Brutal cold adds another layer to Republicans' final push in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa — Ahead of Monday's Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential hopefuls have been traversing the state for months, making their cases as to why they are the best candidate to challenge President Biden.

But in the final days before the caucuses, they also had to make another argument: to convince voters to come out in dangerous temperatures.

Monday could be the coldest caucus day on record, with lows at evening caucus time well under zero, and a wind chill that's much colder. The freezing temperatures follow multiple snowstorms that blew through the state in recent days, forcing campaigns to cancel events or move them online.

The forecast — brutal even by Iowa standards — could mean a depressed turnout, and has thrown a curveball into a race that has been remarkably steady for months. Former President Donald Trump has led consistently in the polls, at times by as much as 30 percentage points.

His rivals — mainly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, but also entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — face an uphill battle as they compete for the slice of Republican voters who are ready to put the Trump years behind them.

Closing arguments

On a day of better weather, at an event in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny, Haley made the case that Trump was the right president at the right time, but she is the right candidate now.

"I agree with a lot of his policies, but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him," she said. "You all know it. Chaos follows him. And we can't be a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos because we won't survive it."

Haley is trying to walk a fine line: to attract more moderate or "Never