Opinion | 8 Iowa Caucus Voters Discuss Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis

We’re days away from the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, and opposite to the standard sense of anticipation, voters there aren’t anticipating any surprises — and so they’re a little bit pissed off about it. “It looks like there’s a front-runner that may’t be beat,” stated Caleb, a 27-year-old who joined a current Occasions Opinion focus group of Iowa voters who plan to attend the G.O.P. caucuses on Monday evening.

The front-runner, in fact, is Donald Trump, who has a roughly 30-point lead in Iowa polls and a fair larger lead in some nationwide polls. We wished to make use of this month’s focus group as a possibility to listen to what Republican voters in Iowa are fascinated about him, the race and the nation normally.

“I suppose I’d pray and hope that Trump may very well be extra just like the outdated Trump than this Trump,” stated Nancy, a 69-year-old retiree. The excellence she made between the “outdated Trump” and the “new Trump” zeroes in on a criticism about him we heard all through our dialog: Many citizens on the suitable help what he stands for and like a lot of what he did as president, however they’re rising bored with his growing focus since Jan. 6, 2021, on complaining about being unfairly handled. “I really feel like proper now all I’m listening to is simply all the things that’s going in opposition to him. It’s simply all of the authorized troubles. I actually haven’t heard a lot about what he’s planning on doing,” stated Brittney, a 38-year-old author.

Nonetheless, a few of our contributors felt that the numerous felony fees introduced in opposition to Mr. Trump solely made them extra sympathetic towards him. “I don’t assume it hurts his capacity to win the nomination in any respect. I’d say it simply strengthens him,” stated Hugh, 57. We requested the eight contributors if a conviction would cease them from voting for the previous president, and 4 stated it will.

If Mr. Trump got here in for criticism, there have been additionally some powerful phrases for his main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who’ve campaigned throughout Iowa for months. Some focus group contributors appreciated Ms. Haley’s presentation and expertise with overseas coverage however have been important of her home agenda (or, they felt, a scarcity thereof). A number of appreciated Mr. DeSantis’s insurance policies however weren’t followers of the person himself. The contributors weren’t supporters of President Biden by any means, however solely half of them stated they have been assured the eventual Republican nominee would win the White Home in November.