captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff, here in iowa for our special coverage of tonight's presidential caucuses. we'll look at evangelicals' role in shaking out a crowded republican field. >> you want to see things change in iowa? do you want to see the glory of god come down to iowa? then you need to be involved in the political process. >> ifill: and we talk with amy walter and tamara keith about what's happening on the ground as candidates make their final push. plus, david brooks and michelle cottle are here to analyze the race. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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lincoln financial helps provide financial security for those who are always there for you, because this is what you do for people you love. lincoln financial-- you're in charge. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: it's finally here. caucus night in iowa. people will gather at sites all over the state to cast the first actual votes of the 2016 presidential election year. it comes after endless months of campaigning and more than $200

million spent on ads. the potential payoff? 44 delegates for democrats, 30 for republicans, and bragging rights. judy and the newshour team are on the ground in the hawkeye state. judy? >> woodruff: so, gwen, the candidates we're watching on this final day are calculation another precious commodity, momentum. and, so, the focus in these final hours for them is on making sure anybody who is leaning or committed shows up when and where they're needed. >> thank you so much. thanks for all your help. >> woodruff: most candidates were on the ground here in iowa one last time today, making one last pitch to voters who may not have made up their minds. and urging those already on their side to turn out tonight. on the democratic side, bernie sanders is facing the question: will his supporters, many of them first-timers to the caucuses, show up?

he revved up volunteers in des moines today. >> so what is our job today? it's to make sure we have the highest voter turnout possible. that happens, we win. let's go get 'em. ( cheers and applause ) >> woodruff: hillary clinton was also in des moines. and with pastries in hand, she cheered her volunteers through their last-minute push. >> thank you. we'll do it together. >> woodruff: in late polls, clinton has a small advantage. but with sanders well ahead in next week's new hampshire primary, clinton's feeling the pressure here. >> come caucus for me tonight. good! >> woodruff: on the republican side, donald trump is also relying on first-time caucus- goers for support. he made his plea today in waterloo in northeastern iowa. >> we are leading all the polls and we're leading in iowa, but it doesn't mean anything. you have to go out and caucus. hopefully tonight we will have the beginning of what will be in a certain way a very positive revolution.

>> woodruff: trump has opened up a lead in recent polls on his closest rival, ted cruz. but the texas senator is hoping his campaign's organization and outreach to evangelicals will work in his favor. >> we have now been to all 99 counties in the great state of iowa. this is our final stop, on caucus day. >> woodruff: marco rubio, who's polling third here, has been tamping down expectations, even as he works overtime. >> we recognize we're not the frontrunner, we are an underdog, but we feel good about it. >> woodruff: the candidates who've struggled in iowa aren't even sticking around for the caucuses. >> if i do well in new hampshire, everybody's gonna know who i am. >> woodruff: john kasich, staking his campaign on the new hampshire primary, was there through the weekend. >> woodruff: and while jeb bush and chris christie were here earlier today, both will be following caucus results from the granite state. there is one more wild card: the weather. much of iowa is in for a winter

storm in the hours just ahead. whatever tonight's results, the presidential race is heading into turbulence all its own. >> ifill: hi, there, judy. you and i have covered our share of iowa caucus nights, but this one seems more mysterious, kind of amazing and more unpredictable than ever. >> woodruff: you're right. you and i both covered these iowa caucuses before and i can remember some really unpredictable ones in the past but, gwen, nothing like this. when we're on the republican side, you have a man who never served in public office before, running for the highest office in the land, and he's been leading in the polls ever since he first got into the race. that's donald trump. the question tonight, of course, as everybody has been saying is can he translate that enthusiasm into getting people to show up to their local-9 schoolhouse, church, or wherever the caucuses take place and get them to stand up and say i'm for donald trump. on the democratic side, just as

