Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger and I've got Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes. I almost called you Jonah Hayes. I don't know what's going on today. It's a new year and you know when you have children right that break is not a break that break is the hard part of

the year so i'm back i'm sleep deprived i'm all the things and but you know

we're heading into the Iowa Caucus. Steve, where are we? Yeah, I mean it's here, right? We've been talking about

this for, uh, for not only many months, but really several years, and we're

going to have people caucusing within the next two weeks.

I mean, I think, you know, and we can sort of set aside discussion of

our our bet for now Sarah will you know we'll revisit that at some point.

Over stakes. Yeah, the bet about who's going to be the nominees

of the respective parties. I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump has

consolidated his position as the sort of runaway front runner in the Republican

field. Doesn't mean that we couldn't see some surprise that there might be

underlying support for Nicky Haley that you know you can you can if you squint see how she

overperforms and comes in second in Iowa and then really surprises in New

Hampshire but then but then what?

Even in her own home state of South Carolina, you know, there's,

Donald Trump is awfully popular there, and at least right now,

Nicki Haley looks less popular.

You know, I think if there were a result, whether it was in Iowa or New Hampshire, where

Donald Trump looked vulnerable, it's not crazy to think that this thing could get scrambled.

But certainly if you were making a bet today, you would bet that Trump just

trounces the field and is the Republican nominee.

The telling details came this week not in Iowa and New Hampshire in my view but back in

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