2024 Elections: Latest news on the Iowa caucuses

All eyes will be on the race to secure the Republican nomination, with front-runner Donald Trump expected to cement his commanding lead over his rivals in the polls as the likes of Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy seek to make an impact and prove they have the support to mount a meaningful challenge.

For Democrats, the matter is much more straightforward: they will simply gather in gyms, schools, libraries and churches across the state’s 1,657 precincts (spread over 99 counties) to elect delegates to send to the county conventions in March, the next step to selecting the delegates that will attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

Despite sub-zero temperatures and snow being forecast, the state Republican Party chair Jeff Kaufmann has insisted: “We have done everything humanly possible to ensure that this caucus comes off without a hitch.”

So when can we expect to find out the results?

In a section on crime at Wednesday night’s debate, Ron DeSantis attacked Donald Trump over his response to the civil unrest and riots following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

“He sat in the White House and tweeted ‘law and order,’ but he did nothing to ensure law and order,” DeSantis says of Trump. “As your president, I’ll never let our cities burn.”

He completed the “Full Grassley,” named for Iowa’s long-serving Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, where he visited all 99 counties in the state. He made the hard sell at Iowa’s State Fair. He received the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s governor, and Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the Iowa Family Leader and a kingmaker in the state whose support of Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz all played a role in their victories in the caucuses.

But is this going to be his last stand of the 2024 election cycle?

Eric Garcia and Gustaf Kilander report for The Independent:

A member of Florida Gov Ron DeSantis’ security team brought a protester to the ground at the 2024 hopeful’s campaign event in Iowa.

Videos from Thursday’s campaign event show the demonstrator standing up in the middle of Mr DeSantis’ speech, holding up a yellow banner that read “DeSantis: Climate Criminal” while yelling, “how much money are you taking from oil companies?”

Footage captured the security guard quickly crossing the stage in front of the Republican nominee and tackling the protester. Mr DeSantis appeared alarmed at first as he watched the scene play out.

A man in Iowa stood up at a recent town hall and told Ron DeSantis he had an “easy” question: how would the Florida governor address abortion when it’s sure to be a big issue in the coming 2024 presidential election?

DeSantis said he’d talk about it “the same way I did in Florida. I just articulated kind of, you know, where we were, what we do.”

He continued for nearly four minutes without using the word “abortion.” He instead criticized his rival Donald Trump for failing to appear in debates and Nikki Haley for her campaign trail gaffes.

Abortion has largely been absent as an issue in the lead-up to this year’s Iowa Republican caucuses, a remarkable change in a state that has long backed religious conservatives vowing to restrict the procedure. Part of the change is because Republicans achieved a generational goal when the Supreme Court overturned a federally guaranteed right to abortion. But it also underscores a pervasive fear among Republican candidates and voters alike that vocalizing their desire to further restrict abortion rights in 2024 has become politically dangerous.

Democrats outperformed expectations in the 2022 midterms and several state races last year campaigning on the issue. And President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign plans to make abortion rights central to its strategy this year.

After a testy two hours on the debate stage at Drake University on Wednesday night, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley were asked what they admire about each other.

When asked what he admires about Haley, DeSantis gave a long answer about South Carolina, her time as governor there, and the people there.

When asked what she admires about DeSantis, Haley kept it short and not so sweet, replying: “I think he has been a good governor.”

Wednesday night’s duelling displays proved favourable for Mr Trump, whose Fox News town hall was watched by 4.3 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research.

By contrast, Ms Haley and Mr DeSantis appeared on CNN at the same time but were only viewed by 2.6 million people.

The competing events were broadcast just days before the Iowa caucuses — the first-in-the-nation chance for voters to officially throw their support behind the candidates of their choice.

Griff, the Drake University mascot, who was king of the spin room on debate night.

He didn’t have to be there, and according to his attorneys, he didn’t want to be. Days earlier, Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to convince a judge to postpone closing arguments in his fraud trial altogether, until the end of the month, so he could be with his family after the death of his mother-in-law.

Instead, the former president turned a hallway inside New York State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan into a press conference. As he has done several times over the last four months, he sat with his lawyers at the defence table, where he was photographed in images blasted across news networks and on social media. But for the first time, he used the microphone in front of him to lash out at the judge in front of him, the attorney general suing him, and the case itself.

Hours earlier, he was in Iowa, answering a round of softball questions from a supportive Fox News audience on a brightly lit stage that looked more like a game show than a town hall.

After he left Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom, Mr Trump went to one of his brand-building properties in New York City to give a press conference aired on the same network.

The chain of events underscored his reliance on his growing legal battles for his own campaign for the presidency, using his criminal and civil cases to cast himself as a victim of political persecution, while telling his supporters that what he claims is a conspiracy against him will come for them, too, unless he stops them.

The trials have become his campaign, packed with court appearances, and the campaign is his chance to bury the charges, if elected.