While it’s obviously no surprise that it would be fucking freezing during January in the Upper Midwest it may be worth asking what, if anything, the current Accuweather forecast calling for a daytime high of 3° F and then a nighttime low of -5° F (“Real feel” -14°) for Des Moines could mean for turnout in the Iowa Republican caucuses and fat former President Trump’s prohibitive lead.
On one hand of course people there are probably used to this shit, on the other you can contrast with a snowy but far more tolerable low of 32 this Monday, and historical weather data showing a nighttime low of 33 and dry during the February 1, 2016 GOP caucus and a similarly snowless 32 for the 2020 Dem caucus, with turnout in those contests at 186,743 and 176,400, respectively.
Maybe some politics writer who knows the byzantine vagaries of Iowa nominating contests will take a look and and come up with some insanely detailed analysis of what the extreme cold could mean for turnout at some point over the next few days. We can’t speak to any of that, but since we’re already bringing it up we might as well offer the dumb, simplistic take that it maybe could hurt Trump since fans of Nimrata and Tiny D would tend to be more educated and thus concentrated in places with shorter driving distances to their caucus precinct. Equally plausible, at least from our distance, is that old trope about how Trump fans “would crawl through broken glass to vote for him again,” while the others are already deep in the hole against the Orange Messiah and have virtually no chance, so why should Haley or DeSantis fans even bother freezing their asses off to go vote.
Who the hell knows. Considering some Iowan Evangelical just told the AP that Donald “exemplified what Jesus would do” and thinks Democrats are doing to Trump “the same thing they did to Jesus on the cross. I can see a lot of correlation there,” it’s probably going to end up being the latter.
If and when Trump crushes it but overall turnout is significantly lower than past contests it could still prove a fun talking point for Dems to needle the fanboys with. Let them be the ones screaming to explain that it was -5° as if they wouldn’t be doing the same if the shoe was on the other foot.