(NewsNation) — Winter weather conditions and frigid temperatures may force some GOP presidential hopefuls to cancel campaign events in the final stretch leading up to the Iowa caucuses. Plus, a looming polar vortex could cause low voter turnout.
The Hawkeye State is currently under a winter storm warning by the National Weather Service and is expecting anywhere from six to 12 inches of snow into Wednesday.
Meteorologists are also predicting a polar vortex in the days leading up to Jan. 15, bringing single-digit and below-zero temperatures, which could influence lower voter turn-out than anticipated.
Former President Donald Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have already canceled events in Iowa due to the weather.
At Haley’s town hall event Monday night, one of her supporters didn’t seem too worried about the winter storm impacting voter support, saying negative zero temps is the same old song and dance for Iowans.
“That’s not even cold for Iowa. In Iowa, negative 30 is cold. Negative 40 is freezing. And it’s supposed to be like negative 6 so not at all. That shouldn’t dissuade anybody,” one voter said.
For the rest of the week, NewsNation will be monitoring whether these winter conditions will deter voters, especially the elderly, from showing up to the caucuses.
Experts say Trump has the most to lose from low turn-out. If his momentum lulls and he doesn’t win Iowa in a blowout, that could pose trouble for his campaign in the next-in-the-nation primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where Haley has been picking up steam.
“It’s a problem, particularly for folks who live in outlying rural areas,” Mack Shelley, a political science professor at Iowa State University, said. “If you’re in a town like Ames, which isn’t exactly a big city, you might have to drive or trudge through some snow for a couple of blocks to get to your precinct location. Rural areas might have to go ten miles or more to a neighboring town, and some people don’t live in a town to begin with, so they’re really isolated.”
Extreme cold temperatures have not played a role in impacting the Iowa caucuses since 1972.
That year, it was negative four degrees at the Des Moines International Airport — the lowest recorded temperature for caucus night ever.
Iowa may be on track to break that record this year.