unpredictable, hillary clinton, the favorite, and jet bernie sanders, the one democratic socialist in the u.s. senate, is giving her a run for the money. the question is the same there, can he turn that enthusiasm into votes? >> ifill: seems like all the conventional wisdom is out the window tonight. >> woodruff: well, it really, is and, you know, i just heard the most revered pollster in the state say, when people say what are the issues in this campaign, she said there really haven't been issues, especially on the republican side. she said, this is an election about mood and about who can take the country to the next level, to the future. so she compared it -- she said, this is an election that stands alone, and i think we'll see tonight if that turns out to be the case. >> ifill: good to see you on the campus of drake university in des moines tonight. thanks, judy. judy will be back with a closer look at the key voters who could determine tonight's outcome after the news summary:

the world health organization today declared the zika virus an international public health emergency. the mosquito-born disease has been linked to birth defects in the americas, involving babies born with abnormally small heads or "micro-cephaly". in geneva today, margaret chan, director-general of the w.h.o., issued a call for action. >> the committee advised that the causes of micro-cephaly and other neurological complications constitute an extraordinary event and a public health threat to other parts of the world. in their view, a coordinated international response is needed >> ifill: the w.h.o. says restrictions on foreign travel and trade are not needed yet, but it's advising pregnant women in affected countries to take steps to prevent mosquito bites. in afghanistan, new violence underscored the government's struggle to safeguard its own capital.

a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police headquarters in kabul, killing at least 20 people and wounded nearly 30 more. the interior ministry said the taliban attacker detonated the bomb as he waited in line to enter the facility. most of those killed and injured were civilians the u.n.'s special envoy for syria announced today the official start of talks aimed at ending the country's civil war. that came after a meeting with the main opposition group -- the high negotiations committee, or h.n.c. -- in geneva. it wants an end to the sieges and starvation of syrian towns. >> we are actually listening with attention to the concerns of h.n.c. and we are going tomorrow to discuss and listen to the concerns of the government, the discussions are starting but meanwhile the challenge is now, let's also have those who have the capacity of discussing this at a different level, time to discuss about cease-fire.

>> ifill: meanwhile, the u.s. envoy charged with fighting the islamic state was in northern syria over the weekend. brett mcgurk is the first senior u.s. official to set foot in syria since august of 2014. he met with a variety of groups battling the militants, and said isis forces do not stand a chance. back in this country, newly released documents shed a bit more light on last may's amtrak crash in philadelphia. interview transcripts show the engineer, brandon bostian, saying he remembers trying to pick up speed, then hitting the brakes when the train hit a sharp curve, going too fast. but lawyers for the victims said they don't believe him. >> there was no problem with the signals, no problem with the tracks, no problem with the locomotive, no problem with the brakes, and what we've learned is that the problem was brandon bostian. no, we do not believe at all

we believe that his inconsistent story speaks volumes about him and his credibility and believability at trial. >> ifill: the national transportation safety board says it has not yet reached any conclusions about the cause of the crash. and on wall street, stocks struggled to hold their own after a new plunge in oil prices. the dow jones industrial average lost 17 points to close below 16,450. the nasdaq rose six points, and the s&p 500 dropped a fraction of a point. still to come on the newshour: how the evangelical vote can make or break g.o.p. candidates, and why republicans are revolting against the establishment. plus, full analysis of the iowa caucuses from our david brooks, michelle cottle and our politics monday duo. >> woodruff: almost every presidential election produces a

block of voters who become a barometer for the outcome. on friday, we looked at the role women voters of different ages are playing in the democratic contest here in iowa. tonight, we look at a bloc that will help foretell the result on the republican side. ♪ ♪ >> woodruff: in some ways, yesterday was just like any other sunday at the kathedral- an evangelical christian church in iowa's capital, des moines. worshipers came together for a morning of prayer and enthusiastic song. ♪ ♪ but when it came time for the sermon, pastor kenney linhart, left no doubt what he expects his congregates to do come monday night. >> you want to see things change in iowa? do you want to see the glory of god come down to iowa? then you need to be involved in the political process. >> woodruff: only a fraction of iowa voters typically go to caucus. but of those who attend on the republican side, half are

