Trump’s supporters stand for hours in the cold to see him in Iowa a day before the GOP caucuses

INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — Marc Smiarowski hunched over to fight off the minus 18-degree Fahrenheit (minus 28 degrees Celsius) chill on Sunday, waiting for the doors to open for Donald Trump’s midday rally at a small college outside Des Moines.

But as the weak winter sun hung low in the sky, a sense of bitterness burned in Smiarowski.

“I’m here in part out of spite,” said the 44-year-old public utility worker who drove 40 miles from Huneston to see the former president. “I can’t abandon him. After what they did to him in the last election, and the political persecution he faces, I feel like I owe him this. He’s our only option.”

His friend Kailie Johnson, a 26-year-old dental hygienist from the same small town, was wrapped in a Las Vegas Raiders blanket. “No one else could handle what he’s facing,” Johnson sai.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«Other news» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Other news </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Iowa principal who risked his life to protect students during a high school shooting has died </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Trump’s campaign banks on its loyal supporters to turn out and caucus in Iowa despite frigid weather<use xlink:href="#play-icon" xmlns:xlink=«http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink»> </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Caitlin Clark stars with 30 as No. 3 Iowa defeats No. 14 Indiana 84-57 before 13,000 despite snow </bsp-custom-headline> </bsp-list-loadmore>

More than 30 minutes before the doors opened at Simpson College, Smiarowski and Johnson stood in