Good morning,
Today are the Iowa caucuses. Here are the ten things you need to know.
- Forty-one percent of Iowa voters still haven’t picked a candidate: A large percentage of Iowa voters still don’t know who they will vote for tonight. As we go into the caucuses, any of three frontrunners could win.
- Democrats set up “war room” in Iowa: A team of Democratic operatives have settled in Iowa for the week to provide rapid responses to the attacks launched at President Obama.
- Democrats attack Romney with Bain lay-off stories: Democrats are trying to stymie presumptive nominee Mitt Romney. As Romney goes for a win in Iowa, Democrats are bringing up his lay-off record at Bain Capital with the help of a factory worker who lost his job in the 1990s as the result of a Bain buyout.
- President Obama to address caucus-goers: At 8:15pm ET, President Obama will address Democratic Iowa caucus-goers via tele-conference.
- Mitt Romney campaign confident on caucus day: Mitt Romney’s campaign heads into Iowa confident their candidate will be the nominee. Even Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad thinks Romney could pull off a once-inconceivable win in Iowa today.
- Perry to skip New Hampshire, head to South Carolina after Iowa: After some confusion yesterday, Rick Perry has basically conceded that he cannot compete in New Hampshire and will go straight to South Carolina on Wednesday to try to shore up support there ahead of the January 21 primary.
- What are the candidates up to today?: All the candidates will be holding final events throughout Iowa before settling in at their respective watch parties in the evening. They will also be hitting the talk shows, Iowa radio, and even Glenn Beck’s radio show.
- How do the Republican Iowa caucuses work anyway?: TPM has a rundown of how voting takes place on caucus night.
- Candidates make closing arguments in Iowa: This will include a last-minute pitch to voters that they are the consistent conservative. Romney will likely stay above the fray and attack Obama as he has over the past week.
- Tune into TPM’s live coverage tonight: Starting at 8pm EST, TPM will be covering the Iowa caucuses with real-time results on our scoreboard with breaking news on TPM Livewire.
