Latest news from the 2024 presidential campaigns ahead of Iowa caucuses
- With just a day to go before the Iowa caucuses, the candidates braved subzero weather to deliver their closing arguments to caucusgoers.
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a former Republican presidential candidate, endorsed Donald Trump at the former president’s rally. Marco Rubio's endorsement soon followed.
- Meanwhile, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who has declined to endorse a candidate a day before the caucuses, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that she would not rule out backing Trump if he wins in the state, but she also called former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley “a great candidate.” Later, at a campaign event, she called Haley a "dear friend" and "inspiring leader."
- Trump has a nearly 30-point lead in the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll before the caucuses. Meanwhile, Haley is narrowly ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with 20% to his 16%.
- While the majority of likely GOP caucusgoers say they would vote for Trump in the general election if he’s the nominee, regardless of whomever they support on caucus night, nearly half of Haley’s supporters say they would vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump in a general election matchup.
Biden has forgiven billions in student loans, but his allies say voters aren’t giving him enough credit
More than six months after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s ambitious program to erase $430 billion in federal student loan debt, the White House has been rolling out smaller, more targeted relief programs that it says have now canceled $132 billion in debt for more than 3.6 million people.
At the time of the court’s decision, it appeared that Biden wasn’t going to be make good on one of the biggest promises he made to young voters, who helped propel him into the White House. But as he has gone about doing the same work more slowly, he seems to be getting little credit from those voters.
On Friday, the administration said it’s fast-tracking a key provision of the Saving on a Valuable Education plan — known as SAVE — that had been scheduled to take effect this summer. Starting next month, borrowers enrolled in SAVE who took out less than $12,000 in loans and have been paying them back for at least 10 years will get their remaining debt canceled right away. With each additional $1,000 of debt, the window for forgiveness increases by a year. For example, students who took out $13,000 in loans will now have their debt wiped out if they’ve been paying it back for 11 years, or in 12 years for those who borrowed $14,000 — and so on.
Separately, eligible borrowers don’t need to wait 10 years to get some financial benefit from the SAVE plan, which has a more generous formula for calculating income-based repayments than previous government programs. Most low-income borrowers will pay less. For example, borrowers making $38,000 a year with $25,000 in public student loans would see their payments drop from $134 to $43 a month, according to the Education Department.
The White House said almost 7 million borrowers have signed up for SAVE.
“I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams,” Biden said in a written statement.
Democrats are trying to motivate younger voters ahead of crucial months of the 2024 presidential campaign. According to an NBC News poll in November, Trump holds a slight advantage within the margin of error in the survey among voters ages 18 to 34 (46% to 42%) — a reversal from past election results and past NBC News polls.
Haley addresses death of principal in Iowa school shooting, blames 'mental health'
Haley began her large Commit to Caucus event in Adel, Iowa, tonight by addressing the death of Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger after this month’s school shooting.
She told the story of addressing an elementary school shooting when she was governor of South Carolina and said, “We have got to finally acknowledge once and for all the cancer that is mental health in America.”
Majority of Iowa caucusgoers say Trump conviction wouldn’t affect their support
More than 6 in 10 likely Republican caucusgoers — 61% — say it doesn’t matter to their support if former Trump is convicted of a crime before the general election, according to the latest numbers from the new NBC News/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa.
By comparison, 19% of likely Iowa caucusgoers say a Trump conviction would make it more likely that they’d back him, while 18% say it would make them less likely to support him in the general election.
Iowa Democrats are caucusing tomorrow too — but not for president
With all the focus on Iowa’s Republicans, it’s worth noting that Iowa Democrats will also be caucusing tomorrow — but not picking their party’s presidential nominee.
Instead, those who attend Iowa Democratic caucuses will discuss party business and “elect unbound delegates and alternate delegates to county conventions, elect county central committee members and discuss platform resolutions that can be shared at county conventions,” according to the Iowa Democratic Party.
The state party has also begun mailing out “Presidential Preference Cards.” In a new move by the state party, the preference cards have replaced Iowa Democrats’ quirky and arguably convoluted caucusing process after the state was stripped of its first-in-the-nation status.
Instead of shuffling across different corners of a room and realigning if candidates are not viable, Iowa’s Democrats will simply fill in the bubbles for the nominees they prefer and mail in their choices. The last day to request one of the cards (photograph of the card attached) is Feb. 19.
The options on the card this year are Biden, Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and "uncommitted."
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a top surrogate for Biden, exclusively joins "Meet the Press" to discuss Biden’s re-election campaign.
President of Iowa company proposing CO₂ pipeline endorses Trump
A co-founder of a CO₂ pipeline company with tentative — and contentious — plans to build across Iowa endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid yesterday.