expected to be evangelical, or born-again christians. iowa pollster ann selzer says even as her latest survey shows donald trump leading among republicans overall, ted cruz is ahead among evangelicals. >> we see surprises all the time coming from the evangelical vote and that's why you have to look at ted cruz and his ability to organize that group as a potential surprise on caucus night. >> woodruff: it was evangelicals who helped propel mike huckabee in 2008 and rick santorum four years ago to victory here. this year, not only are huckabee and santorum running again, so is a cluster of other republicans. radio iowa's o. kay henderson: >> nine months ago, rand paul was trying to lock in evangelical supporters. you have ben carson, who has really kept a core of support, and that comes from the states' evangelical churches. you have donald trump, who has lined up an important

endorsement from the president of liberty university. and you have ted cruz, who has an effort to try to get a pastor in each precinct in iowa. >> woodruff: but the former chairman of the iowa republican party, matt strawn, says the evangelical voters these candidates are after don't all have the same priorities. >> take a look at ted cruz. part of his coalition with people like bob vander plaats, radio personality steve deace, very anti-establishment evangelical christians, the type that want to blow up the system and start over. as opposed to maybe a larger group of iowa christian conservatives, more pragmatic christian conservatives who want to work within the system to shape it towards their beliefs and they're the folks that are your traditional caucus goers that are still largely up for grabs. >> woodruff: this lter group, strawn says, have elected mainstream republicans to office here for years.

but that's exactly what christian conservative leader bob vander plaats says he does not want to see this time. he's backing cruz. >> we trust conversions on the road to damascus. we question conversions on the road to des moines, and so we take a look at what were they doing before they ran for president. and so, at age 13, you know, he was memorizing the constitution. he's deeply threaded with the judeo-christian worldview. >> i ask is you to pray, just a minute a day. that you say father god, continue this awakening, awaken the body of christ, that we might pull back from the abyss. >> woodruff: the divide has grown into a kind of internal war. another prominent voice inside iowa's christian conservative community, pastor jamie johnson, says cruz has hit a ceiling within the group. >> it could be his personality,

that he naturally seems to rub people the wrong way. >> woodruff: johnson, who pastored churches for 25 years, believes trump could surprise everyone tonight. >> i would say that iowa's evangelicals are cautious, but excited about the possibility of a president trump. and they feel he may have the iron will to do a lot of the things that have frustrated iowa evangelicals and probably evangelicals across the nation for many years now. >> woodruff: bob vander plaats couldn't disagree more. >> he's a guy that says he does not have to ask god for forgiveness. he's a guy that disparages prisoners of war, by saying i like veterans who aren't captured. he's a guy who mocks people with disabilities. >> my mother gave me this bible; this very bible many years ago. woodruff: kathedral's kenney linhart questions trump's sincerity.

>> how tattered are the pages of that bible? and how much of that bible does he know? >> woodruff: but pastor jamie johnson argues many iowa evangelicals are even more focused on finding a strong leader for the country and someone who can win in november. >> i think there's a willingness on the part of many self described born-again christians that are willing to take a chance on trump, and pray that god will guide him in a moral and ethical direction. >> woodruff: johnson defends trump's expressions of faith, as do voters like kathy simpson, who showed up yesterday to hear trump speak in council bluffs. >> there are people who don't think trump is a religious person. i know that he is a religious person. >> woodruff: some who belong to pastor linhart's church have a different take. several brought up trump calling a new testament book, "two corinthians." >> if he can't pronounce the bible verse the correct way then it doesn't give me a lot of faith.

i mean, my two-year old knows how to say a scripture. >> woodruff: brenda mcginnis is enthusiastically for marco rubio. >> i have heard him talk about his salvation, i've heard him use the name of jesus christ, which is important to me. >> woodruff: rubio spoke about his faith to a crowd outside of des moines this weekend. >> you better hope that my-- that my faith influences me because i'm a follower of jesus christ. and jesus christ taught us that in order to follow him we have to care and love for one another. >> woodruff: pastor linhart likes what he hears. >> marco rubio has come out so well with his faith and pushed strong and not just said he is a christian, but that he believes the word of god should direct his life. the pastor believes it's critical tore the community to make its voice heard. >> as grau about the election cycle to more night, pray that god shows you the men and women who are subjected to his spirit.

