Two weeks after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century swept through the Maui community of Lahaina, authorities say anywhere between 500 and 1,000 people remain unaccounted for — a staggering number for officials facing huge challenges to determine how many of those perished and how many may have made it to safety but haven’t checked in.

Something similar happened after a wildfire in 2018 that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, California. Authorities in Butte County, home to Paradise, ultimately published a list of the missing in the local newspaper, a decision that helped identify scores of people who had made it out alive but were listed as missing. Within a month, the list dropped from 1,300 names to only a dozen.

Hawaii officials have expressed concern that by releasing a list of the missing, they would also be identifying some people who have died. In an email Tuesday, the State Joint Information Center called it “a standard held by all law enforcement and first responders here in Hawaii, out of compassion and courtesy for the families, to withhold the names until the families can be contacted.”

As of Monday, there were 115 people confirmed dead, according to Maui police. All single-story, residential properties in the disaster area had been searched, and teams were beginning to search multistory residential and commercial properties, Maui County officials said in an update late Monday.

There are widely varying accounts of the tally of the missing. Hawaii Governor Josh Green said Sunday that more than 1,000 remained unaccounted for. Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said in a recorded video on Instagram that the number was 850. And during President Joe Biden’s tour of the devastation on Monday, White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall put it between 500 and 800.

An unofficial, crowd-sourced spreadsheet of missing people posted online listed nearly 700 names as of Tuesday.

State Senator Gilbert Keith-Agaran, representing central Maui, said he’s not aware of any rules that prevent officials from making the list public. But as someone with several members of his extended family still unaccounted for, he understands why some may not want the list released.

“I’m not going to second-guess the approach by the mayor and his people right now,” he said.

Questions are also emerging about how quickly the names of the dead are being publicly released, even after family members have been notified. Maui residents are growing increasingly frustrated as the search for their loved ones drags on.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday that the Maui Police Department has instructed the medical examiner in Honolulu — where some burn patients were taken for treatment — not to release the names of anyone who dies from injuries sustained in Lahaina fire. The request came after one severely burned patient died and the man’s name appeared in media reports after notification of his next of kin.

“I don’t know why they aren’t releasing the names,” Honolulu Department of the Medical Examiner Supervising Investigator Theresa Reynolds told the newspaper.

Clifford Abihai said he feels like he’s getting the run-around from authorities. He came to Maui from California to try to find answers about his grandmother, Louise Abihai, 98. He has been just as frustrated on the ground in Maui.

“I just want confirmation,” he said last week. “Not knowing what happened, not knowing if she escaped, not knowing if she’s not there. That’s the hard thing.”

As of Tuesday, he said he had learned nothing further.

His grandmother lived at Hale Mahaolu Eono, a senior living facility where another member of his extended family, Virginia Dofa, lived. Authorities have identified Dofa as among the dead. Abihai described Dofa and Louise Abihai as best friends.

He said his grandmother was mobile and could walk a mile a day, but it was often hard to reach her because she’d frequently turn off her cellphone to save battery power.

Confirming whether those who are unaccounted for are deceased can be difficult. Fire experts say it’s possible some bodies were cremated in the Lahaina fire, potentially leaving no bones to identify through DNA tests.

The situation on Maui is evolving, but those who lived through similar tragedies and never learned of their loved ones’ fate are also following the news and hurt for the victims and their families.

Nearly 22 years later, almost 1,100 victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, which killed nearly 3,000, have no identified remains.

Joseph Giaccone’s family initially was desperate for any physical trace of the 43-year-old finance executive, who worked in the World Trade Center’s North Tower, brother James Giaccone recalled. But over time, he started focusing instead on memories of the flourishing man his brother was.

“So I am OK with the way it is right now,” he said.
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The United States is announcing new visa restrictions on current and former Chinese officials for their involvement in what U.S. and U.N. officials say is the forcible assimilation of more than one million Tibetan children in government-run boarding schools.

In a statement on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said these “coercive policies” seek to “eliminate Tibet’s distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions among younger generations of Tibetans.”

“We urge PRC (People’s Republic of China) authorities to end the coercion of Tibetan children into government-run boarding schools and to cease repressive assimilation policies, both in Tibet and throughout other parts of the PRC,” said Blinken.

Visa restrictions under the authority of Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act means foreign nationals may not be granted a visa to enter the U.S. due to potentially significant adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

A State Department spokesperson declined to provide names of officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who are subject to the visa ban, citing “individual visa records are confidential.”

