Frigid temps not deterring Iowans from the caucuses

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Richard Quaid shuffled into the caucus site here at an athletic center sporting a blue “Trump 2024” baseball cap.

The 85-year-old showed his ID to party officials and received a small piece of paper that read “Dallas County Republicans Presidential Straw Poll Official Ballot.”

Mr. Quaid said Mr. Trump shook up Washington once and said he wants him to do it again.

“I think he exposed the Washington underworld, and I am hoping when he gets back in there he can straighten it out,” He said. “The corruption in Washington, D.C. and the spending of money they don’t have — it is ridiculous.”

Mr. Quaid was among the hundreds of voters who braved the cold — Iowa is under a wind chill warning — and started trickling into the sprawling athletic complex here in the Des Moines suburbs.

They settled in on plastic folding chairs at plastic folding tables to begin the caucus, where participants will fill out secret ballots and wait for the results to be tabulated.

Eric Trump also showed up and made small talk with voters as people waited for the process to begin.

Some of the caucusgoers said they were still making up their minds. Others caucusing for the first time and asked fellow voters about how the process would play out.

More than one of the caucusgoers talked about escaping California.

Ellen Waldman was here with her husband to cast her support for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

Ms. Waldman, 71, said she was raised in Iowa but had never participated in a caucus because she had been living outside the state, most recently in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“We feel he is a very proven person with everything he had done in Florida,” she said. “We know he is a fighter and he can serve two terms which I think will be necessary to put the country on the path I think we need to be on.”

Ms. Waldman said Mr. Trump was the right man to serve when he did, but said she soured on him after the 2020 election. She said the nation needs a more unifying figure.

Asked what the temperature was in St. Croix, she did not miss a beat: “85.”