>> that's right. because if god is going to change the nation, he's going to do it through human vessels. (music) >> ifill: now to politics monday and what a big monday it is! and back to judy in iowa. >> woodruff: earlier today, i spoke with someone who knows iowa politics as well as anybody. he is republican chuck grassley who has served as this state's senior u.s. senator for the last 35 years. i asked him what he makes of donald trump's appeal in his home state. >> it's a wakeup call to everybody in the republican who could be our nominee, and you've kind of got to not worry so much about his political philosophy right or left, you've got to see him as a messenger and the frustration that the american people have and whoever is our candidate has to respond to that

frustration. >> woodruff: you're completely comfortable if ted cruz were to pull off a win here? >> i think the best way to answer your question is that i don't want a third term of an obama presidency. >> woodruff: with tha that lead-in, i'm joined in iowa by tamera keith of nrn and amy walter of the "cook political report." we're on the ground, the day has come. amy, it is really interesting to see how a seniorup are in the state of iowa chuck grassley is reacting to this extraordinary field of candidates for president this year. >> that is exactly right. there are a couple of things going on. first, chuck grassley is up for reelection this year. he doesn't have competition yet, but so many republicans who dismissed the idea early onñ of the tea party or who said that these aren't people who turn out and vote, they were swamped in previous elections so he's learned to say you can't dismiss a potential will bubbling movement, and i hear that a lot from folks who maybe don't want to see donald trump win but say

we can't alienate his supporters, even if we quietly cheer for somebody else, we make sure to keep those people engaged and they need to turn out in november for whoever the republican candidate is. >> woodruff: trump just raised the unpredictability factor enormously, hasn't he, tamara? >> i am pretty sure we have predicted many things that have been wrong in the last months. trump never ceases to surprise. one of the interesting things in the numbers in recent polling is his support is very broad-based. it isn't just people looking for an outsider. he gets some evangelicals, some establishment and conservative republicans, probably some democrats, too. it's unpredictable. >> woodruff: the ted cruz presence here, though, amy, is another interesting piece of this, because he started out -- you know, we all know he's the republican who the other republicans don't necessarily like that much --

>> correct. >> woodruff: -- but he has really worked this state and he's going into these caucuses with what appears to be a really strong organization. >> he's running the play book that worked traditionally for republicans which is hit every single county and, as you said, come here, work the ground very hard. he has ground trips here, he even has a dormitory to host his volunteers so they can stay and work around the clock and he thought by sewing up the evangelical lane, the christian, conservative lane, 55% to 60% of the voarkts that would get him the victory. tamara pointed out that evangelical vote is more diffused, that they're supporting many of them, donald trump whoer in no wq2< fits the typical evangelical model. >> woodruff: but ted cruz still has to know donald trump is still the big story coming out of this state. >> either donald trump wins or

loses, will be they said license. but ted cruz raised the expectation force himself here in iowa with the groundc operation, especially because a previous poll showed him up pretty significantly. iowa in some way is really about expectations. so if ted cruz comes out of this and the headline is donald trump wins, ted cruz doesn't live up to expectations or marco rubio exceeds expectations, there is an expectations game here. >> woodruff: what about the democrats? let's talk about hillary clinton, bernie sanders. amy, it seems to me that she has honed in on her message in the last few weeks in a way that we didn't see early in this campaign. >> yeah, and you've seen it, too, with her messaging on the campaign trail and somewhat, too, in her advertising, really focusing in on i have been consistently there for you, i'm a progressive that can get things done, as opposed to a progressive who has big, grand as that are unlikely to get

