Kamala Harris warns of Republicans posing "profound threat" to freedoms Vice-President Kamala Harris said “freedom is under profound threat” in a speech in South Carolina to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr Day. The vice-president spoke as Republicans campaigned around Iowa in the final push to sway voters before the caucus began this evening. Democrats aren’t holding an Iowa caucus this year, after shifting their calendar to make South Carolina the first official primary because Iowa and New Hampshire’s voters don’t represent the diversity of the party. Republicans set their Iowa caucus on MLK day to maintain its status as the first election contest, but the fact that it was a federal holiday didn’t seem to enter into the decision. Harris cited MLK’s iconic “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, where the civil rights leader wrote that “the goal of America is freedom”. “And so, as we gather to honor his legacy, I pose a question I believe Dr. King would today ask: In 2024, where exactly is America in our fight for freedom?…As Vice President of the United States, I’d say: At this moment, in America, freedom is under profound threat,” she said. Speaking at an NAACP event, Harris sought to make the case that supporting Democrats in this year’s elections would protect freedoms in the wake of attacks on reproductive rights, book bans and voting rights. She implored attendees to join the fight against these restrictions by voting blue in 2024. “This generation now has fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers,” she said. “It is not hypothetical that from kindergarten to 12th grade, this generation has had to endure active shooter drills. Our children, who should be in a classroom fulfilling their God-given potential and exploring their wonder for the beauty of the world, instead have to worry that someone might burst through their classroom door with a gun. It is not hypothetical. When students go to vote, they often have to wait in line for hours because of laws that intentionally make it more difficult for them to cast a ballot.” Donald Trump Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle are in Ankeny, Iowa, telling voters they need to show up tonight to support Trump Sr, despite the frigid weather. Guilfoyle laid out the high stakes for the election, saying Trump is the only choice to get the country back on track and that the country will be unrecognizable if Trump doesn’t take back the White House. Trump Jr took jabs at Nikki Haley, Trump’s closest competitor, and said people needed to vote tonight despite Trump polling well ahead. “They’re trying desperately to suppress the vote by saying you have it in the bag,” he said. Ron DeSantis is set to make a closing pitch at Jersey’s pub and Grub in Cedar Rapids as Iowans prepare to head to their caucus sites Monday evening. Wyatt Landuyt-Kruger, 22, is plans to caucus for DeSantis and said he’s going straight from this event to his caucus site. The caucuses are at 7pm and people aren’t let in if they arrive late. “He’s principled, he’s got good conservative values,” he said. He added that he doesn’t believe the polls, which show DeSantis with the support of 16% of caucusgoers, trailing Nikki Haley (20%) and Donald Trump (48%). “I don’t listen to the polls at all,” he said. “I think the polls elevate Trump because they know Trump would get beaten by Trump in a general election.” Kevin Rigdon, another DeSantis supporter here, said he started following the Florida governor and was impressed with how he ran the state during the Covid-19 pandemic. Donald Trump Jr and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle are running very late for a campaign stop at a bar in Ankeny, Iowa. “Do you think we’ll still make it to the caucus?” one anxious supporter asked the Guardian. Patiently hanging on is Blake Marnell, 59, who works in sales and lives in San Diego, California. He is one of the peculiar characters thrown up by the Trump era: he is wearing his trademark brick-patterned suit, a symbol of his support for Trump’s border wall, along with a “Maga” cap signed by Trump. He says the suit was marketed in Britain for stag parties and he bought it off the internet. “These are suits made for bachelor parties in London where the lads all want to go out for a night drinking but the dress code at the club says you must wear suits, so there’s this industry of semi-disposable suits with garish patterns.” Marnell estimates he has been to between 35 and 40 Trump rallies and confidently predicts the former president will win the Iowa caucuses. “I believe President Trump will win. I think everybody knows that so the real question is by how much? If you go by polling, I think that he will be over 50%.” The “Brick Man” is also looking forward to seeing the president’s eldest son in action soon. “He’s an excellent speaker for President Trump, for his father, because one thing that a lot of President Trump’s surrogates don’t have but Donald Trump Jr does have is they share the same sense of humour: at times irreverent, at times offensive to some people, at times perhaps people might think it’s a little bit too much, but if you’re a fan of President Trump and his humour, you’re also going to be a fan of Don Jr. “The politician that supports President Trump won’t have the freedom or the latitude to say things because they have to worry about their constituency back home and how that impacts their office. Donald Trump Jr? No filters. He can say what he wants to say. He can say what he’s feeling and people understand that and they gravitate towards him.” Kamala Harris warns of Republicans posing "profound threat" to freedoms Vice-President Kamala Harris said “freedom is under profound threat” in a speech in South Carolina to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr Day. The vice-president spoke as Republicans campaigned around Iowa in the final push to sway voters before the caucus began this evening. Democrats aren’t holding an Iowa caucus this year, after shifting their calendar to make South Carolina the first official primary because Iowa and New Hampshire’s voters don’t represent the diversity of the party. Republicans set their Iowa caucus on MLK day to maintain its status as the first election contest, but the fact that it was a federal holiday didn’t seem to enter into the decision. Harris cited MLK’s iconic “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, where the civil rights leader wrote that “the goal of America is freedom”. “And so, as we gather to honor his legacy, I pose a question I believe Dr. King would today ask: In 2024, where exactly is America in our fight for freedom?