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transcript
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com
^ARCHIVED any questions.
Temperatures are expected to be in the negative double digits in Iowa on Monday night.
And now the roads, the visibility is bad, but —
We have blizzard conditions, so incredibly cold, frostbite happening in minutes.
But this is powdery snow that is going to be easily blown.
I’m Katherine Miller. I’m a staff writer and editor in the Opinion section.
I got to Iowa on Thursday the 11th. This is the third time that I’ve really closely covered these races. This year, I’m here with “The Times” to write about — well, I was supposed to write about a bunch of stuff, but the sort of disorienting thing is, you make a plan and then it changes, and it keeps changing. And you try to do one thing, and then you think it’s going to work. And then the event doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t seem right to get on the road. And so it’s kind of a mess of expectations and realities in Iowa right now.
When our plane landed at Des Moines airport, there was still so much snow on the ground and such heavy winds that there wasn’t enough ground crew to deplane us.
As we were driving into Des Moines, we saw trucks that had to pull over because the snow got too bad. We saw plows coming out.
It’s hard to travel to Cedar Rapids or Waterloo, a couple hours away, when the wind is so bad that plowing the roads doesn’t do anything because it just blows snow over.
It feels like negative 25 outside. I’ve basically just been trapped here in this hotel.
I do think the weather is an election story, but it’s hard to know exactly what it means. To me, anyone who predicts what the weather will do to the results, I don’t know how they could do it. I’ve heard people say that because it’s so cold, there are Trump voters who are going to say, eh, he’s going to win it anyway. I’m not going to go out tonight.
But then I’ve also heard the reverse, where it’s like, oh, Trump has the most committed supporters, so he’ll win by even more. There are people who say Ron DeSantis has been here so much and has built such a strong organization, which does matter in a caucus situation because people have to show up that night, right? So you have to get people to the place where you’re doing the caucus. So if it’s too cold to drive for some people, will somebody go pick them up and take them? And so I’ve heard people say that it will matter for Ron DeSantis, but I’ve also heard people say that the organization itself will matter for the Trump campaign because this time, they’ve really built up an organization. The kind of interesting thing about the caucuses in general, the way the Republican caucus works is different than the Democratic one. The Democratic one, the way it worked for a long time was, there would be groups of people in a room.
They would say they support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and then as the night went on, if there wasn’t enough support for a candidate like John Edwards, let’s say, those supporters would reallocate to another camp and stuff like that. And it’s this sort of interactive process where all these people quite often know each other because they live in the same area, that sort of thing. That’s the Democratic process.
The Republican process is a little different. People walk into a room, people give speeches, and then from there, it’s more similar to just voting. People write down who they’re supporting. It’s private, and they hand it in. Even still, though, they have to show up in person to do that. And so that’s kind of a tricky thing on caucus night.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The windchill on caucus night, I believe, is supposed to be negative 28. Or that’s the forecast. We’ll see what it’s like, but that’s super cold. That’s really cold. It’s crazy that they’re playing football in weather like that. It’s crazy that you’re going to have people come out to vote in weather like that. So it’s — I don’t know. It’s a weird time. It seems like nobody will ever really know exactly what the weather did. They’ll just sort of be able to, after the fact, be like, OK, well, this is how I think the weather affected this thing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
transcript
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com
^ARCHIVED any questions.
Temperatures are expected to be in the negative double digits in Iowa on Monday night.
And now the roads, the visibility is bad, but —
We have blizzard conditions, so incredibly cold, frostbite happening in minutes.
But this is powdery snow that is going to be easily blown.
I’m Katherine Miller. I’m a staff writer and editor in the Opinion section.
I got to Iowa on Thursday the 11th. This is the third time that I’ve really closely covered these races. This year, I’m here with “The Times” to write about — well, I was supposed to write about a bunch of stuff, but the sort of disorienting thing is, you make a plan and then it changes, and it keeps changing. And you try to do one thing, and then you think it’s going to work. And then the event doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t seem right to get on the road. And so it’s kind of a mess of expectations and realities in Iowa right now.
When our plane landed at Des Moines airport, there was still so much snow on the ground and such heavy winds that there wasn’t enough ground crew to deplane us.
As we were driving into Des Moines, we saw trucks that had to pull over because the snow got too bad. We saw plows coming out.
It’s hard to travel to Cedar Rapids or Waterloo, a couple hours away, when the wind is so bad that plowing the roads doesn’t do anything because it just blows snow over.
It feels like negative 25 outside. I’ve basically just been trapped here in this hotel.
I do think the weather is an election story, but it’s hard to know exactly what it means. To me, anyone who predicts what the weather will do to the results, I don’t know how they could do it. I’ve heard people say that because it’s so cold, there are Trump voters who are going to say, eh, he’s going to win it anyway. I’m not going to go out tonight.
But then I’ve also heard the reverse, where it’s like, oh, Trump has the most committed supporters, so he’ll win by even more. There are people who say Ron DeSantis has been here so much and has built such a strong organization, which does matter in a caucus situation because people have to show up that night, right? So you have to get people to the place where you’re doing the caucus. So if it’s too cold to drive for some people, will somebody go pick them up and take them? And so I’ve heard people say that it will matter for Ron DeSantis, but I’ve also heard people say that the organization itself will matter for the Trump campaign because this time, they’ve really built up an organization. The kind of interesting thing about the caucuses in general, the way the Republican caucus works is different than the Democratic one. The Democratic one, the way it worked for a long time was, there would be groups of people in a room.
They would say they support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and then as the night went on, if there wasn’t enough support for a candidate like John Edwards, let’s say, those supporters would reallocate to another camp and stuff like that. And it’s this sort of interactive process where all these people quite often know each other because they live in the same area, that sort of thing. That’s the Democratic process.
The Republican process is a little different. People walk into a room, people give speeches, and then from there, it’s more similar to just voting. People write down who they’re supporting. It’s private, and they hand it in. Even still, though, they have to show up in person to do that. And so that’s kind of a tricky thing on caucus night.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The windchill on caucus night, I believe, is supposed to be negative 28. Or that’s the forecast. We’ll see what it’s like, but that’s super cold. That’s really cold. It’s crazy that they’re playing football in weather like that. It’s crazy that you’re going to have people come out to vote in weather like that. So it’s — I don’t know. It’s a weird time. It seems like nobody will ever really know exactly what the weather did. They’ll just sort of be able to, after the fact, be like, OK, well, this is how I think the weather affected this thing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
By Katherine Miller
Produced by Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger
Iowa is in a deep freeze. Subzero temperatures — and a blizzard — have thrown many of the weekend’s highly choreographed events into question, leaving observers wondering if the weather could alter the election results. In this audio report from the frozen Hawkeye state, Opinion writer Katherine Miller describes what it’s like to cover the historic caucus and considers how the inclement weather might affect voting.
(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 48 hours on the Times website.)
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram.
This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta.
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