Maybe it was the apocalyptically cold weather, with wind chills reaching -43 degrees Fahrenheit. Or the narrow field of candidates and an anxious electorate fearing the prospect of the first election rerun since the 1956 rematch between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson.
For some reason, the usual media circus that accompanies the Iowa caucuses has felt smaller this year, literally and spiritually.
The number of accredited journalists fell to 1,200, from 2,600 four years ago. Some big-name television stars stayed home. The lobby bar of the Des Moines Marriott Downtown, once a bustling, gossip-soaked hub of reporters, anchors and agents based in Washington and Manhattan, was a ghost town Saturday night. The subdued vibe was best summed up by a T-shirt for sale in the hotel's gift shop:
“Election 2024: Well, I guess we're going to do this again”.
Between low levels of voter interest, declining debate ratings and a poll lead for Donald J. Trump that has undermined much of the usual suspense, signs of unease had emerged in the media even before the Last week's snowstorm dumped 22.9 inches of snow on Des Moines.
In a CNN debate, Steve Peoples of The Associated Press observed that the spin room (usually a hothouse of jostling spokespeople) was “virtually empty” except for Griff II, a “double-chinned” bulldog mascot.whose face tells the story of this campaign.” Dave Weigel, a career warrior reporting for Semafor, called the caucus a “cold, miserable path to Trump's inevitable victory in Iowa.” Jonathan Martin, another veteran correspondent, wrote about “this disjointed excuse for a presidential primary.”
I called Mr. Martin, a Politico columnist, on Sunday to get his take on Iowa's media scene. It turned out he was already back in Washington.
“I just left,” he said, laughing.
Martin, who previously worked as a correspondent for The New York Times, spent a week in Iowa, but returned home once the snowstorm hit and the campaigns canceled many of their events. “There are definitely stories that matter there, but there are still far fewer candidates in the race” than in 2020, he said. “And Trump's lead is considerably larger than past favorites.” For the first time in a long career, he plans to see the caucus results somewhere other than Iowa.
Some television networks also reduced their footprint. “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC mainstay that typically moves to Iowa and New Hampshire in election years, skips both states. ABC's David Muir, who reported from Iowa the night of the 2020 caucus, will anchor in New York on Monday. Norah O'Donnell had planned to be in Des Moines, but CBS decided to keep her in Washington after the weather altered the candidates' plans.
On Saturday, as temperatures dropped below freezing, nearly all candidate events were ruled out. So reporters headed to a West Des Moines office park to see Ron DeSantis, betting that the 10-minute drive from downtown would be short enough not to put anyone's life at risk. (The occasional sight of an abandoned trailer on the interstate suggests otherwise.)
Inside, Bob Vander Plaats, an evangelical leader from Iowa, dismissed tough polls for his candidate. “The media does not select the winner of our caucus,” he shouted. “You Select our caucus winner! Unfortunately, a good portion of the crowd were, in fact, members of the media. If there were Iowans in the room, they were hard to find: A reporter looking for local color approached an assistant who turned out to be a Times editor.
News networks still employ “embedders,” who follow candidates across the country, and dozens of television journalists were in Iowa to cover the caucus. But while elections are typically a time of prosperity for ratings and revenue (and star-making opportunities for the brave journalists assigned to an upstart candidate), this year's circumstances are testing even that truism.
The recent Republican primary debates, which Trump boycotted, were among the worst-rated in history. Networks are under financial pressure (NBC News just announced dozens of layoffs) and some journalists wonder whether Trump's legal entanglements will prove more decisive than events down the road.
“I watch TV and half the time it's legal experts talking about Trump, not Iowa journalists talking about Iowa,” Semafor's Weigel said, while tending a Manhattan rye at a Des Moines bar Saturday night. “We have journalists out here in unsanitary conditions. I'm thinking, 'I just watched your producer risk hypothermia to see Ron DeSantis.' Put him in!'”
Whether candidates' appearances can influence voters is another question. With the increasingly nationalized nature of presidential politics and the rise of social media, Trump is the favorite to score an easy victory on Monday despite spending much less time in Iowa than his rivals.
“Republican voters are asking what they saw on Fox News the night before,” said Pat Rynard, an Iowa journalist who oversees political coverage for Courier Newsroom, an online site. “There are a lot fewer questions specific to Iowa, or even questions specific to their own lives or their own jobs. What people are most excited about is what appeared on their Facebook account.”
Rynard, whose Iowa Starting Line website was a popular campaign read in 2020, said he expected voter turnout to be lower on Monday, regardless of the weather. This year's caucus, he said, “just hasn't been as interesting or as dynamic.”
The same could be said of the social scene of journalists. Four years ago, Tammy Haddad, the dean of Washington, imported her upscale Georgetown benefit to Des Moines, calling it the Snowflake Garden Brunch. This time she chose not to participate. “A sub-zero backyard brunch doesn't have the same vibe,” she wrote in a text message.
A crowd showed up at the newly renovated Fort Des Moines Hotel, home of Trump's campaign team and an assortment of MAGA semi-celebrities like Kari Lake, the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate. Trump's advisers gathered nightly in the Edison-bulb atmosphere of the hotel's cocktail bar, In Confidence, although for a speakeasy, the place insisted on many rules: A bartender forbade revelers from borrowing a bar stool. a completely empty table. So much for Iowa Nice.
As for the Marriott lobby, where seeing Mitt Romney carrying his own roller bag in 2012 counted as a major event, the usual crowd failed to materialize. Vanity Fair once described the bar as “great for seeing if there's someone more important or attractive behind the person you're talking to.” This weekend, the Washington Post's Josh Dawsey was heard calling it “dying.”
On Sunday night, with the caucus just hours away, a handful of journalists entertained themselves with a few beers. By midnight, it had almost emptied.
