URBANDALE, Iowa — Wrapping up his speech here the other day before a modest audience made up mostly of seniors, Donald Trump Jr. sounded a note of urgency about the increasingly dire weather forecast for Monday night’s Iowa Republican caucuses.
Iowa
Opinion | Trump’s toughest opponent in Iowa isn’t DeSantis, Haley or the weather
His father’s campaign team is well aware that the former president is up against two sets of challengers in the first contest of the 2024 campaign season.
There are the other candidates, sure. But probably more formidable for Trump to beat are the sky-high expectations that have been set. His lead in the latest pre-caucus polls has grown to more than 30 percentage points, far greater than has ever been seen before in a competitive GOP contest this close to the caucus date.
One thing that has always been true about Iowa’s quirky process for selecting presidential candidates is that you can’t really tell what is real and what is illusion until neighbors actually gather in more than 1,600 high school gyms and libraries and churches across the state.
Going into the Iowa caucuses, part of the ritual is for campaigns to thump their chests — bragging about how many doors they have knocked on, how many Iowans have signed cards promising to caucus for them, how much of the state they have covered.
Or they crow about the enticements they are offering to assure supporters will show up for them. In 2008, early Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s operation handed out more than 600 snow shovels, apparently not understanding that it is the rare Iowan who doesn’t already have their own.
Her campaign that year also spent $95,000 on caucus-night deli sandwiches. A huge pile of them sat untouched on a table at the caucus I attended that year. Clinton, for all her largesse, came in a disappointing third to her fellow senators Barack Obama and John Edwards.
This year, the candidate who most closely followed what was considered the traditional Iowa formula is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He has visited every one of the state’s 99 counties. His super PAC claims to have knocked on more than 900,000 doors. He has lined up the most high-profile endorsements, including popular Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
At a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News on Friday, DeSantis deputy campaign manager David Polyansky said: “There won’t be a single Iowa Republican that turns out that night that will not either have met Ron DeSantis or had the opportunity to meet him. Ask him a question, take a picture with him, shake his hand. Not a one.”
Yet the traditional Iowa formula seems to have lost its power. Trump hasn’t done any of that personal, ground-level campaigning. And it will surprise no one if former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley — who has had a far lighter footprint here, though she tells audiences, “I have been campaigning all over this sweet state for eleven months” — noses ahead of DeSantis on caucus night.
The weather, however, makes caucus night more unpredictable than ever. Never before has Mother Nature scrambled everyone’s plans with such fury as she has this year. A blizzard, below-zero temperatures, and fierce winds forced all three of the leading campaigns to cancel in-person events they had planned for the final weekend. Current forecasts for caucus night have temperatures the National Weather Service has called “life-threatening” getting even colder.
There are two schools of thought about what all of this means. One, which the Trump campaign is counting on, holds that the former president’s supporters are the most devoted, and therefore most likely to brave the elements on his behalf. The other, which his competitors are hoping will be true, is that Trump’s lead may have lulled his backers — which, polls suggest, disproportionately include people who have never caucused before — into complacency, to the point where they feel their vote won’t make much of a difference, so why not stay in their toasty homes and watch the results on television.
Among the audience at Don Jr.’s appearance in Urbandale was Gary Leffler, 62, who was proudly wearing a white cap embroidered in big gold letters: TRUMP CAUCUS CAPTAIN. He will be running things for the former president at Precinct 118 in West Des Moines.
When I asked Leffler how he plans to assure people show up for his candidate, he showed me an eight-page list of what he said were 160 names and said he is calling all of them. So far, Leffler said, he is hearing that nothing is going to keep them away from the Learning Resource Center where Precinct 118 will meet.
Except for one couple, both of whom are 94 years old. One of them told Leffler, “I ain’t going out in that.”
IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – With four victories after intermission, including a technical fall and major decision, the Hawkeyes extended their winning streak over Iowa State to 20 in a row.
The Hawkeyes took the dual 21-15.
Early on, the matched looked dead even, with the teams trading decisions. But at 157 pounds, Iowa State’s Paniro Johnson picked up six points with an injury default win over Jacori Teemer. Teemer appeared to injure his hamstring, but Iowa head coach Tom Brands did not comment further on his status.
Iowa responded four straight wins from Michael Caliendo, Patrick Kennedy, Angelo Ferrari and Stephen Buchanan to seal the dual. Kennedy’s win came by technical fall, Buchanan’s by major decision. Yonger Bastida defeated Ben Kueter at heavyweight to earn the last points for Iowa State.
With the win, Iowa improves to 4-0. With the loss, ISU drops to 1-2.
