2024-01-13 04:29:21
A violent winter storm disrupted the candidates’ final campaign campaign just days before the start of the US Republican presidential primaries in the state of Iowa. The clearly favored former President Donald Trump had to cancel several events planned for Saturday in the Midwestern state due to heavy snow, strong winds and bitter cold.
Former UN ambassador and ex-governor of the state of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, quickly moved her planned campaign events online before Election Day on Monday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also had to cancel appearances in front of supporters. “We want everyone to be safe,” the right-wing hardliner told reporters in Iowa’s capital Des Moines. At the same time, he emphasized: “We are not afraid of the snow.”
Due to icy roads, numerous cars in the region came off the road. Many flights carrying journalists, poll workers and political observers to Iowa were canceled due to the weather.
The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening blizzard conditions” for the weekend, wind gusts of more than 80 kilometers per hour and temperatures that felt like temperatures below minus 40 degrees Celsius in some cases. People should only travel if it is absolutely necessary.
Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds assured that people would be able to take part in the primary election on Monday. “We will get people to the polls on election night.”
The Iowa caucuses are the start of the nationwide Republican primaries to determine their candidate for the November 5 presidential election. Former President Trump leads the polls by a large margin – in Iowa and nationally. According to the poll average calculated by the website “FiveThirtyEight”, the right-wing populist in Iowa has around 51 percent, Haley, who is now in second place, has around 17 percent and DeSantis has around 16 percent.
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