The spokesperson told VOA today’s announcement on visa restrictions covers current or former PRC and CCP officials believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, policies or actions aimed at repressing religious and spiritual practitioners, members of ethnic groups, dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, labor organizers, civil society organizers, and peaceful protestors in the PRC.

China has maintained control over Tibet since 1951, following the takeover through troop deployment in what it said a “peaceful liberation.”

Chinese officials have said their policies in Tibet reflect their desire to create “religious harmony, social harmony, and ethnic harmony.”

Tibetans who live outside of China say the government has been systematically persecuting, imprisoning and killing Tibetans for decades.

“China’s unconscionable separation of Tibetan children from their families cannot be left unchecked. It shows the depths of Beijing’s plan to eliminate the Tibetan way of life and turn Tibetans into loyal followers of the CCP,” said Tencho Gyatso who is President of International Campaign for Tibet.

VOA has requested the Chinese Embassy in Washington for comment but has not received a response.

In February, United Nations human rights experts said they were “very disturbed” that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as “a mandatory large-scale program intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture,” contrary to international human rights standards.
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The first big event of the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign will be held Wednesday when candidates of the Republican Party meet on a debate stage in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Nine candidates have qualified under the Republican Party’s rules to be on the stage inside the Fiserv Forum, the overwhelming front-runner — former President Donald Trump — says he will be skipping the event.

Few of the participants have been outspoken in criticizing Trump. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is an exception. Others, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running a distant second to Trump, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, have taken a more measured approach, hoping to convince a party base that remains loyal to Trump that they can implement the former president’s right-wing “Make America Great Again” agenda without the legal encumbrances and other controversies.

Then there is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, who defends his ceremonial certification of the 2020 election results against Trump’s wishes. He is still in the low single digits in most polls of potential 2024 Republican voters.

In addition to Pence, Christie, DeSantis and Haley, others who have qualified for the event hosted by Fox News are Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday that due to his vast lead in the polls and his known accomplishments during his one term as president, “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES.”

Trump reportedly was referring to the first two debates of the primary airing on Fox News, including next month’s face-off in California, leaving open the possibility he is willing to face Republican rivals on stage later in the campaign season.

The former president has recently turned critical of Fox News, which championed his candidacy in the last two presidential elections. But the media empire of magnate Rupert Murdoch, which owns Fox News, has taken a more measured approach to Trump amid the current crowded field of Republican contenders.

Trump has also stated he will not sign the RNC’s “loyalty pledge,” which asks all the primary losers to eventually support the nominee, one of the requirements for participating in the Milwaukee debate.

“Surprise, surprise… the guy who is out on bail from four jurisdictions and can’t defend his reprehensible conduct, is running scared and hiding from the debate stage,” Christie posted Friday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, foreshadowing the rhetoric he is expected to unleash against the absent front-runner on Wednesday. Christie added that Trump is a “certified loser, verified coward.”

Even without Trump exchanging insults with Christie and others, the conversation at the event is anticipated to be largely about him, including the more than 90 felony charges the former president faces for alleged crimes committed before, during and after his presidency

“It creates a very, very difficult environment for the other Republicans, because they have their own ideas for what they want to do with respect to key issues like the economy or Ukraine or immigration. But that doesn’t mean they’ll have much of a chance to talk about it. They’ll be asked about Donald Trump,” predicts Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.

The debate will not be very consequential for Trump — he will still be the front-runner regardless of what happens. But for the others, there could be a viral moment, good or bad, that significantly changes their polling numbers.

“We’ve seen from debates in past election seasons that candidates sometimes have a moment in a debate that ends up disqualifying them because they look bad. We’ve also seen moments in past debates where candidates have said something that got a lot of attention for them in a positive way and gave them a huge boost,” notes Provost Associate Professor Jordan Tama of American University’s School of International Service.

DeSantis is the candidate who perhaps has the most at stake. Once touted as the party’s Trump slayer, the second-term governor has dropped in the polls. In a few surveys, the relatively unknown Ramaswamy has pulled even with or surpassed DeSantis for distant second place.

“This is his moment,” says Farnsworth of DeSantis. “Remember, in 49 other states, these people do not know the governor of Florida. They maybe have seen a little bit on the news here and there. But most of the coverage is focused on the former president. As a result, Ron DeSantis will be introducing himself to the country. And one of the things he needs to do is make a good first impression. If he doesn’t, he won’t be able to really change the dynamics of the race in a significant way.”

