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A (SNOWY) POSTCARD FROM IOWA
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
Hello from an airplane high above snowy America.
As I return from Iowa and see the patchwork of snow and earth below, I want to send a laptop journal entry, an extended postcard of what we saw.
The headline is simple. Former President Trump had a record breaking-margin of a win. No dispute: He dominates the Republican contest.
But, from what we saw, there is much more to say.
For the better part of two days, we rarely saw another car on the road. Smart Iowans stayed indoors. But we ventured out to meet voters — some of whom we’d been talking with on the phone for weeks, and some of whom we met at campaign stops. Their words, and some of the photos we took, tell more than we could fit on air.
Let’s start with three stories.
Chris Garcia. A Ron DeSantis supporter.
In the storm, Garcia and his wife, Myrna, spent hours caring for their farm animals in a sub-zero blizzard. He is a second-generation, proud Mexican American, telling me of discrimination he faced, including that he could not be seen with white women when he was in high school. But the current discussion of race confuses him.
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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For a time, Chris was an Uber driver. Once when he told a passenger he thought Donald Trump, as president, did some good things, the ensuing argument got heated and ended with the rider calling him a white supremacist and spitting in his face.
He still likes Trump, but thinks he goes too far in his words. And he sees Gov. DeSantis’ political wins in Florida as a sign that he could be different.
“I'm looking for somebody that is not only conservative, but I'm looking for somebody that can unite the country,” the 75-year-old said. “I'm looking for somebody that possibly could bring the Democrats.”
Valerie Sutton. A Trump supporter, with her undeclared cat, Hope.
For 114 years, Valerie Sutton’s family has run a greenhouse and plant business in Adel, Iowa.
Their main greenhouse was a wonder in the storm, with thriving plants living under a roof full of constantly cracking ice. When she and her husband turned the whirring heaters off during our interview, the temperature inside dropped, fast. |
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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Valerie is a powerhouse community member. A look at her social media includes no politics that we could find, but instead community fundraisers and words of encouragement. And she is a mom whose older daughter is about to head to college.
She believes Trump in the White House would mean a more stable world because other world powers would have more respect for and fear of America.
“The thought that we, my kids, could be seeing a world war was something that I think we've all taken for granted.”
She also wants the country to unify again. And she cares about treating others with respect. But when it comes to Trump, his leadership matters more than his attacks on others.
“Personality doesn't bother me much. It's kind of like when you're an employer, you get all kinds of personalities. And as long as somebody is doing a good job and doing good for the business, I don't get too fussy over personality at all.”
Dennis and Sherrie Mandsager. Nikki Haley supporters.
The Mandsagers spent their lives in post after post for the U.S. military, where Dennis served as a naval officer. He is an expert on rules of engagement. Sherrie, a retired teacher, offered us tea, hot chocolate, anything we liked as the storm hit while we were at their home.
They believe Trump would make the world more dangerous, and they applaud Nikki Haley’s support of Ukraine. And they believe she is easily the Republican most likely to beat Joe Biden.
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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Sherrie cannot support Trump in November. She said she would vote third-party. Dennis is not sure what he would do.
I asked them why they think Trump supporters so strongly back him.
“I've had that discussion on a daily basis with friends around the country, and the bottom line is, I don't really know,” Dennis said. “I know one key factor is a number of Republicans think that the Democrats are picking on him with all these court cases and all these issues — the Russia gate incident and the like. And I think a lot of people are sympathetic toward him as a result of that. Other than that, I don't know. I don't understand it.”
Other signs and people
There are undecided voters, like the three Simpson College freshmen women who I met in the below-zero air as they waited in line to see Trump. The former president was on their campus. How could they miss the opportunity? they said.
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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Or Brenda Yates, the woman opening and closing the door to the bus where freezing Trump supporters could go to wait and avoid frostbite. She was a Trump supporter, but was she going to go inside? No, she told me. She just wanted to go home and — with a smile — said she wished she were back in bed.
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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It was not always the faces that told me something. At DeSantis events, there were many signs, but they did not go home with the people in attendance. At the Haley event we attended, in contrast, extra signs were hard to find. And I saw the campaign carefully making sure none were wasted.
There was not the excitement I’ve felt in past Iowa caucuses. There was some; Valerie Sutton felt it. But more voters seemed to feel that politics — and fighting the same fights over and over again — was now a burden and one that increasingly left them not just frustrated, but worn down and even apathetic. More than anything, there was an unexpected sense of “thickness,” as Chris Garcia put it.
One last photo: our incredible team. You don’t always see them but here are producers Sam Lane and Saher Khan and photojournalist Devin Pinkard.
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Photo by Lisa Desjardins/PBS NewsHour
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With love from them and me,
Lisa
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More on politics from our coverage:
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WHY BIDEN IS NOT ON THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BALLOT
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Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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By Matt Loffman, @mattloff
Politics Producer
Twenty-one candidates will appear on the New Hampshire primary ballot next week, but incumbent President Joe Biden isn’t one of them.
Next Tuesday is the first contest of the Democratic presidential nominating cycle, and Biden is the first president in more than 50 years to skip the Granite State primary during a reelection bid.
You may be asking, “What’s up with that?”
Well, it’s all about a change to the Democratic National Committee’s rules and how national party leaders, including Biden, say New Hampshire really shouldn’t be the first state to vote. Under a change approved last year, Democrats moved South Carolina to the start of the nomination calendar.
New Hampshire leaders – both Republicans and Democrats – were not pleased, banding together to uphold state law that requires its voters to have the first say.
Because the New Hampshire primary is “non-compliant” with DNC rules, the national party deemed the contest “meaningless.” The winner next Tuesday will be in name only, and will not earn delegates to the convention in August.
The DNC instructed candidates to “take all steps possible not to participate” in the New Hampshire primary as currently scheduled. Biden chose to skip the state altogether.
Enter the “write-in Biden” effort.
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A sample New Hampshire ballot showing all 21 Democratic candidates. Not listed? President Joe Biden. Image courtesy of New Hampshire Secretary of State
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It’s a grassroots and mostly volunteer campaign led by the president’s supporters in New Hampshire, and it’s running on a shoestring budget. Organizers hope to recruit thousands of volunteers to stand outside every voting location in the state to tell people how to write-in the president’s name on the ballot. Since the effort launched last fall, a super PAC has also joined the effort, spending about $850,000 so far on direct mailings and advertising.
“It's really unfortunate and sad that the president of the United States chose not to be on the New Hampshire ballot,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, who oversees the state’s election process, told the NewsHour. “The decision not to do that comes across as petty, but New Hampshire is moving forward with or without him.”
While high-profile Democrats in and out of the state are vocally supportive of the write-in effort, it is unaffiliated with Biden’s official reelection campaign. The goal is simply to get him a victory.
Organizers say there’s one thing to their advantage: “Joe Biden” is an easy name to spell.
#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage
Senior Editor, Digital
Donald Trump’s record win in Iowa was called by the Associated Press about a half hour into the caucuses. (The news organization explained why they projected a Trump victory before some votes were cast.)
In the end, Trump stood roughly 30 percentage points ahead of second place Ron DeSantis – surpassing the caucuses’ previous margin of victory record of nearly 13 percentage points.
Our question: Which Republican hopeful previously held that Iowa record?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: Which U.S. city swore in its first all-women city council last week?
The answer: St. Paul. For the first time in the Minnesota city’s 170-year history, the seats of this council were filled by women. St. Paul is believed to be the largest U.S. city to ever elect an all-women council or legislative body, the Star Tribune reported.
Congratulations to our winners: Kathleen Perry and Philip Auclaire!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week. |
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