…As Vice President of the United States, I’d say: At this moment, in America, freedom is under profound threat,” she said. Speaking at an NAACP event, Harris sought to make the case that supporting Democrats in this year’s elections would protect freedoms in the wake of attacks on reproductive rights, book bans and voting rights. She implored attendees to join the fight against these restrictions by voting blue in 2024. “This generation now has fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers,” she said. “It is not hypothetical that from kindergarten to 12th grade, this generation has had to endure active shooter drills. Our children, who should be in a classroom fulfilling their God-given potential and exploring their wonder for the beauty of the world, instead have to worry that someone might burst through their classroom door with a gun. It is not hypothetical. When students go to vote, they often have to wait in line for hours because of laws that intentionally make it more difficult for them to cast a ballot.” Shortly after that, the Biden campaign’s press conference wrapped up. We’re now four hours away from the start of the Republican caucuses in Iowa’s 99 counties, and you can expect the Biden campaign will speak up again once their choice becomes clear. JB Pritzker was asked about Joe Biden’s persistent unpopularity. The president’s approval rating has been underwater for more than two-and-a-half years, and has lately lurked in the low 40% range. The factors behind this trend are myriad and include Biden’s advanced age as well as the hangover from the record inflation Americans experienced in 2022, but the trend has been enough to make many Democrats nervous about his bid to win another four years in the White House. Pritzker argued that polls don’t yet reflect the reality of the presidential race, since the Republican nominee hasn’t yet been decided. “Until we see that we won’t know really what the numbers are,” the governor said (though many pollsters have surveyed how the president would perform against various Republicans, including Donald Trump, who some polls have found voters prefer.) But I can tell you this, that it’s Joe Biden that’s delivered for the American public, it’s Joe Biden that’s got an awful lot to brag about, and I think the dangers that are posed by this Republican field will be well known to people once ... one of them is chosen. Jeffrey Katzenberg, a movie mogul who is co-chairing the national advisory board for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, is talking up the mammoth fundraising haul the president received in the final quarter of last year. “Last quarter, Team Biden Harris raised more than $97m and reported $117m of cash on hand,” Katzenberg said. It means team Biden-Harris is entering the election year with more cash on hand than any democratic candidate in history. He said the Biden campaign’s financial firepower now dwarfs his Republican rivals, no matter who that may be, and allows them to focus their efforts on winning the November general election. Katzenberg said: Republicans are spending money in a race for the Maga base without a single dime going towards the voters who will ultimately decide the general election. By the time they are finished with the primary and Donald Trump or whichever extremists is finally in a position where they can start trying to compete with us, it’s just going to be too late. The Minnesota senator Tina Smith laid into the Republican field, saying all the candidates had plans to cut off access to abortion. We know one thing for sure. Every one of these extremist candidates is attacking women’s freedom to make their own decisions about abortion. These extreme Republican candidates want a national ban on abortion, and that is what they will try to do if given the chance. The reality is that none of these candidates trust women to make their own decisions about abortion because they believe that they know and that is why we cannot trust them to be president. Republican candidates espousing extremist ideas, Illinois governor tells Iowa Democratic event The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, is up at the podium first, and saying that all Republican candidates competing in tonight’s caucus are ignoring the country’s needs and espousing extremist policies. Pritzker said: Here we stand on Martin Luther King Jr Day, and this field of candidates is espousing Adolf Hitler’s ideas, denying that ... the civil war was about slavery, or demonizing and discounting the rights of large groups of Americans. All of these Republican candidates are singing the same, terrible song. In an apparent reference to Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and sole woman in the Republican race, and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who has been accused of wearing footwear that boosts his stature, Pritzker said: Tonight’s contest is simply a question of whether you like your Maga Trump agenda wrapped in the original packaging with high heels, or with lifts in their boots. While everyone will be watching who Iowa Republicans select as their nominee tonight, Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is in town to, in their words, “remind voters what’s at stake this November as Donald Trump and