passed and, so, trying to keep drilling into that as much as she can while not abandoning the fact that she sees herself as liberal, as her opponent. >> woodruff: tamara, you and i were at a hillary clinton event last night. >> yes. >> woodruff: it seems to me that bernie sanders has had a clear -- has left a clear impression not only on her campaign and the way she's running it but that message. i mean, she's moved to the left, not as far left. she's distinguishing herself from him, but it's had a huge effect on what she's saying. >> absolutely. she is definitely -- and from early on, really emphasized the progressive part of her message, and that has continued. one thing i think is really interesting that i have been watching her give her stump speech for months, but in particular, in the last ten days or so, her stump speech really hasn't changed. she has locked in the message, the contrast with sanders. there is no frantic changing of

message as the caucuses approach. there is a certain confidence in the way she's moving forward. >> woodruff: in these final days. >> in these final days, she's just locked in. >> woodruff: where do you see, amy, in the sanders' camp? because at one point he was not give an chance in this state and now he's very close. >> he's very close. you can see bernie sanders and his campaign trying to temper expectations. we don't necessarily have to win to keep going here. he has raised a tremendous amount of money, $20 million just this month. they're advertising already in the states that come next -- south carolina, nevada, new hampshire -- and if hillary clinton wants to play the long game, we're more than happy to do that, too we're not going away just because we might not get what we want in iowa and we'll hold it close. we won't forget whoever wins this only gets a handful of delegates, a teeny, tiny

fraction. the delegate game will take a long time to flush out. >> woodruff: tamara, when i heard him say yesterday he has now received 3.2 million different contributions from americans, more than any campaign in history, i mean, that really says something, doesn't it? >> the average donation is $27. these people are passionate and they are not tapped out. they're not even close to the maximum that they can give and they can just send out fundraising email after fundraising email and people will just tend more money in. so his campaign believes they have the money to push this forward and continue into many states past super tuesday. >> woodruff: a few seconds left. what will you remember this campaign for? (laughter) i know what you're going to say, amy. >> we always talk about, it's all about the turnout, but never has it been more important. tonight is the night we'll find out if the trump phenomenon is

real, if he can turn the new people out, and we have just a few more hours before we get that answer. can't wait. >> tamara? in terms of things i will remember, i guess, is the chasing hillary clinton, trying to figure out whether she was going to be on that very first day in iowa and, you know, the scooby van that she drove across country shows up at a little coffee shop in laclaire and, you know, we're off to the races. >> woodruff: we'll look at that picture. tamera keith, amy walter, thank you both. we'll see a lot you have tonight. >> ifill: we want to dig into the numbers a bit now. not just the results, but key facts about iowa and iowans. hari sreenivasan breaks it down. hari? >> sreenivasan: thanks, gwen. our data team looked to see iowa's track record in picking winners and how similar they are to the rest of the country. the caucuses are far from a perfect predictor of who goes on

to become the party's nominee or eventually to the white house. in fact for democrats, it is slightly better than flipping a coin, the caucuses have picked the candidate correctly 55% of the time, for republicans, the process has only been right 43% of the time. for example in 1992, three- quarters of iowa democrats stood behind long-time iowa senator tom harkin. that year, bill clinton only received 3% of the vote, but later went on to serve two terms as president. we do have better indicators today to which candidate has been on the minds of iowans in the week leading up to tonight. over the last week, facebook users in iowa had more to say about donald trump than any other presidential candidate, republican or democrat. you saw that same trend nationwide. behind trump on the republican side were ted cruz, marco rubio, and ben carson. and among democrats, iowans had the most to say about hillary clinton, followed by bernie sanders and then martin o'malley. of the issues that most concerned iowans on facebook:

crime and criminal justice, abortion, taxes and the affordable care act, there was only one topic the rest of the country was talking about: wall street and financial regulation. according to facebook, the rest of the nation is also talking about topics including religion, racism and discrimination, jobs and benghazi. but who are today's iowans, and how do they compare to the rest of the country? they register to vote slightly more than the rest of the nation. in 2012, three out of five iowans were registered versus two out of three americans. among iowans eighteen or older, the state's median household income is $53,712, almost exactly the national average. and the poverty rate, 11%, is also similar the rest of the united states. but there is a significant difference and that's race. according to the census, about nine out of ten iowans are white. nationwide, that number is far

