Donald Trump’s presidential campaign anticipates winning the Iowa state caucuses and advisers have suggested internally they would only be concerned about the former president being upstaged if another candidate started polling within five or 10 points, according to people close to the campaign.
The margin of the expected win has been an informal litmus test for several weeks, and with none of Trump’s rival candidates close to breaching that threshold, the campaign has been confident Trump will win the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest.
Victory for Trump in Iowa would give him crucial momentum that advisers hope will propel him to the Republican nomination for 2024, as well as the personal satisfaction of attaining what eluded him in 2016, when he finished second – after Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas – despite leading in the polls.
The confidence inside the Trump campaign is tempered mainly by the recognition that low turnout from supporters could undercut Trump’s commanding position, a situation he has attempted to address by scheduling a blitz of rallies before the 15 January caucuses.
Trump returned to Iowa on Friday to run through four campaign rallies in two days after visiting the state infrequently in recent months, at least compared with his main rivals, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor.
In presidential primaries and caucuses, voters cast ballots in their states as the first of two steps. The outcomes of those contests determine which individuals, called delegates, will go to the Republican national convention to formally be chosen as their party’s nominee.
The idea for the Trump campaign is that a victory in Iowa would give him the necessary momentum to win the next contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan, putting him ahead of the field for Super Tuesday on 5 March.
By mid-March, the campaign anticipates they will have won enough bound delegates that Trump is assured of clinching the nomination to set up a general election rematch against Joe Biden, according to an internal analysis.
The campaign’s analysis, based on public and internal polling, estimates Trump to win 973 delegates by 5 March and 1,478 by 19 March, a senior campaign official told reporters last month. It takes 1,215 to win the nomination.
Backstopping Trump’s projected path to the nomination are rule changes the campaign forced through in several crucial early voting states that dramatically alter the way delegates are awarded.
For months last year, the campaign pursued an audacious effort to convince state Republican parties in places like Nevada, Michigan and California to change the rules in a way that favored Trump – and disadvantaged both Haley and DeSantis.
In Nevada, Michael McDonald, the chair of the state Republican party, enacted new rules seen as especially damaging to DeSantis, by in effect blocking Super Pacs that the Florida governor relies on from participating in the caucuses.
The rules, which came almost immediately after McDonald was among a small group treated to a meal with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club, so disadvantages Trump’s other rivals that they have pulled up stakes entirely. Last month, McDonald was indicted by a Nevada grand jury on charges of forging and submitting fraudulent documents in the 2020 fake-elector scheme.
In California, the state party enacted a rule change to award delegates based on a statewide vote instead of congressional districts, doing away with the state’s longstanding system that was seen as more equitable to lesser candidates.
The change means Trump now has a shot at claiming all of California’s 169 delegates – more than in any other state – while making it dramatically harder for Haley or DeSantis to challenge him in a two-horse race.
Another state that has shifted its rules is Michigan, which this cycle will run a complicated dual primary and caucus in a system where the majority of delegates will be bound in a process also seen as favoring Trump.
The moves have been denounced by Trump’s rivals as underhanded and tantamount to rigging the nominating contests; the reality is that Trump has significantly tilted the race to his advantage.
Still, even if the backroom dealing by Trump was initially part of a failsafe effort to cover for deficiencies – for instance, in Iowa – rivals like DeSantis have slipped in the polls there, meaning Trump might be in a stronger position that even his campaign has anticipated.