Maga Republicans launch an all-out assault on Americans’ freedoms”. They’ve got some Democratic heavy hitters speaking to the press this afternoon at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, including the Illinois governor JB Pritzker, the Minnesota senator Tina Smith and Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign’s national advisory board. I am in the room and will let you know what they have to say. What is a precinct captain - and what do they do? Rachel Leingang Precinct captains in Iowa will try to persuade caucus voters tonight to pick their preferred candidate, a practice common to the Iowa caucuses but not typical of US elections otherwise. Candidates work to have volunteer caucus captains at all precinct voting sites, usually local schools or community gathering places. Those captains whip votes at the precinct, speechifying and debating with voters who are unsure who to vote for or could be swayed from one candidate to another. Outside the caucus process, it’s usually illegal to actively campaign at a polling site. This year, Trump’s precinct captains are donning white hats with “Trump Caucus Captain” written in gold lettering. The hats were given to 2,000 caucus captains and have become “the hottest item in Maga world”, Politico reported. The precinct captains, while their role is important on caucus day, are typically regular Iowa voters who volunteer to help their preferred candidate because they’re passionate about that person winning. They’re often seen as people who can influence their neighbors at the hyperlocal precinct sites. Sometimes, the New York Times writes in its feature about caucus captains, the captains can be more high-profile. “One of Ron DeSantis’s captains is a former co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, and one of Nikki Haley’s is a state senator,” the paper notes. Climate activists from the Sunrise Movement protested outside a diner near Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where Nikki Haley was addressing supporters today. Iowa’s Republican party has announced a website where it will publicly collate the results of this evening’s caucuses. The website will post results from precincts in all 99 counties, and include the following candidates: the former president Donald Trump; the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis; the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley; the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson; the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; and the pastor Ryan Binkley. The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie will also appear in the results because, the state GOP said, they had planned for him to be there. Christie suspended his campaign last week. Doors to caucus sites will open at 7pm ET, with the caucusing beginning at 8pm. All sites are open to reporters, except for those in Perry, where a school shooting occurred last week. The community has requested the press not be present, the Iowa GOP says. Rachel Leingang This year’s Iowa caucuses coincide with Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US, a federal holiday that honors the civil rights leader on the third Monday in January. The holiday didn’t seem to initially factor into Republicans’ decision to set the date, reporting from the Associated Press last July said. Democrats aren’t holding a caucus in Iowa this year. Setting the Iowa caucus on 15 January ensured it would occur before New Hampshire’s contest and maintain its first-in-the-nation status. After the decision was made, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said: As Republicans, we can, I, we see this as honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King in terms of having a caucus here. The Monday night caucus interfered with scheduled events meant to commemorate MLK Day. The Sioux City NAACP shifted a celebration to Sunday, though organizers didn’t mind, the Sioux City Journal reported. “The Iowa Caucuses are very important. If you want to participate, you should be able to participate,” Sandra Pearson told the paper. In Ames, Iowa, an annual MLK day celebration is still set for Monday night, which has some local leaders frustrated and residents deciding whether to attend one or the other, the Iowa State Daily reported. “Why do we even make people have to choose on something like this?” Ames council representative Tim Gartin said, according to Iowa State Daily. So that’s the part that’s painful to me is that this is a choice that we should never have to make, you should be able to do both. Vivek Ramaswamy has also responded to Donald Trump’s post on his Truth Social site this morning, where he said voting for the tech entrepreneur would be a “wasted vote”. Ramaswamy refused to cricitize the former president, saying instead that he had “defended Trump and respect him immensely”. He added: I’m asking for your vote tonight because I believe it’s the right thing for our country. We cannot walk into the other side’s trap & watch the puppet masters quietly trot Nikki into power. "Don’t believe the fake news": Haley hits back at Trump"s attacks Nikki Haley has dismissed Donald Trump’s comments earlier today that she is a “Globalist Rino” and “doesn’t have Maga”. “Donald Trump knows Nikki Haley is a strong conservative who he praises repeatedly for her toughness at the United Nations,” said a national spokesperson for Haley, Olivia Perez-Cubas. Now that Nikki is surging and Trump is dropping, his campaign is flinging phony, contradictory attacks. Don’t believe the fake news from Trump world – they don’t believe it themselves. Before Vivek Ramaswamy’s event started in Cedar Rapids, I spoke with Gaylen Vance, a 68-year-old retiree who said he’s still undecided about who to caucus for. Nikki Haley has the best chance of winning the general election, he said. Ron DeSantis is “the most like Trump without some of the extraneous crap”. And Ramaswamy is “the smartest guy in the room”. Vance