Record-breaking cold threatens to complicate Iowa’s leadoff caucuses as snowy weather cancels events
WAUKEE, Iowa — There was still snow on top of the eight inches that had already accumulated when Kadee Miller ventured out to visit Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in Waukee.
“There were moments on the drive here where I thought, ‘What are we doing?’” Miller said Tuesday of her 7-mile ride from Adel. “The reason we drove here is to really see who she is.”
Miller isn’t sure who she’ll vote for in the first Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, but she’s confident she’ll be there — despite a frigid, cold night that the weather forecast says will be a slap in the face.
“It’s important. It’s kind of our civic duty, right?” said Miller, a 49-year-old HR worker. “So that’s what we have to do.”
Iowa Republicans are likely to face temperatures dipping below zero degrees Fahrenheit when they start the 2024 election cycle, a record-breaking forecast that could complicate candidates’ hopes of making their own history if the cold dampens voter turnout presses.
The candidates publicly express optimism that their supporters will show up no matter how bad the weather is. But the snow and cold have already wreaked havoc on candidates’ schedules, scuppering their plans to tour Iowa and make their final pitches to voters.
Donald Trump’s campaign had to cancel events with surrogates advocating for the former president, including Mike Huckabee and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 caucuses, posted on social media that the expected snowstorm grounded their plane.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said his car got stuck in a ditch while driving from northwest Iowa to Des Moines in snowy weather Monday evening. Ramaswamy canceled his event Tuesday morning, saying it was “effectively impossible to get safely from Des Moines to Coralville,” hours after criticizing Haley for canceling her Monday event in Sioux City.
National Weather Service data shows there has never been a colder caucus night in Iowa than predicted for Jan. 15. The previous coldest was in 2004, when the high temperature for that year’s caucus on January 19 was 16 degrees.
“We may not warm above zero degrees on Monday,” said Des Moines-based meteorologist Chad Hahn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get above minus 20 degrees for wind chills from Sunday.”
Temperatures will continue to drop for the rest of this week, Hahn said. Highs will be in the upper 20s on Wednesday, low 20s on Thursday and Friday, 10 on Saturday and single digits on Sunday. Worse, of course, with chills.
The icy feeling could make it harder for Republican candidates to rally their supporters, which is already a tall order with the demands of a caucus. Unlike primaries, where voters can cast ballots all day long, caucusgoers must show up at a specific time and location that is unlikely to be their typical polling place.
No snow, rain or sleet is expected Monday, and snow is generally less likely at such low temperatures, Hahn said. Barring a major ice storm, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said, Iowans won’t be deterred by low temperatures.
“It’s going to continue no matter what,” Kauffman predicted.
Brad Remsburg, 51, ventured from West Des Moines to see Haley Tuesday morning despite a snowstorm and freezing temperatures. He said the weather would not stop him and his son from participating in the caucuses next week.
“Well, yeah, it’s cold,” acknowledged his 23-year-old son Jake, a recent graduate of Iowa State. He said he would don a jacket to combat any frigid caucus temperatures.
“You see he wasn’t even wearing one today,” his father pointed out.
It can be dangerous for people to be outside for extended periods of time in temperatures as low as what is forecast, Hahn said. Exposed skin would quickly be at risk of frostbite.
The Iowa GOP says caucus sites were chosen with convenience and comfort in mind, including taking into account where people would have to wait to register or log in. They don’t expect many voters to have to wait in line outside.
But it’s entirely possible that voters will be lining up outside before Monday. Trump will headline four rallies in Iowa on Saturday and Sunday. Supporters have queued outside for hours in recent weeks before the doors opened during his rallies and ahead of security checks.
Trump’s campaign promised to ensure that people are “taken care of” this weekend and that people can get into venues quickly and in an orderly manner.
When it was 34 degrees in Sioux Center last week, Trump joked about his cold walk from the car while complimenting his “hard” supporters for waiting in line, some for four hours.
“That’s cold out there. That’s a long wait, right?” Trump said: “I said, ‘Where’s my jacket?'”
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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard, Jill Colvin, Steve Peoples and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.