The Fox News moderators are also certain to attempt to draw the candidates out on why they would be a better leader than President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, who would be 82 if he is inaugurated in January 2025.

The first Republican Party debate also puts the spotlight on Wisconsin, one of the few states expected to provide a true contest between the two major parties in next year’s presidential election. Milwaukee will host the Republican Party’s nominating convention next July.

Four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point in Wisconsin. Trump won narrowly in the state in 2016 before losing by a similar margin to Biden four years later.
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Hours before doors would open, thousands of K-pop fans lined up in downtown Los Angeles, stretching long city blocks in the warm August sun. In pleated skirts and platform shoes, toting the clear bags that have become arena staples, they danced and traded homemade stickers, banners, bracelets and photocards. Inside was their paradise: an IRL (in-real-life) space to commune over their URL passions.

If anything, the 2023 LA KCON was a microcosm of K-pop’s macro influence on the music industry as a whole.

Held from Friday to Sunday at the Los Angeles Convention Center and adjacent Crypto.com Arena, an estimated 140,000 fans from all over the world celebrated their favorite K-pop idols across three days of panels, premium meet-and-greets, interviews, dance breaks, concerts, and more.

Inside the convention center, fans carried light sticks of their favorite groups, showed off DIY shirts with simple, direct slogans like “I HEART MINGI,” collected sticker books and K-beauty products, and lined up for tteokbokki.

KCON started 11 years ago in Irvine, California, drawing 10,000 people to its inaugural celebration of Korean culture, says Steve Chung, chief global officer of organizers CJ ENM. Now it’s a global event, taking place in multiple countries: So far in 2023, KCON has hit Thailand, Japan and the U.S.

“We’ve welcomed something like half a million people in those (11) years all throughout the world,” he says.

In Los Angeles, panels were held on K-pop songwriting and cup sleeve creations (K-pop fan events are held at cafes on an idol’s birthday, anniversary, or some other special date). Up-and-coming groups like NMIXX led dance classes on one stage, while another stage allowed rookie groups to introduce themselves to a wider audience.

Over the course of the weekend, The Associated Press spoke to an incredible diversity of fans who, among them, drove 12 hours straight from Utah, flew in from the U.K. and South America and represented a range of ages, genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“The culture of inclusiveness is huge,” said 40-year-old Annya Holston from Florida who got into K-pop through her daughter. “We’ve made so many friends, being here.”

At $500 a day, premium tickets allowed attendees to access a “Red Carpet” area, where acts posed for portraits and answered two or three questions in a 30-minute window — along with entry to the convention and concert. For an additional $100, fans could pay for “Hi-Touch” — a quick meet-and-greet where fans and performers high-five — with one group of their choice. With renewed concerns about the spread of COVID-19, “Hi-Touch” became “Hi-Wave” (exactly what it sounds like, to the chagrin of a few fans hoping for that physical connection; others were happy with the sheer proximity).

Those experiences served as a welcome reminder of a facet of the music industry that K-pop knows remarkably well, and far better than most: fandom is this business’ most lucrative and enduring resource.

As Peyton Tran, a 17-year-old L.A. native and dancer told AP at KCON, “It’s just cool to see how much people can support these businesses out here.”

In 2023, the music industry faces unique challenges, including what Mark Mulligan, a MIDiA Research music industry analyst, has referred to as the “fragmentation of fandom.” New artists suffer a kind of competition unheard of before the streaming age, a direct effect of algorithmic listening. Think of it this way: It is rare for a new act to reach the level of monolithic pop star — the ranks of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Harry Styles, all who started performing pre-streaming — because listenership is hyper-specific.

In K-pop, where companies are typically fully integrated institutions — a record label and a talent agency all in one — and hyper-consumerism is welcomed, business focuses on building a community of superfans and inspiring those loyal listeners to advocate for their group, fueling a sense of participation beyond their purchasing power. It doesn’t hurt that K-pop audiences have a tendency to coordinate global fan actions on their own and create rituals and events, communicating on bespoke fandom platforms like WeVerse and Vlive.

Niche doesn’t mean small; it means specialized. KCON is proof.

At the concerts, held all three nights for the first time, fans witnessed K-pop groups and soloists from across “generations”: Taemin from the second-generation boy band SHINee,Rain — the first K-pop idol to take off internationally, and now a manager himself — fourth-generation boy bands ATEEZ and Stray Kids, and rookie groups like XG and ZEROBASEONE.