lower: about 2/3rds. fewer latino and african- american voters call iowa home, compared to the rest of the nation. >> ifill: and now to the anaysis of brooks and cottle. that's michelle cottle of "the atlantic" and david brooks, columnist with "the new york times." mark shields has been under the weather, but we look forward to his full recovery and his return to our campaign coverage very soon. welcome to both of you. david brooks, give me a sense about charlie cook, the great prognosticator who runs the "cook political report," he wrote a story today about the difference between emotion and organization. in this election, in this caucus, what are we seeing? >> well, we're seeing emotion both on the sanders' and the trump side. you know, i think trump revolutionized american politics with the first debate performance way back when. we started insulting the looks of other candidates, insitting the moderators, live tweeting throughout the campaign, calling people more rones and idiots, he introduce an entirely different

vocabulary into american politics, and entirely different style of doing politics. he was inducted in the professional wrestling hall of fame in to 13 and basically took the professional yes ling rhetoric into american politics. that brought in a lot of people who feel shut out, resentful or not being heard, suddenly, that was the grammar and the style, they felt it was against political correctness and felt revved up. the question is will thny turn out tonight? if they do, it will be an historical night for trump and change the rhetoric and the way campaigns are run. >> ifill: assume the rules have gone out the window, michelle, as david suggests, is that a good thing? >> well, i think americans think it's time to shake up the political process. i think whatever happens, you know, in the long run with trump, i think he's had an impact and kind of woken up both parties as to the dissatisfaction with how the entire process was being run. so i think it will go beyond this election antç even the people who roll their eyes at

him starting out have had to kind of go, hmm, well, he's resonating on some level. >> ifill: well, let me ask uh, starting with you and then i'll turn to david on this, why, as we catch the: tonight, why is the democratic race so close? >> well, you know, the clintons have their charms but hillary clinton has had a particular problem with inspirational. she is not an inspirational candidate. that's kind of what sanders is pitching these days. we were talking earlier it's not about the issues, it's more a tone that's dominating this race, and hillary clinton has the experience and the price tag pragmatism thing down but she's not the hope, change candidate this time around and despite having really good organization and turnout, bernie is the guy who's making people's hearts go pitter pat out there. >> ifill: david, what happened to the obama coalition that

surprised everybody in iowa in 2008? >> the financial crisis happened, a lot of things happened. there was a tectonic shift in the landscape of the american life caused by the financial crisis, wage stagnation, by just the economic strain a lot of people are under. on the democratic side, that led to bernie sanders, somebody wl said we're going to get government a lot more radical in helping the little guy. the republican side, same deal, donald trump is ideologically inconsistent by on the side of the little guy. a lot of us is reading the sociology book coming apart by charles murray, our kids by robert putnam of harvard and we were seeing an america that was bifurcating and i missed ow it affects the campaign but it is affecting the campaign. >> ifill: if trump exploded our idea of ideology, does that mean ideology is dead? on the other hand, bernie sanders used to be all about

ideology, does that mean it's stronger? >> means the parties are polarized. bernie sanders is calling for an increase in government, ted cruz calling for a decrease, so we're split ideologically as well. in the dmg party, people want economic change. in the republican side, people want -- they fear immigrants are driving down their wages and they want cultural change, change in authority structures. so the fundamental problem which is being refracted in two different ways. >> michelle, what is left for the establishment bracket -- jeb bush, marco rubio, chris christie, john kasich? >> coming out tonight, people will look at how well rubio does. rubio was trending a bit in the date running up to the caucuses. he's seen as the establishment's last best hope at this point. if he outperforms or at least

hits expectations, then i think you will see people move to coalesce around him. >> ifill: i promise i won't hold you to this except i will -- (laughter) -- what margin is a victory for someone like rubio tonight? >> if you're looking at a third-place victory for rubio, he needs to do, you know, better than middle teens. middle teens and up. anything below that is going to be seen as a big disappointment. above that, you know, he doesn't have to win or even come in second. if he manages to come in second, there will be a complete uproar. but going forward, if he becomes the guy who outperformed or at least hit expectations in his trending in iowa, then you will see the establishment kind of coalesce and get excited about that possibility. >> ifill: almost only fair i hold your feet to the fire on the same point, david. what margins are you watching for tonight? >> first of all, i think this will be a long campaign, so this will be a chapter, newt death nail for anybody. but i agree if rubio's north of