Bruce Rastetter, a co-founder of Summit Carbon Solutions, made the announcement at a roundtable hosted by Bloomberg News in Des Moines. “I get back to the guy that’s done it before, rather than the guy that says, ‘I’m going to be just like Donald Trump,’” Rastetter said, per Bloomberg.
On the Summit Agricultural Group’s website, Rastetter added, “No other candidate in the race has done more for the agriculture industry than President Donald Trump."
Summit Carbon Solutions is waiting on state regulators to decide whether it can proceed with construction — and whether it will be granted eminent domain authority — to build an underground carbon-capture pipeline that would move carbon dioxide emitted from ethanol and other industrial plants across midwestern states, including Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota, and sequester it in North Dakota.
Pipeline advocates say they’ll make the ethanol industry more sustainable, but farmers and landowners in the state worry that the pipelines will be forced onto their property through eminent domain, which would allow the government to seize private land for public projects.
Lisa Dircks, a resident of Clarence who says she lives along the proposed pipeline pathway for another company, Wolf Carbon Solutions, worries that allowing private companies to use eminent domain would open up a “Pandora’s Box” for other groups to make similar claims that might eventually degrade landowners’ rights.
“If they take it for us for now for the CO₂ pipeline, who’s to say it can’t be anything else on anybody else’s private property for any other business to come through to grab it for whatever they want?” Dircks said.
Trump's cold-weather calculus
Trump, who spoke admiringly last week about how his supporters would walk on glass to caucus for him, took the metaphors a step further at today's rally.
"You can't sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, you say, 'Darling, I’m going to make it,'" Trump implored attendees. "Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it."
DeSantis and Gov. Kim Reynolds urge Iowans to turn out despite negative temperatures
DeSantis wrapped up a meet-and-greet with about 120 people in attendance in Cedar Rapids, where he derided Trump’s Covid policy, criticized Haley for having “liberal” donors and pitched himself as the only candidate willing “to take the arrows” and “take the slings.”
DeSantis was joined for the first time today by Gov. Kim Reynolds, who encouraged Iowans to turn out to their caucus sites despite the negative temperatures expected tomorrow night. DeSantis also defended Reynolds from the attacks she has faced from Trump since she endorsed DeSantis last year.
Answering questions from attendees, DeSantis threw his support behind the push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and said he would bring on a “serious reckoning” for those who supported Covid-19 lockdowns. He also defended the Second Amendment in the aftermath of the recent Perry High School shooting, telling an audience member who asked about the mass shooting that it was committed by an "underage student that was not even in lawful possession of a firearm.”
Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor pushes back on 'romantic relationship' allegations
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis today addressed the allegations of a “romantic relationship” between her and special prosecutor Nathan Wade by one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case.
In remarks at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta this morning, Willis defended her choice to pick Wade without mentioning him by name.
Willis said her critics might say that "she can play the race card now," but she added, "Isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one” of her hiring decisions?
Willis did not mention the allegations directly. She did call herself "flawed and imperfect" and repeatedly questioned whether race was a motivation in the recent attacks on her and Wade.
The 39-page court filing by an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman seeks to dismiss the charges against Roman, who worked for Trump’s presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. It alleges Willis and Wade have traveled together to Napa Valley, California, and were seen together around Atlanta in a personal capacity even though Wade was married. The filing cited “sources with knowledge” of the situation but provided no direct evidence for the claims.
Willis did not comment further when she left the church. Her office declined to comment.
Willis has accused Roman of racketeering and conspiring to organize “alternate electors” to cast votes for Trump after Biden won the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty.
Trump’s embrace of far-right activist Laura Loomer worries his allies
When DeSantis entered a hotel in Iowa on Friday, he was immediately ambushed by a woman who peppered him with questions about when he would “drop out” of the race and whether he has “already wasted enough of people’s money” as she followed him with a camera.
Afterward, the encounter found its way to social media. The woman — far-right social media influencer Laura Loomer — cut a scene in which she said DeSantis “looked petrified,” adding she believed “his soul left his body when he saw me.”
“He’s going to lose,” Loomer, a twice-failed congressional candidate and self-described “proud Islamophobe,” said in a clip recorded outside the hotel. “President Trump is going to kick his a-- on Monday, Jan. 15. And that’s it for Ron. You killed your political career and I hope you’re happy. You just got Loomered, b----.”
Perhaps more notable than the encounter, though, was which of Loomer’s biggest fans quickly promoted it on social media; Trump plugged the video on his Truth Social account yesterday. It was just the latest in a series of promotions and moments of praise Trump has offered Loomer during the campaign, and it has some allies and advisers worried that he’s giving a figure they see as a fringe, far-right activist too close an embrace — one that could come back to bite him in a general election campaign.