XG performed songs like the Kesha -channeling “TGIF,” with production pulling heavily from the current liquid drum-and-bass/U.K. garage trend in global pop music, a welcomed retro-futuristic sound from a group and convention with eyes set on the future.

Notably, these concerts placed a lot of emphasis on K-pop girl groups, reflecting a recent trend in listenership. Historically, boy bands were thought to be more lucrative — but girl groups like IVE, ITZY, NMIXX, Kep1er, (G)I-DLE, and EVERGLOW proved that’s vintage thinking in their explosive KCON sets.

A particularly unique and effective moment during the concert was called the “Dream Stage,” where a few dozen fans who auditioned to perform a dance with a K-pop group earlier in the day were brought out to do exactly that.

On the second day of the convention, iHeartRadio’s KIIS-FM set up a new, open-to-the-public “K-pop Village,” where the K-pop-curious could experience free performances from newer acts — like LEO, who made his U.S. debut on the outdoor stage.

“2023 is like a crossover event. The last 10 years has been about sort of serving the endemic fanbase of people who already know K-pop and who love K-pop,” Chung says. “As evidenced by the iHeartMedia partnership, it’s really like a crossover moment where K-pop goes mainstream.”

On the last day of the convention, not even Tropical Storm Hilary could stop the most devoted fans from lining up in the rain to see their favorite acts. On the train the night before, the AP asked a K-pop fan from Massachusetts, who publishes fan cam videos on YouTube under the name Toadcola, if he was worried about the weather. Not so much.

But, if the weather canceled his flight home, he thought that wouldn’t be so bad: maybe, just maybe, the idols would be stuck at the airport with him.
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A Maryland man charged in 2019 with planning an Islamic State-inspired attack at a Washington, D.C., area shopping and entertainment complex pleaded guilty on Monday to engaging in a separate plot to drive a stolen van into a crowd of people at a nearby airport.

Rondell Henry’s plea agreement with Justice Department prosecutors could lead to his release from federal custody as soon as October, when a judge is scheduled to sentence him in the airport plot, which Henry abandoned. Henry, who has remained in custody for over four years, didn’t harm anybody before police arrested him.

Henry, 32, of Germantown, Maryland, pleaded guilty to attempting to perform an act of violence at an international airport, court records show.

Henry admits that he stole a U-Haul van from a parking garage in Alexandria, Virginia, drove it to Dulles International Airport in Virginia and entered a terminal building on March 27, 2019.

“Henry unsuccessfully attempted to follow another individual into a restricted area of the airport, but the other individual prevented Henry from entering the restricted area,” according to a court filing accompanying his plea agreement.

Henry later told investigators that he went to the airport because he “was trying to hurt people there” and “was going to try to drive through a crowd of people,” but ultimately left because “there wasn’t a big enough crowd” at the airport, according to the filing.

Henry pleaded guilty to a felony that carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. But prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that an appropriate sentence for Henry would be the jail time he already has served and lifetime supervised release with mandatory participation in a mental health treatment program, according to his plea agreement.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who isn’t bound by that recommendation, is scheduled to sentence Henry on Oct. 23. He will remain jailed until his sentencing hearing.

Henry’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond Monday to an email seeking comment on his guilty plea and plea deal.

Henry was charged in 2019 with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State group. But the charge to which he pleaded guilty is unrelated to what authorities had said was a ISIS-inspired plot to carry out an attack at National Harbor, a popular waterfront destination in Maryland just outside the nation’s capital.

Monday’s filing doesn’t mention the Islamic State or specify any ideological motivation for an attack at the airport.

Henry left the airport and drove the stolen U-Haul to National Harbor, where he parked it. Police arrested him the next morning after they found the van and saw Henry jump over a security fence.

Henry told investigators he planned to carry out an attack like one in which a driver ran over and killed dozens of people in Nice, France, in 2016, authorities said. A prosecutor has said Henry intended to kill as many “disbelievers” as possible.

Monday’s court filings don’t explain why Henry didn’t plead guilty to any charges related to the alleged National Harbor plot.

The case against Henry remained on hold for years amid questions about his mental competency. Last year, Rondell Henry’s attorneys notified the court that he intended to pursue an insanity defense.