16, he looks pretty gfod. i think if cruz is north of 24 or 25, he looks pretty good. if trump is up at 30, if all his people show up, he looks amazing. i could possibly see cruz winning this thing. we know his voters will turn out, the trump voters are a bit of a mystery. on the sanders side, he has to get north of 43 or so and ehe will look pretty good. >> ifill: you matched in passing, michelle, the difference in iowa and every place else, how different is iowa and the rest of the country as we go forward in this process in. >> well, iowa is, as we've noted, very white, it's rural, it's older voters, it's also -- its democratic electorate is very lirvel. they crunched the numbers and found the three best states for bernie sanders is vermont, iowa

and new hampshire. after that, you can't really win the democratic primary if you can't talk to non-white voters. so it's going to shift dramatically once we're past this for the democrats. >> ifill: but hillary clinton has been to iowa on her behalf or her husband's behalf for a long time. why is this -- why is he such a real challenge to her? because she tied herself so closely to the president or something else? >> a couple of things. one, the numbers have been thrown around, there's a big chunk of idemocrattic caucus-goers who consider themselves socialists. the clintons are not the left wing of the barter and don't talk in terms of revolution. thin 2008, there was a talk abot how the organization wasn't there and hillary didn't spend enough time in the sthaivment tried to remedy that. but there is too much security, too much structure. i talked to iowa voters who

complain when they go to her events, they can't get close to her. it's a combination of things that make it tough for her, but it's one state and it's a state that's tiny and will move on. >> ifill: david, we're ex pleading conventional wisdom tonight, but one of the pieces of conventional wisdom about hillary clinton is her moment isn't quite there, she hasn't connected. things like these e-mails raised such a dust it makes people think i don't know if i trust her. is that something that is just unique to the early voting states? >> it's a drag on her, but i would point out that, eight years ago, she got better as a candidate after a defeat. when her ruse ran in 1992, he lost a ton of the first ten contests. this thing can go on and she'll get bert. she hasn't found a focus the way sanders has, he was born with a focus. she has not found it but i wouldn't be surprised if in a

month or 2002 she's honed on something justw3 by the pressure of defeat and the near-death experience. >> ifill: i'll circle back to the establishment question, david. as we speak tonight, i think jeb bush, chris christie and john kasich are already in new hampshire. john kasich says, i'm moving open. we've seen people survive after losing in iowa, obviously. is that possible for pps as well in this environment in. >> totally. rick santorum won her, mike huckabee won here. this can sometimes give hand victory to people who don't move on. for chris christie, there was never going to be a good kind of place. we'll be sitting here in airplane i think still talking about this race, especially on the republican side, so they still have decent shots. >> ifill: will we be sitting here in airplane? >> we'll just know a lot more by then. it's going to be fascinating to see what the trump story coming out of iowa is because it's

going to be about trump, win, lose or draw. but, you know, come airplane -- come april, we'll have a lot more votes going past it. >> ifill: michelle cottle of "the atlantic" and david brooks, we'll talk to you all night long. >> thanks. >> ifill: as we wait for voters to finally have their say, political director lisa desjardins joins us to share what she's watching for and what you, too, can watch for later tonight. lisa, what's your secret things of list you're wasmging for? >> i'm excited in realtime to sort out what's going on. i think this will bring together everything we've heard tonight. let's start with the republicans. if you look at a map of iowa, four basic areas to watch for republicans, areas -- >> ifill: look, we have a map of iowa! >> look at this! i love television. if we look in the upper northwest corner, that is a conservative hot bed, an area

