Opinion | 8 Iowa Caucus Voters Talk about 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 just a little annoyed about it. “It looks like there’s a front-runner that may’t be beat,” mentioned Caleb, a 27-year-old who joined a latest Occasions Opinion focus group of Iowa voters who plan to attend the G.O.P. caucuses on Monday night time.

The front-runner, in fact, is Donald Trump, who has a roughly 30-point lead in Iowa polls and a fair greater 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 generally.

“I suppose I’d pray and hope that Trump might be extra just like the outdated Trump than this Trump,” mentioned Nancy, a 69-year-old retiree. The excellence she made between the “outdated Trump” and the “new Trump” zeroes in on a grievance about him we heard all through our dialog: Many citizens on the proper help what he stands for and like a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

Nonetheless, a few of our contributors felt that the numerous legal fees introduced towards Mr. Trump solely made them extra sympathetic towards him. “I don’t assume it hurts his skill to win the nomination in any respect. I’d say it simply strengthens him,” mentioned Hugh, 57. We requested the eight contributors if a conviction would cease them from voting for the previous president, and 4 mentioned 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 international coverage however had 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 mentioned they had been assured the eventual Republican nominee would win the White Home in November.