, And in New Hampshire, I don't even think he's pulling at eight percent. I think he's pulling well below that here.
I so I don't. Yeah.
Here in Iowa, Yeah, and I look, he's not going to hit eight percent tonight. Those votes already went to Donald Trump and might be the thing that puts him over fifty, which is I think where they want to be. So yeah, Vivick just didn't couldn't, couldn't land it here. As much time as he spent, he pulled out.
His money a while back. He's been off the air.
So you know, I think most people who are watching this closely saw that coming.
We are joined by a global audience this evening on television and radio. There's people watching from all over the world who essentially are trying to figure out what this means for who's going to be the nominee in twenty twenty four.
To what extent right now do you think the.
Iowa electorate Republicans Here in Iowa are those who perhaps decided to register as Republicans for this evening to participate in this choice to what extent do you think that is reflected of the country more widely in terms of the issues that are resonating for voters. Do we think, actually Iowa may be more reflective this time around of the way the rest of this race.
Is going to go.
Yeah, but Iowa is usually not a great predictor who the nominee is.
I'm just wondering if this time is different.
Yeah, well it might be different.
We have to go through New Hampshire and kind of see what New Hampshire does. New Hampshire likes to say, Okay, Iowa a nice work, we're going to change it now, And we heard Nikki Hayley joke about that a week or so ago in New Hampshire. What Iowa's job really is and what people need to understand. We're not picking the nominee here. We're winnowing the field down to a manageable race where voters really get to say, Okay, of these two or three viable candidates, now we're going to
select them. We've already dispensed with a whole bunch of candidates that had high hopes coming in here. Mike Pence is out, Tim Scott is out, Doug Bergham is out. A whole host of candidates didn't even make it to Iowa. Usually we say there are three tickets out of Iowa. I actually think tonight there might be two. And that would be interesting because that puts us in a one on one race with Donald Trump. Well before we saw that in twenty sixteen, we were in Florida with multiple candidates,
way down the calendar into March. And what Trump doesn't want, he wants to wrap this up. He's got a lot of other things on his plate right now. What we need to see is can New Hampshire maybe reverse this result show a little bit of vulnerability with Trump.
If Nikki Haley were to weak.
Past him in New Hampshire, I think that'll scramble the national polls. Some the money will flood into her campaign, and I think Donald Trump might have a race in South Carolina. He's got a lead now, but this is part of a whole several months where he's had a dominant national lead and other states aren't paying as closive attention as they are here where he could finish under fifty, and as they are in New Hampshire. So he's the overwhelming front runner now. There is no question about that.
If he were to lose New Hampshire, I think you'd watch some national polling change and there might be a few cracks in that inevitability.
All right, Well, at the very least he's claimed that first ticket out of Iowa. We're still waiting to see who gets the second. David Kachel, thank you so much for joining us here and j join this evening. We appreciate it.
Thank you.
Now, coming up, we'll be back with Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzeno to help close out this night special coverage of the Iowa Caucuses on Bloomberg Television and Radio. This is special coverage of the Iowa Caucuses on Bloomberg Television and Radio. We're getting more numbers out throughout this evening after the race was called for former President Donald Trump and Bloomberg Tyler Kendall is here with the latest. Tyler, what else do we know? What are the figures selling us?
Yep, Kelly, So, now about thirty six percent of the expected vote is in and that includes most of eastern Iowa and also central Iowa. I want to pull out two counties. One is Pole County where we are here in des Moines that is trending towards former President Trump, as well as Dallas County that is right to the west of US. It is the fastest growing county in Iowa.
These two counties very populous, but also considered more moderate places where Nikki Haley has really been focusing her campaign attention. Interesting too, Dallas County met Romney in twenty twelve. In that general election, he won it by twelve points. Trump than won it by nine points, but the last election he only won it by two So this was an area that Nikki Hilly's campaign has really been targeting, trying
to get those moderate voters. These were these central counties that I think she was hoping to make a splash in tonight.
All right, Tyler, thank you so much.
And as we close out the program this evening, Joe, we got to bring in our closers as we always do.
That's correct.
There's only one closing panel and that's Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzo.
This move fast tonight. We're not done.
I'm wondering Rick, if we're going to wake up tomorrow and no second and third places.
Yeah. Look, I think the reporting is coming in on pace.
And as Dave Kotchwe was talking about some of these bigger counties, bigger precincts. Takes a while to hang count all those ballots, but the reporting system seems to be working perfectly. The chairman of the Republican Party told us that, you know, he thought it was going to be smooth, and it looks like he made good on that promise.
So I think we'll know by the time we wake up in the morning. But maybe we just shouldn't go to.
Sleep until we find out who's going to be in second place in Iowa.
Well, let's say volunteering all of us all nighters here, Jeanie, I just had something hit my inbox from Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. A short while ago, Donald Trump won the Iowa caucus. He is now one step closer to becoming the Republican nominee than goes.
On to ask for donations.
How does this shape the race beyond just the Republican primary, But as president Biden is actively engaged in general election politics right now.
Yeah, it's so important because of course we're talking about his commanding lead. But of course we have to remember
this is all on the Republican side. And as we move into the national view of things, you have a very unpopular former president and President Trump, who people, to Gavin Newsom's point, are very concerned about the impact he has on democracy, the fact that he is still litigating the twenty twenty election, the fact is he has lost more elections than he's won, and he has refuse to admit that he has to Rick's earlier appointment endorsing candidates
in the mid last midterm who didn't do well. So these are all problems for the Republican Party and this is why so many moderate Republicans wanted to look ahead and try to find somebody else. But at this point, at least in Iowa, they are saying no, no, no, And you know, I think we should say turnout if it is as low as Kotchel said, David Kotchel said, or others have said, one hundred thousand, one hundred and ten thousand. That's one seventh of registered Republicans in this state.
That is a very small slice of people who can get out to vote.
So what do we extrapolate from that.
Let's say we get one hundred and ten hundred and twenty thousand here compared to the all time high north of one hundred and eighty thousand. Rick, your takeaways knowing that turnout might have been that low.
Yeah, look, I mean it's cold out's eye, yees, and so like we advantage Trump though, yeah, we thought, actually it would disadvantage Trump to have this low of a turnout.
So it shows the resiliency the Trump vote here.
I might also Matt just add Iowa was not always a red state. I mean Donald Trump's emergence in twenty sixteen, even though he lost the Iowa caucus, he won the state, and he won it big, and he converted a lot of blue collar white voters, especially in the northwest of this state, who used to be Obama voters into Republican voters. And he did the same thing in other places around
the country. So the reason he won in twenty sixteen was he had a partial realignment of certain voters of a certain class into the Republican Party, and the Democrats have not been able to make a dent.
In getting them back.
All right, we have exactly one minute left, so this is a quick answer for both of you. Will we still have four candidates for the nomination when we get to New Hampshire next week.
Jennie, I don't think we should, so I am going to say no. But at this point it's hard to tell because they're still waiting to see what happens.
I think it's irrelevant. It's a head to head race from this point on. Even if Ronda Santis can eke out a min win against Nikki Haley, she's got the momentum and it's a head to head for New Hampshire.
All Right, Rick Davis and Jeannie shanzena with us throughout this evening the Iowa caucuses, which have been called for former President Donald Trump. We're waiting for results on number two and three. Thank you for joining us here, Balance of Power. We'll be back at five pm Eastern tomorrow from Washington, and we'll have special coverage of the New Hampshire Republican primary next Tuesday, live from Manchester.
This is Bloomberg.