Inside the GOP candidates' Iowa strategies
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Donald Trump has dropped by Iowa occasionally. Nikki Haley has been here more often, and Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have been blanketing the state in advance of the Jan. 15 GOP caucuses.
Why it matters: Their differing approaches to the first contest of the 2024 primary season sheds light on how each candidate views Iowa, and their strategies for moving forward, Axios' Sophia Cal and Alex Thompson write.
State of play: While Trump is widely expected to win the Iowa caucuses, the GOP campaigns and their boosters will be paying particular attention to the margins of victory in Iowa, and then New Hampshire.
- That's because in the early days of primary season, momentum — and meeting expectations — can be everything.
Zoom in: Trump, with a big lead in the polls, has stuck mostly with big rallies in urban centers and help from surrogates such as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Meanwhile, an analysis of the other GOP candidates' travel and event schedules in Iowa, gleaned from data collected by the Des Moines Register, reveals how they've tried to carve into Trump's lead — or do well enough to survive until the next contest, in New Hampshire.
- DeSantis and Ramaswamy claim to have visited all 99 Iowa counties.
- Haley has emphasized campaign stops in Iowa's voter-dense suburbs.
Be smart: The Register notes that its candidate tracker includes only scheduled public events, and not the type of small informal gatherings such as when a candidate stops at a diner.
Related: Our full Iowa GOP analysis