(NewsNation) — With stricter qualifications to make it onto Wednesday night’s debate stage, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will face off for the last time before the Iowa caucuses.
Presidential hopefuls Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie failed to qualify for the GOP debate in Iowa.
The big front-runner, former President Donald Trump, was the only other candidate to meet the 10% polling threshold to participate. But as he has six times before, the Republican is declining to show up given his overwhelming lead in the polls.
Trump will host a dueling town hall at the same time on Fox, just like all the previous debates.
Since the start of the campaign season, candidates have been crisscrossing Iowa. Trump has held 24 events in 19 counties so far while Haley has held nearly 70 events in 30 different counties. Ramaswamy and DeSantis are the only candidates who have visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties.
Ramaswamy outpaced them all with 296 events across the state, with 15 alone this week. Yet, he still failed to make it to the state’s debate stage.
Cold and snowy conditions in the Hawkeye State prompted candidates to cancel campaign events, and temperatures are expected to continue to drop over the next week. A big fear among the politicians is that it may impact voter turnout for the Iowa caucuses in five days.
At a town hall event Tuesday night, DeSantis addressed the weather and what he considers Trump’s over-confidence in Iowa.
“I think our voters are the type that are going to come out. They’re going to caucus,” DeSantis said. “Donald Trump said he has all the votes he needs. And I mean, I don’t know how that’s going to affect some of his folks, but he’s basically telling some folks that he’s got it.”
Cold or not, Trump boasts a comfortable double-digit lead in Iowa and just secured an important new endorsement: Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Barrasso threw his support behind Trump’s campaign, making him one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the Senate to back Trump’s re-election bid.
Regardless, Wednesday night’s GOP primary debate will give Haley and DeSantis a final chance to face off, both hoping to put some distance between the two of them as they are neck-and-neck in the polls.
The latest FiveThirtyEight poll reported both Haley and DeSantis hovering at 12% support.
The debate will be hosted by CNN and is slated to begin at 9 p.m. EST.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
