Final Iowa poll sets stage for caucuses: Live

Iowa Republican Gov Kim Reynolds has been using an X account — unassociated with her official position — to roast former president Donald Trump.

The New York Times first reported the existence of the burner account, which has since been taken down. The Independent has reached out to Ms Reynolds’ office.

From The Independent’s John Bowden, on the ground in Iowa:

Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis continued campaigning across Iowa on Sunday, but only one of them enjoyed a boost from some last-minute Washington star power.

Ms Haley’s campaign rallied voters in Ames with aid from Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who praised the former governor and ambassador for “intestinal fortitude” as she hopes to rout Mr DeSantis and push him into an embarrassing third place finish.

Mr DeSantis, meanwhile, grappled with his total inability to win endorsements from lawmakers in his home state. The latest blow came in the form of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the state’s senior GOP senator, who spurned his governor to endorse Donald Trump on Sunday.

The endorsement of Mr Rubio for Trump came after he had previously told reporters that he had not to spoken to Mr DeSantis in months, a common theme among Florida’s GOP electeds in DC.

The latest poll out of Iowa found that nearly half of Nikki Haley supporters would vote for President Joe Biden over Donald Trump should the election ultimately come to a rematch from 2020.

It showed that if Mr Trump and Mr Biden are pitted against each other in November, 43 per cent of Ms Haley’s supporters said they would support the latter.

The surprising statistic underscores Ms Haley’s success in drawing support from independents.

Here’s a quick recap of what went down on Wednesday night at Drake University:

From The Independent’s John Bowden, on the ground in Iowa:

Much of Iowa remained below zero on the thermometer Sunday, but that didn’t seem to phase Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis’s campaigns, which continued along at full steam across the state with multiple in-person events for both candidates announced in the final 48 hours of the race.

Early Saturday evening DeSantis and Haley staffers could both be seen arriving at the snow-covered Des Moines airport.

The two Republican rivals were both criscrossing the state on Sunday for a handful of in-person events as a new CBS poll came out showing them both leading Joe Biden in general election matchups.

They remain in hot competition for second place in the polls, which over the weekend showed Ms Haley pulling ahead by a few percentage points.

Having been forced to roll back most of his pre-caucus plans in Iowa, Mr Trump headlined a telerally on Saturday night in Des Moines.

The event didn’t manage to bring in many attendees – or many viewers online, according to onlookers.

Mr Trump is slated to host two other telerallies on Sunday and Monday as his campaign insists they are doing everything they can to keep up momentum before the caucuses.

“We’re gonna be out there seeing people and shaking hands,” Senior Campaign Advisor Jason Miller told ABC News. “A lot of activities going around.”

Mr Miller added: “Any of the events that President Trump has are larger than every DeSanctimonious and Nikki Haley event combined. And so you can’t look at it in the exact same context. They’re having a tough time filling up a phone booth with people, whereas every time President Trump shows up somewhere, there are thousands of people.”

After the final pre-caucus poll in Iowa put her at just 20 per cent of the vote (compared to Donald Trump’s 48 per cent), Nikki Haley insisted she isn’t breaking a sweat.

The presidential hopeful told Fox News on Sunday: “I’m not a political pollster. I’m not gonna worry about the numbers. What I am gonna say is the momentum and the energy on the ground is strong. We feel it. We know that this is moving in the right direction.

“The only numbers that matter are the ones that were going up, and everybody else went down.

“I think Iowans will decide intensity tomorrow. We’re just excited that tomorrow’s the day. It’s go time and we’re gonna keep crisscrossing the state. We’ve done that for days, now we’re going to keep doing it and I think the intensity will show tomorrow.”

The Independent’s John Bowden is on the ground in Iowa providing updates ahead of Monday’s caucuses.

Here is his latest dispatch:

Candidates continued their respective last-minute pushes in Iowa on Saturday and into Sunday morning, despite bitter subzero temperatures and a biting wind that left most roads in outright dangerous conditions across the state.
Donald Trump cancelled events on Saturday and was due for an in-person appearance Sunday afternoon — his campaign has largely checked out of in=person events as a new NBC/DMR poll shows him leading the state by double digits.
Nikki Haley. Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis all pushed ahead in person, working their respective audiences and making a final push for voters on Monday. Ms Haley picked up a weekend endorsement from anti-Trump Republican Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, while Mr DeSantis saw his campaign tailed by liberal pranksters and his poll numbers dropping him into third place.

The Iowa Caucus, the first major political event of the year, will go ahead on Monday, as parts of the state continue to grapple with blizzard conditions and sub-zero temperatures,

The poll shows former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley narrowly edging Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for second place, although the gap is within the poll’s margin of error, according to NBC.

The poll shows Mr Trump commanding 48 per cent of the vote, with Ms Haley taking 20 per cent and Mr DeSantis on 16 per cent.

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