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With all but 1 in-person rally canceled, Trump to spend final 2 days of Iowa holding tele-rallies, making small retail stops

2024-01-15 00:00:00.0 ABC新闻-政治新闻原网页

With all but 1 in-person rally canceled, Trump to spend final 2 days of Iowa holding tele-rallies, making small retail stops Three of Trump's four rallies were canceled Friday evening.

By Soo Rin Kim, Lalee Ibssa , and Kendall Ross

January 14, 2024, 7:51 AM

2:15

DES MOINES, IOWA - JANUARY 10: Republican presidential candidate former Presi...Show MoreShow More

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As former President Donald Trump cancels all but one of his in-person rallies this weekend, he's expected to spend the final days ahead of the Iowa caucuses holding tele-rallies and meeting with voters at smaller campaign stops.

Friday night, the Trump campaign canceled three out of the four in-person rallies scheduled for Saturday and Sunday amid continued severe weather across Iowa, instead announcing a series of virtual rallies. Now, the only in-person rally the campaign has in the books is its Commit to Caucus rally in Indianola, Iowa, Sunday afternoon.

But the campaign stresses that that's not his last campaign stop before the Iowa caucuses.

"We're gonna be out there seeing people and shaking hands," Senior Campaign Advisor Jason Miller told ABC News, explaining the former president plans to meet with Iowa voters at more intimate retail campaign stops in between the remaining Indianola rallies and his tele-rallies over the next couple days. "A lot of activities going around," Miller said.

The canceled rally in Atlantic, Iowa, on Saturday would have been Trump's first campaign rally since his last rally in Clinton, on Jan. 6. He participated in a town hall with Fox News on Wednesday, but otherwise, the campaign has been relying mostly on surrogate events, several of which had been canceled due to weather as well.

Now, on Saturday evening, he's scheduled to deliver remarks during what he's calling a "Vision for America" live stream, and after that, he's joining Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird for a tele-rally.

He has two additional tele-rallies coming up on Sunday and Monday, and on Monday, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle are campaigning on behalf of Trump in person in Ankeny, Iowa. After that, the Trump campaign has a caucus watch party at the Iowa Events Center.

Emphasizing the importance of safety, Miller said the campaign is not hindered by the cancellations of the large-scale in-person rallies, claiming Trump still draws bigger crowd sizes than Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley combined.

"Any of the events that President Trump has are larger than every DeSanctimonious and Nikki Haley event combined," Miller said. "And so you can't look at it in the exact same context. They're having a tough time filling up a phone booth with people, whereas every time President Trump shows up somewhere, there are thousands of people."

On whether the campaign is concerned about the ongoing severe weather conditions — especially the freezing temperatures expected on Monday — Miller said, "It's a snowing for everybody," and boasted about the level of dedication from Trump supporters.

"One of the things that you got to keep in mind is that President Trump's supporters are used to camping out overnight for tickets, standing in line for hours," Miller said. "When they hear that President Trump needs them to do something, they are going to. There's no comparable level of support for Rob DeSanctimonious and Nikki Haley."

So far this election cycle, Trump has had less ground presence than some of his Republican rivals, visiting the state only 21 times while others like DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have spent dozens of days crisscrossing the state.

Still, Trump maintains a 30-point lead over his contenders, according to 538's Iowa polling average. The Trump campaign continues to capitalize on that lead while at the same time quelling high expectations.

"We're confident, but we're not taking anything for granted," Miller said. "And as President Trump has always said, we're going to act and campaign as we're done by one point as opposed to leading by much more than that. No such thing as prevent defense on our team and that leadership is top down from President Trump."

After Iowa, the Trump campaign already has four campaign events scheduled in New Hampshire, starting with a campaign speech in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Jan. 16 – right after the Iowa caucuses.

But the Trump campaign says it's been looking beyond the primaries for a while now – taking the fight directly to President Joe Biden.

"I think quite frankly, that's part of the reason why President Trump's numbers have continued to go up so much with regard to the primary," Miller said, "because people see President Trump and realized that he could beat Joe Biden and none of the other candidates have any real vision or polling that would indicate that they could actually take it to Joe Biden."