'A sad circus': Iowa caucuses arrive with little doubt over likely Republican victor

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : "Trump is just dominant in Iowa.
59% : This could reduce turnout but again might favour Trump because he has a fiercely loyal base.
43% : Karen Johnson, a 67-year-old evangelical Christian, told the New York Times: "Trump is our David and our Goliath," - neatly capturing his combination of sacred and profane.Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times newspaper, said: "North-west Iowa, where I live, is the most conservative part of the state and it's just very solidly pro-Trump, including a lot of evangelicals who Ron DeSantis has been trying to court.
42% : A year ago the Florida governor was being hailed as a new Republican saviour who could offer Trumpism without Trump: rightwing populist policies without legal baggage or crass antics.
41% : "That happens in American politics: if you are unique - and Trump is, we can argue safely, unique - it's hard to imitate it.
39% : But a big win for Trump on Monday will imply that his iron grip on the Republican party endures and a third consecutive nomination is his to lose.
32% : "But elections are also an expectations game and, if Trump dips below 50% of the vote in Iowa, it will be seen as a disappointment.
28% : Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: "For people like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, first-time candidates, Iowa's important to be there in person but Trump is campaigning on the persona and mythology of Trump as much as anything else.
28% : As long as Trump is out there and is walking, talking and breathing, nobody wants the imitation.
28% : If you attack Trump, you're done as a Republican.
27% : "A recent survey put Trump 34 percentage points clear of the field, suggesting that voters here care little for warnings that he is a nascent dictator ready to shred democracy.
27% : And in 2016, Ted Cruz beat Trump into second place, only for Trump to secure the nomination and the presidency.
26% : "Walsh has not been surprised to see few Republican candidates directly attack Trump for most of the campaign.
24% : Trump, 77, is the first loser of a presidential election to compete in Iowa four years later.
16% : "That is because Donald Trump, a twice-impeached former president still facing 91 criminal charges, is poised to complete his political resurrection on Monday with victory in the first nominating contest to decide which Republican takes on the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in November's election.
15% : I expect maybe Haley to end up ahead of DeSantis and I wouldn't be surprised if DeSantis gets out before New Hampshire and endorses Trump.
11% : Opinion polls show Trump casting a giant shadow over the sparsely populated, snow-swept state despite campaigning far less there than his rivals Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.