said his wife was a caucus captain for Trump in tonight’s caucuses but he was hesitant to support the former president because of his lies about the 2020 election. Vivek Ramaswamy is about to take the stage here at a brewery in Cedar Rapids just a few hours ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The room here is crowded – I would guess around 100 people are here – though noticeably smaller than the crowd at events I’ve been to for Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis in recent days. Ramaswamy trails DeSantis by 8% and Haley by double digits in Iowa. Before the program started, a speaker asked how many voters were undecided and a smattering of hands went up. She said this was a chance for those undecided voters to ask Ramaswamy anything. Steve King, a far right former Republican congressman who has endorsed Ramaswamy, spoke before the candidate. “When I step in and endorse in and endorse a candidate I’m all in,” King said. “And today where am I? I’m really really enthusiastically all in.” It’s hard to put into words just what the -1F (-18C) temperature in Des Moines feels like. Suffice to say, few people are outside in downtown Des Moines, and those that must go out are typically darting from a car into a building. Conditions remain treacherous, and the sub-freezing temperatures that have stretched on since Friday’s snow dump mean roads remains slick with slush, sidewalks are piled high with drifts, and it’s still typical to see cars stuck in piles of snow. The one group of people spending more time outside than most is television reporters doing standups, who apparently have no option but to brave the frigid weather in exchange for a nice background of the state capital: The caucuses are a big event for Des Moines, drawing reporters and politicians from all over the country. The city rolls out the welcome mat in a variety of ways, including with banners posted all over the downtown’s very useful skywalk system: The longshot rightwinger Vivek Ramaswamy is out and about on the frozen trail in Iowa today, too, earlier hanging with one of Britain’s ultimate Brexiteers, Nigel Farage. Here’s a very ordinary post on X/Twitter from Ramaswamy earlier. And the less ordinary, giving his provocative, ultra-conservative definition of “truth”. Iowa is a crucial state for every Republican candidate, but it’s shaping up to be a uniquely important test for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose bid for president does not seem to be catching on with voters. Recent state polls have shown him either tied with the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley or trailing her, and a third-place finish for DeSantis in Iowa, a state he has banked on winning, would do great damage to his campaign. In downtown Des Moines, the Guardian’s US politics live blog ran into Chuck Volpe, a political talkshow host from north-eastern Pennsylvania who is on DeSantis’s national finance committee, and will be speaking at a caucus site when the vote is held this evening. Asked for his thoughts on the much-debated impact of the foul weather on the election, Volpe replied: “I think if you’re projected as the underdog, the weather should be a benefit because you could depress turnout.” He noted that DeSantis had visited every county in the state, completing what’s known as a “full Grassley” after the long-serving Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, and has the endorsement of the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds. Volpe also recounted how candidates that seemed to be struggling in the past, such as the former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum in 2012, have won over the state’s voters and seen their campaigns regain strength. “It literally breathed life into a campaign that was defunct ... Iowans seem to do that. So, we’re confident,” Volpe said. Left unsaid was that despite Santorum’s win in Iowa in 12 years ago, it was Mitt Romney who won the Republican nomination that year, only to lose the presidential race to Barack Obama. DeSantis has Reynolds on side, per this post via his team. Summary of Iowa caucuses day so far It’s a bracing day in Iowa as the caucus gatherings approach later on Monday, and there are other items of US politics news occurring too, all brought to you as they happen. We are here, live, to bring you all the events. Here’s where things stand: Economy, border, foreign policy are key issues as Iowans head to caucus, with Republican voters in the Hawkeye state saying these themes are top of mind as they prepare to caucus tonight in the US’s first nominating contest. Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis on the morning of the day Iowans go to vote on their Republican candidate. The Pentagon said the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has been released from hospital today. Austin, 70, had been hospitalized since 1 January due to complications after prostate cancer treatment, but there was uproar because he didn’t tell the White House (or many others) about it. Iowa Republicans will brave brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination. The final results will depend on turnout, which could be acutely impacted by the weather. Iowans have been told to “limit outdoor exposure” as much as possible with forecasters saying the wind chill temperature could go down to as low as -35F on Monday evening in the “dangerous cold”. The 2024 US presidential election begins in earnest in Iowa today. The final Des Moines Register/NBC News poll before Monday night’s caucuses found former president, Donald Trump, maintaining a formidable lead over his opponents, supported by 48% of likely caucus-goers. After trailing the two-term Florida governor, Ron DeSantis for months, the latest poll showed Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, in second place in Iowa, winning the support of 20% of likely Republican caucus-goers, compared to DeSantis’s 16%, with Vivek Ramaswamy at 8%.