Xinis had ruled in February 2020 that Henry was not competent to stand trial. She repeatedly extended his court-ordered hospitalization.

But the judge ruled in May 2022 that Henry had become mentally competent to stand trial, could understand the charges against him and was capable of assisting in his defense. Xinis said a March 2022 report on Henry’s medical condition found experts had restored his mental competence.

Prosecutors have said Henry watched Islamic State group propaganda videos of foreign terrorists beheading civilians and fighting overseas. Investigators said they recovered a phone Henry had discarded on a highway in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence, including images of the Islamic State flag, armed Islamic State fighters and the man who carried out the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida.

Henry is a naturalized U.S. citizen who moved to the country from Trinidad and Tobago more than a decade ago.
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As former President Donald Trump braces for two separate trials over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, his lawyers are scrambling to come up with legal defenses that could test the limits of the law and the Constitution.

They’ve signaled that they will argue that Trump was merely exercising his First Amendment rights when he spread baseless claims that the election had been stolen and then pressed state officials to change the results in his favor.

They will contend that the former president was simply following the counsel of his lawyers who advised him he had the right to “petition” the officials to investigate fraud.

And they may even invoke the idea that as president he should be immune from prosecution, arguing that the actions he took after the election were related to his presidential duties.

But legal experts say when the case goes to trial the key question the jury will have to answer is: Did Trump know he had lost the election?

“A jury is not going to focus on whether he had a First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances and [is] not going to focus on whether he had any executive privilege to meet with his vice president and urge him to not count the votes from the swing states that were contested,” said John Malcolm, a former federal prosecutor who is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “They’re going to focus on the president and his belief.”

Election indictments

Trump faces two separate indictments in connection with the 2020 election scheme that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Aug. 1, a federal grand jury in Washington issued a four-count indictment, accusing Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding.

Then last week, a grand jury in Georgia indicted Trump and 18 others for racketeering and a raft of other crimes in connection with efforts to overturn the election outcome in that state.

While the state and federal cases are different in scope, they both alleged election fraud and require that prosecutors prove “mens rea” or criminal intent on the part of Trump, according to legal experts.

“In both jurisdictions, general principles of criminal law in the U.S. probably are quite relevant,” said Morgan Cloud, a professor of law at Emory University in Atlanta. “Not all, but most crimes, including felonies like the ones charged in these current federal and state indictments… require proof of… mens rea.”

Trump has long claimed that he lost the 2020 election fraudulently, despite no evidence of that assertion, and his lawyers are now challenging prosecutors to disprove his sincerity.

“I would like them to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false,” John Lauro, who represents Trump in the special counsel case, told Fox News after special counsel Jack Smith announced the federal charges against Trump.

Circumstantial evidence

Proving criminal intent can be challenging but it’s not impossible, according to legal experts.

To prove criminal intent, prosecutors can use two types of evidence: direct and circumstantial.

Direct evidence shows a defendant’s state of mind or actions, while circumstantial evidence can imply a guilty mind.

In Trump’s case, direct evidence could include testimony about his private admission that he had lost the election. At least two former White House aides have come forward with claims to that effect. One of them, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified before Congress last year that she was told by her boss, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, that “a lot of times (Trump will) tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it.”

Prosecutors can also marshal circumstantial evidence to prove Trump knew he had lost. Among other things, they can cite testimony by senior Justice Department officials, White House aides, and Trump’s own campaign staff who told Trump that they had found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Though circumstantial, this kind of testimony can persuade a jury that Trump knew he had lost the election.

A “myth I think people have is that you have to have the smoking gun, the guy on the audiotape saying, ‘I did it,” but you don’t,” said Kimberly Wehle, a former federal prosecutor now a professor of law at the University of Baltimore. “You can prove crimes beyond a reasonable doubt with circumstantial evidence.”

Yet Trump, notorious for rejecting expert advice, could claim he was swayed by other advisers who insisted the election was stolen.

“I don’t think there’s any question that there were people around former President Trump at the time who were telling him that he was not wrong, and that the election really had been stolen,” Malcolm said.

Without proving Trump’s criminal intent, Malcolm said, “the case collapses.”
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Just days before the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, a new poll shows that former President Donald Trump maintains a commanding lead among GOP voters in the state of Iowa, the first state to vote in the party’s selection of a nominee for the 2024 election.