No. 2 Iowa 21 – No. 12 Iowa State 15
125 – Adrian Meza (ISU) dec. Kale Petersen (Iowa) , 5-1
133 – Drake Ayala (Iowa) dec. Evan Frost (ISU), 11-7
141 – Zach Redding (ISU) dec. Ryder Block (Iowa), 5-4
149 – Kyle Parco (Iowa) dec. Anthony Echemendia (ISU), 4-3
157 – Paniro Johnson (ISU) inj. default Jacori Teemer (IA), 3:32
165 – Michael Caliendo (Iowa) dec. Connor Euton (ISU), 12-7
174 – Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) tech. fall Aiden Riggins (ISU), 19-4
184 – Angelo Ferrari (Iowa) dec. Evan Bockman (ISU), 8-2
197 – Stephen Buchanan (Iowa) major dec. #20 Christian Carroll, 10-0
285 – Yonger Bastida (ISU) dec. Ben Kueter (Iowa), 7-2
Copyright 2024 KCRG. All rights reserved.
The Iowa Hawkeyes were able to cobble together a 29-13 win over the Maryland Terrapins on Saturday afternoon in spite of entering the game with major distractions.
The chief distraction at hand was the status of Iowa’s quarterback situation, as the Hawkeyes were forced to roll with Jackson Stratton thanks to Cade McNamara and Brendan Sullivan both being sidelined.
McNamara’s status was particularly murky, as the initial consensus was that he would regain his starting job once it was revealed that Sullivan would be out for the season with an ankle injury.
However, confusion over McNamara’s availability made things, as head coach Kirk Ferentz would say, “cloudy,” and he ended up not being medically cleared to play due to a concussion he suffered back on Oct. 26.
Either way, Iowa emerged victorious in spite of Stratton going 10-of-14 for 76 yards. Kaleb Johnson carried the day, as per usual, racking up 164 yards and a touchdown on 35 carries. Kamari Moulton also rattled off 114 yards, with 68 of those yards coming on a touchdown scamper.
But even with the running game operating smoothly (for the most part), you just felt like the Hawkeyes were lacking.
Maryland is not a good football team, so beating the Terrapins is not really a good barometer to determine how well Iowa played.
Because I’ll be honest: if the Hawkeyes faced an even decent ballclub on Saturday, they may very well have lost with all of the opportunities they blew.
Iowa had to settle for five field goals, and Moulton fumbled inside the red zone early in the first quarter. This should have been a much wider margin of victory than 16 points.
Yes, the defense held serve, but, again, it’s Maryland we’re talking about here.
The 2024 season has been a cluster of inconsistency for the Hawkeyes. They entered the season full of promise, but it has not materialized like they hoped.
It has reached a point where it has almost feels like Iowa needs to put this thing out of its misery. The Hawkeyes have no quarterback. They have no weapons in the passing game. Their defense isn’t quite as stingy as it was last season.
Iowa is 7-4, but it has been unable to put together a stretch of consistently sound football all year long. Fans are frustrated, and just getting a run-of-the-mill bowl game is not going to satisfy them.
Things need to change at Iowa City, because what the Hawkeyes are doing now isn’t working. The offense needs an overhaul. No more skirting the issue under center and with wide receivers.
The problem is this isn’t the NFL. You can’t just sign a bunch of free agents, make trades and draft players overnight. It’s going to involve a stark change in recruiting, and Iowa is somehow going to have to land a couple of big names via the transfer portal.
I don’t want to rain on the parade. The Hawkeyes won, and that’s great. Be proud of the kids for playing their guts out in the face of all of the adversity.
But man, it has certainly been a pedestrian season.
Iowa will close things out against Nebraska next week.
Iowa wrestling coach Clarissa Chun breaks down pair of dual wins
Iowa wrestling’s Clarissa Chun holds press conference after pair of dual wins over William Jewell and Cornell College
The rich continue to get richer.
The Iowa women’s wrestling program added to an already loaded roster late Friday night with the commitment of Isabella Marie Gonzalez. She is the No. 3 pound-for-pound recruit in girls high school wrestling regardless of age and the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2025.
Gonzalez, who is ranked No. 1 nationally at 120 pounds at the high school level by USAWrestling, has the makings of a star. She was the U17 World Team representative (finishing fifth) for the United States at 53 kilograms this summer. She was also a U17 Pan-American Games champion in 2023, fitting the mold of what coach Clarissa Chun looks for in international success.
From the state of California, she is a two-time state champion, a multi-time Fargo medalist and a Super 32 champion.
“I am excited to announce my official commitment to the University of Iowa,” Gonzalez wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you to everyone who has continued to support me through my journey. Go Hawkeyes!”
This is the first commit of the 2025 class for the Hawkeyes, who brought in seven freshmen and 11 total new faces in 2024. Given the proposed roster limits of 30 coming next season, the number of newcomers isn’t likely to match or exceed the 2024 number.
Regardless, this is a high-profile addition for the Hawkeyes in a weight that needed some additional talent. The lone question is whether that will be at 117 or 124 pounds for the Hawkeyes. Her addition to depth behind Brianna Gonzalez at 117 or potentially competing for a spot right away at 124 pounds will be a welcome addition either way.
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
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