DES MOINES, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump isn’t just looking to win Iowa’s GOP caucuses on Monday. He’s looking for a big win.
For that, he’ll need supporters like Gene Pinegar to show up.
Pinegar, a 72 year-old veteran from Marshall County, has never attended a Republican caucus before. A self-described independent, he registered with the Republican Party just so he can participate this year and support the former president.
“Donald Trump deserves me going, with all the crap that the Democrats put him through,” Pinegar told NBC News in a phone interview on Saturday morning. “You know, I can stand up for him, too.”
A new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released Saturday finds Trump dominating among first-time caucusgoers, with 56% saying he is their first-choice candidate.
Just 14% back former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, while 13% support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 11% back entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
That translates to more support for Trump and Ramaswamy among first-time caucusgoers than among likely caucusgoers overall, and slightly less support for Haley and DeSantis than among the total GOP electorate, according to the poll. The overall results are 48% for Trump, 20% for Haley, 16% for DeSantis and 8% for Ramaswamy.
“Logic would have suggested that the way the challengers were going to make a better showing would be to bring new people in,” said veteran Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, who conducted the survey. “And it appears from these data that did not happen to the degree that Trump brought new people in.”
Trump’s early-state director Alex Latcham said in a phone interview that Trump’s strength among first-time caucusgoers reflects his popularity Iowa more broadly, noting that Trump has “fundamentally transformed the nature of this state.”
Iowa twice supported former Democratic President Barack Obama before flipping to Trump in 2016 and 2020. Trump ran up his margins in rural areas and brought more blue-collar voters to the GOP in Iowa and across the country, thanks in part to a populist message and hard-line stances on issues like immigration.
“I looked at everybody, but he’s my only choice,” Jamila Jones, who is planning to caucus for the first time because she’s concerned about the southern border and human trafficking, said in a recent interview with NBC News.
The hard part
Trump campaign officials stressed they are not relying solely on first-time voters to secure a victory.
“We’re prioritizing turning everybody out, whether they’re a Trump supporter, a first-time caucusgoer,” Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said at the campaign’s Iowa headquarters in Urbandale on Saturday as volunteers worked the phones at tables around him.
But first-timers could boost Trump’s potential margin of victory as he has called for a decisive win.
“We’re looking to set records,” Trump told supporters during a tele-rally Friday night, according to audio of the rally obtained by NBC News. If recent polling is any indication of Monday night’s results, Trump could break the GOP’s 13-point record for a caucus victory.
Gary Leffler, a precinct captain for the Trump campaign in West Des Moines who was at Trump’s headquarters on Saturday, said turning out first-timers is “an insurance policy.”
For campaigns, that insurance policy can be expensive and time consuming.
First-time caucusgoers are less likely to turn out, with just 37% saying they will definitely caucus in the new NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll. Overall, 55% of likely caucusgoers say they will definitely attend a caucus. Among first-time caucusgoers who support Trump, 38% say they will definitely caucus.
“What it requires is a lot of information,” said veteran Iowa Republican strategist David Kochel. “It’s having them on an email list, a text list, a direct mail list so you can constantly be educating them on what the caucus process is.”
The Trump campaign has made a concerted effort to target and turn out new caucusgoers. Precinct captains were tasked with getting at least 10 first-timers to commit to caucusing, and doing so could earn them a trip to the Republican National Convention in July where they could meet Trump.
Leffler, the Trump precinct captain, said he has secured his 10 Trump supporters and they told him, “Come hell or high water, we’re coming out.”
The Trump campaign is also leveraging voter data collected at Trump events over the last several years, deploying a more organized operation than the 2016 campaign, when Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz defeated Trump in Iowa by 3 percentage points.
This year, Trump rallygoers waiting in line for hours outside of the event space are greeted by multiple volunteers asking for their contact information and to sign “commit-to-caucus” cards. At Trump campaign headquarters on Saturday, two dozen stacks of those cards, each about a foot high, sat on a table at the side of the room.
Trump rallies also begin with videos explaining how to find a caucus location and how to participate, including one video featuring a cartoon caucusgoer named Marlon. The pre-show programming often features panels with state leaders discussing the ins and outs of caucus night.
“This is all part of a strategy to demystify the caucus process,” Latcham, Trump’s early-state director, said in a separate interview in December.
First-time caucusgoer Josh Blegen, 44, of Benton County received a text from the Trump campaign with the Marlon video, and he said in a phone interview that it helped him understand the process. As snow fell late Friday afternoon, Blegen was looking up his caucus site, and he was leaning toward supporting Trump.
Other candidates target first-timers
Trump isn’t the only candidate targeting first-time caucusgoers, who are more likely to be younger men with lower levels of education, per the NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll.
Ramaswamy believes new caucusgoers could help him “shatter expectations” in Iowa, saying in a recent interview with the NBC News and The Des Moines Register that polling is “badly underestimating” his support among that group.
Around half of attendees at Ramaswamy events are not registered Republicans, and the other half are split between traditional caucusgoers and registered Republicans who do not typically caucus, said Ramaswamy campaign spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, citing data from commit-to-caucus cards and event RSVPs.
“We know that Vivek voters exist, but it means us having to drag them out,” McLaughlin said, explaining that the campaign’s decision to stop broadcast television ads was in part to shift resources to more targeted digital efforts aimed at first-time caucusgoers, pushing videos explaining the caucus on Instagram and TikTok.
Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement that Haley “is reaching out and bringing in all kinds of voters, and her message for a strong and proud America is resonating. The Republican Party should be a story of addition, not subtraction.”
DeSantis’ campaign and allies are also looking to turn out newcomers. Never Back Down, the super PAC behind the pro-DeSantis turnout operation, is communicating “nearly every day” with DeSantis supporters and has “tens of thousands of first-time caucusgoers on board” to caucus for DeSantis, said Jess Szymanski, the group’s spokesperson.
Bob Van Der Plaats, a prominent Iowa evangelical leader who has endorsed DeSantis, noted a robust turnout operation is crucial for turning out new caucusgoers.
“Everybody’s always a little sensitive about [their] first time doing anything,” Van Der Plaats said after addressing Never Back Down volunteers at the group’s Urbandale headquarters on Saturday. “Throw the weather in, it’s a good excuse to stay home. So the big deal is — that’s why organization matters. Get your people to the caucus.”
The frigid temperatures expected Monday night aren’t going to stop Pinegar, the pro-Trump first-time caucusgoer. As he spoke on the phone while plowing snow with his tractor, Pinegar said he would definitely show up on Monday night to support Trump.
“I’m going to go stand with him — and freeze, maybe,” Pinegar said.
