Haley and DeSantis have been absolutely retail-level campaigning in Iowa

[Prairie Gates]

Trump...not so much.

Listen, it's hard not to defer to the polls and the experts here: of course we all expect Trump to clean up in Iowa. But it sure is interesting to see the commitment to being-out-there and doing the handshaking and meet-ups on the one hand, contrasted with the rallies and bluster on the other.

Will the ground-level approach move the needle at all? Iowa's always been an odd place when it comes to that sort of thing.

[Bucky]

1. From what I've read, most Republican delegate contests are winner take all

Any splitting of the non-Trump votes is guaranteeing a Trump win

[Mr.Bill]

2. If Ted Cruz can win there.

anything is on the table.

[JT45242]

3. Plurality take all in almost every R primary...

It is how mango Mussolini won the first time. He just needed to get more than anyone else.

He got an overwhelming delegate lead in 2016 without winning (50%+1) in any state.

They set it up that way to prevent a non establishment candidate from winning and it backfired.

TFG knows, with this field no one is going to get higher than him so even if he was 30%, robot ron got 29, Haley got 28, and everyone else together got 13% that TFG gets all the delegates and a win. The other two just burned a lot of time and money to get nothing.

That may make the convention interesting if he is already convicted and literally no one has a delegate other than TFG.

On the dem side. A showing like that would end with everyone getting some delegates.

TFG and his minions made it that because they wanted to protect him from a sane Republican, if such a thing exists now. But certainly from a never again trumper like Liz Cheney or kinzinger.

[Prairie Gates]

4. Of course

I'm not really talking about the Iowa delegates, but it will be interesting to see if a closer contest than expected moves other primaries at all.

Neither hoping for it nor predicting it. But the difference between the traditional Iowa campaigning and whatever it is Trump's doing now is striking.