Analysis: After a fiery debate in Iowa, it might be the weather that causes the biggest headache for Republican presidential hopefuls, writes US Correspondent Logan Church.
Ding, ding, ding, let the games begin.
The countdown is on to the first big event in the US election calendar — the Iowa caucuses. There, members of each party vote for the man or woman they want as their party's presidential nominee.
But things are being done differently this year.
Typically, what happens at these events is members of each party gather in designated town halls, churches or community spaces at 7pm, and over the next few hours they pick a chairperson for the meeting, then they go about voting for who their presidential pick will be.
While the Republicans will be meeting to do that next Monday, the Democrats have opted to do a mail-in ballot, the results of which will be released on 'Super Tuesday', the day where the largest number of states carry out their primaries.
This year all the competition seems to be on the Republican side — Joe Biden will almost certainly be the Democrat presidential candidate — and last night we got to hear from the three highest polling Republican candidates: former president Donald Trump, former governor and UN ambassador (for the Trump administration) Nikki Haley, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the last big televised events before the Iowa caucus next week.
Except we didn't get to hear from them all together, as we usually would.
Last night, CNN held the last nationally televised debate ahead of the Iowa Caucuses, broadcasting from the state's capital Des Moines (where 1News will be live from on caucus night).
Nikki Haley was there. Ron DeSantis was there. Donald Trump wasn't. That wasn't necessarily an unusual move by Trump — he's refused to attend any of the Republican debates.
But where was he? On Fox News, at his own Town Hall. Also, in Des Moines. Broadcasting nationally at the exact same time.
Power move much?
I, along with the rest of the nation, ended up in this weird position of switching backwards and forwards between these two competing broadcasts, where Nikki Hayley and Ron DeSantis threw punches at Donald Trump (admittedly with a velvet glove — they are both trying to win over Trump's supporters), and Donald Trump was heavily critical of his former UN ambassador. All at the same time. Just not to each other. It was super weird to watch.
They were also wildly different things to observe.
The CNN debate was exactly what you'd expect a debate to be — lots of zingers, talking over each other, and hosts having to reign candidates in.
"Every time [DeSantis] he lies," said Haley, "Drake University don't turn this into a drinking game, because you will be overserved by the end of the night."
She kept referring to a new website her campaign has set up called "desantislies.com".
And before you think that's mean and horrible, don't worry — DeSantis is doing the same thing on his own website.
"When you need someone standing and fighting for you, don't look for Nikki Haley. You won't be able to find her if you had a search warrant," DeSantis retorted later on.
Trump's Town Hall was a lot more... well... friendlier. Cringier too, one might say.
"I'm going to vote for the third time for President Trump," said one audience member, Robert, as he was asking a (carefully curated) question of the former president, the crowd erupting into applause.
"I like him. I knew I liked Robert."
Here was his question: "Some of my friends that supported you in 2020 are not this time. Uh, because they believe a Trump presidency will bring four years of chaos — due to your haters?"
"I think most of the chaos was caused by the Democrats constantly going after me," Trump replied.
Trump also teased he "knew" who the vice-president pick would be.
From Trump's perspective, he thinks he doesn't need to debate his opponents. And, according to almost all recent polling, Trump is the clear front runner.
But as political scientist Tim Hagle from the University of Iowa explained to me, that didn't make it a slam dunk for Trump.
"This is really an unusual situation. Trump is not an incumbent, but as a former president running for a second non-consecutive term, it is almost unique it has only happened once before and that was in the late 1880s — he's not an incumbent but he's pretty close.
"That's why he's ahead — but he's not as far ahead as an incumbent would be."
Hagle gave the example of Democrat president Jimmy Carter who was running for re-election in 1980. While he ultimately lost his re-election bid, he was polling at 59 per cent in the Democrat caucuses that year.
"That's more than we would expect from someone running as an incumbent - well Trump's not an incumbent but has been polling here in Iowa below 50 per cent at least until very recently."
He said there might be another factor that could impact Trump's lead.
"Polling for the caucuses is much harder than polling for a primary or a general election. And that is because you have to show up - that means your supporters have to be sufficiently energised, sufficiently interested in a candidate, or at least a contest, to show up."
"So that means those excuses like 'I'm tired, I need a baby sitter, I need to work' - all of those excuses become easier, especially if we are going to have a cold snap which we are going to have where the temperatures go below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-17C) and some older people in particular might not want to go out.
"The polls might be right but are they going to be right with the people who actually show up."
Hagle said all the candidates have been putting in a lot of time in Iowa campaigning. He said these first-in-the-nation ballots often give the winners a big boost in momentum.
"We do a good job here of vetting the candidates, making sure they understand the issues important to voters, that they communicate a good message, and that they have the ability to build out a good campaign," he said.
"If they can come in and get that start and catch on to the voters, it might propel them onto a successful campaign ultimately."
Tune into 1News at 6pm on Tuesday, January 16 NZT and 1news.co.nz for our coverage of the Iowa caucuses.
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