Final day ahead of caucuses begins with Trump boosted by new poll

CNN —

Donald Trump begins the last day of campaigning in bitter cold Iowa before Monday’s caucuses, boosted by new polling showing him with a dominant lead among Hawkeye State Republicans, as his closest competitors continue their jockeying for second place.

Trump leads the pack with 48% of likely caucus-goers naming him as their top choice, according to the Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley getting 20% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16%

Iowa’s most important poll has set the expectations for the GOP caucuses

The poll’s release kicked off a frenetic final day ahead of what’s expected to be the coldest caucus on record, and Iowa’s iciest January day in at least five years, with wind chills as low as 40-degrees below zero. The frigid forecast, coming on the heels of a week of extreme weather, largely forced Republicans off the trail and onto Zoom calls and tele-town halls, creating at least one element of uncertainty in a slog of a campaign that Trump has always seemed destined to dominate.

“Our grassroots supporters have put us in position to win, and now we have to show up to Caucus for President Trump on Monday and get the job done,” Trump said in a statement late Saturday, after the poll’s release. “We have to show up.”

Questions and concerns over how the weather will affect voter turnout are looming over the final furlongs of the race for Iowa, which effectively began more than a year ago and have throughout appeared to be Trump’s to lose. It seems now that the only way he might would be if his backers took the result for granted and chose their warm living rooms over polar passage to the caucus sites.

The