Donald Trump returns to Iowa with big lead in caucus polls

Former President Donald Trump urged his supporters Friday evening not to be complacent in the face of a commanding polling lead as he kicked off the sprint to the Iowa caucuses with his first events of the election year.

“Ten days from now, the people of this state are going to cast the most important vote of your entire lives,” Trump told several hundred supporters gathered in Sioux Center. He implored them to turn out on caucus night, warning, “Bad things happen when you sit back.”

Trump held a pair of commit-to-caucus events, one in the far northwest corner of the state on the border with South Dakota and one in north-central Mason City. He’ll spend Saturday in Newton in central Iowa before heading to Clinton in the state’s far east.

Trump also asked at one point in Sioux Center whether there was anyone in the friendly room who wasn’t planning to vote for him, but then quickly warned them not to raise their hands.

“They’re going to say he incited an insurrection,” he said to laughs.

And over and over, he repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

“Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption, and failure,” Trump told the crowd in Sioux Center. “That’s why Crooked Joe is staging his pathetic fearmongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today.”

Trump’s team is hoping for a knockout win in Iowa on Jan. 15 that will deny his rivals an opportunity to seize momentum and set the table for him to lock up the nomination by the spring. They also hope to turn out a wave of new voters who have never caucused before in a show of strength ahead of an increasingly likely general election rematch against Biden.

“You have to get out and vote because it sets the tone. It even sets the tone, frankly, for November,” Trump said in Mason City.

While he remains far ahead in Iowa and other early state and national polls, Trump also continued to lash out at his top Republican rivals, unleashing some of his most pointed attacks to date against former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has seen growing support in recent months following a series of well-reviewed debate performances.

Trump tried to cast both her and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was once the only rival he criticized, as “establishment pawns,” alleging they would “sell” voters “out.” DeSantis, who has staked his campaign on Iowa, entered the race with sky-high expectations but has struggled to gain traction against Trump.

“Sadly, the establishment losers and sellouts lagging far behind us in the Republican primary cannot be trusted on taxes, on trade, or anything else,” Trump charged. “They’ll betray you just like they betrayed me.”

DeSantis, campaigning across central and northeastern parts of the state, also repeatedly told his crowds of about 100 people that Trump failed to follow through with his previous campaign promises and accused the former president of running a campaign all about himself.

While Trump last visited Iowa before Christmas, his allies have been fanning out across the state, holding their own events on his behalf. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who are both considered potential vice presidential picks, have been working to get out the vote in recent days, as has his son Eric Trump.