The poll, sponsored by the Des Moines Register and NBC News, found that Trump is the first choice for the nomination of 42% of Republicans likely to participate in the state’s January Republican caucus. Trump’s nearest challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has the support of 19% of Iowa Republicans, while none of the other 12 candidates mentioned in the poll were able to break into double digits.

Trump is feeling enough confidence in his position in the primary that he confirmed over the weekend that he will not participate in Wednesday’s debate, scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The former president’s strength in Iowa is all the more remarkable given that in the 2016 primary, during his first run for the presidency, he only managed a tie for second place in the state.

Indictment may have helped

In news that may bode even more poorly for Trump’s adversaries, the former president’s support in Iowa remained strong even though his indictment in Georgia on charges of conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election was announced August 15, while the poll was in the field.

When the results of the poll were analyzed, they revealed that 38% of respondents polled in advance of the indictment’s release supported Trump. After the indictment, support for the former president rose to 43%.

Because the caucus remains several months away, the poll also set out to measure the firmness of candidates’ support by asking respondents whether they feel that their minds are already made up, or if they could still be persuaded to change their allegiance. The results suggest that Trump’s support is firmer than that of DeSantis, with 66% of the former president’s supporters saying their minds are made up, versus 31% of the Florida governor’s backers.

Remaining field

Of the remaining 12 Republican candidates who have declared their candidacy for the nomination, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott performed the best, with 9% of the vote. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley each earned 6% of the vote, while former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took 5% and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy received 4%. No other candidate received more than 2% of the vote.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA that while the results of the Des Moines Register poll are similar to other results recorded by pollsters in Iowa, it carries more weight because it was conducted by J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., who has a reputation for accuracy in the state.

“She’s a very respected pollster, and so that is why this particular survey is getting a lot of attention,” Kondik said.

Kondik pointed out that Trump’s performance in Iowa is actually somewhat weaker than it is in national polling, where he regularly leads DeSantis by margins of more than 40 points. However, he said, the fact that Trump is doing so well in Iowa after losing the 2016 caucus there, speaks to the former president’s overall strength.

“Trump is probably weaker in Iowa than he is nationally, but he’s still really pretty strong,” Kondik said.

Kondik urged some caution when it comes to analyzing the apparent surge the former president enjoyed after the August 15 announcement of his Georgia indictment.

“The indictments have not hurt Trump amongst Republicans, and in fact, arguably, may have helped by prompting people to ‘rally around the flag’ for him,” Kondik said. “Maybe over time, you see that reverse, and maybe people get cold feet about Trump and are concerned about him as a general election candidate. But again, there’s really no evidence from this poll or other polls to suggest that that’s happened.”

Evolution of the GOP

The fact that Trump has moved from an undistinguished second-place finish in Iowa eight years ago to a double-digit lead today highlights the degree to which the former president has remodeled the Republican party in his own image, said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program.

“Donald Trump’s presidency, including its very, very troubled ending in January of 2021, succeeded in cementing the intense relationship he has with the base of the Republican Party,” Galston told VOA. “As far as they’re concerned, he can do no wrong. He has been forgiven sins that would sink any other candidate.”

Galston said that the poll results also cast serious doubt on the ability of DeSantis to mount a serious challenge to Trump.

“Ron DeSantis, who was supposed to be his principal challenger, has not succeeded in strengthening his position in recent months,” Galston said. “If anything, he has weakened, very, very significantly, opening the door for someone else to emerge as the leading challenger.”

He added, “the field could consolidate enough around someone not named Ron DeSantis to pose a significant challenge to Donald Trump down the road.”

Why Iowa matters

Iowa has long had an outsized role in the process by which the U.S. selects its president, even though it is both smaller than most states, and has a population that is 83% white, making it one of the least diverse.

Traditionally, the Iowa caucuses have been seen as a vital early test of presidential candidates — one that puts a premium on face-to-face interactions with voters. The caucus format requires voters to assemble at designated sites across the state and to publicly declare their support for a specific candidate, a level of commitment not required in most states, where primary votes are conducted via secret ballots.

Iowa voters do not have a particularly good track record of choosing the ultimate GOP nominee. Trump tied for second place in the 2016 caucus, and the party’s eventual nominee has not won a well-contested Iowa caucus outright since 2000. (Trump won 97% of the vote in 2020, facing only a handful of little-known challengers.)

However, what Iowa has often done is serve as the first cut in culling over-large primary fields. In past years, many candidates that performed poorly in the states have terminated their campaigns within days of the vote.
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