where you would expect ted cruz needing to do well. closer to des moines, areas are less conservative but there are more people and that's abarea where, say, mitt romney did well four years ago because he got a lot of people, they didn't feel strongly about him, but a lot showed up. this correlates, if you look at the political divide in the republican party, you see this conservative versus moderate trend in iowa. there you see in the brighter red kind of the mitt romney and paul group. they share with the rest of the country, iowans, a common divide in america which is urban versus rural and i think you will see that tonight play out in the republican party, it will be close to watch. >> ifill: take the same formula and apply it to the democratic party. what does that map look like? >> so glad you asked. the key9 education centers. iowa has many of them. if you look at the university of

northern iowa, university of iowa, i'm interested in particular in the des moines area. there was a huge community college there. these are all places, gwen, where bernie sanders needs to get out his vote. if we see large voter turnout, speaking to amy's point earlier in politics monday, that's a sign that bernie sanders is going to have a big night. if these places with young populations tonight have large turnout for the democrat, that's a good sign for hillary clinton. >> ifill: which one of these candidates is ex pointing those metrics -- exploiting those metrics at this point? >> we'll see tonight but on the democratic side, there is a sense hillary clinton has a more data-driven operation, that she has identified her voters, that she is the one more likely to get them out. bernie sanders is counting on people to whoa up whom he doesn't know. on the republican side, ted cruz is playing the role of the data wizard. he's had rough last weekend.

we'll see if that holds up. >> ifill: late night tonight, lisa? >> oh, yes. i was up for the whole nine yards last time. one reason it might be ate willle faster, gwen, though, is an app -- imagine, technology. now republican and democratic parties are using an app so caucus organizers can hit their phones with the number of votes and rejects what they enter if it doesn't add up correctly. we may get more realty numbers. the republicans we expect first, the democrats usually take longer. >> ifill: anotherñi night staring at your phone. thanks, lisa. talk to you later. curious about how the caucuses work? we have you covered. check out our helpful explainer at pbs.org/newshour. now back to judy in iowa. >> ifill: now back to judy in iowa. >> woodruff: we close out, gwen, with a look at the deep divides that have opened up in the republican party in this election, and a fight over core conservative principles.

this report is done in collaboration with "the atlantic." >> the great debate that's been going on inside the republican world since 2012 is do we need to change the pizza or do we need to change the pizza box? >> the republican party is driven by very real disagreements that it doesn't actually have a mechanism for solving. >> as a conservative, why would one support donald trump? there's just no evidence of any history in belief in conservative principles, of commitment to conservative causes. >> whether it's trump or cruz or several others, if you hear someone say something, a lot of us will say, "well i wouldn't have said that, but i'm glad somebody said it!" >> our party has taken an anger detour that is evident every day when we look at the news and watch the polls. >> woodruff: david frum, your article in "the atlantic" is the great republican revolt. so boil it down for us, who's revolting against whom and why? >> the republican party planned a dynastic succession for 2016. one bush would follow smoothly after another bush.

everything was positioned for this jeb bush succession. and instead, the republican party got a class war. >> when you look back at 2012, it's pretty amazing that the republican party nominated a very wealthy republican who had, in massachusetts, done a version of obamacare, as their nominee. in a party that hated obamacare, that was unhappy about republican elites as well as democratic elites. >> they believed mitt romney was going to win, and when he didn't that was a big shock and surprise. the republican elite had collectively done an analysis of what they believed had gone wrong in 2012. the only thing the party had done wrong was it had not been open enough on immigration. fix that, and everything would fall into place. >> that was the theory, that was a plan, and that's why you begin by having right after the 2012 election, a very serious effort, including many top republicans like marco rubio, john mccain, to push immigration reform. of course that dies in the

house, because rank and file republicans and conservatives on talk radio actually did not want immigration reform. >> woodruff: ezra klein, you're the editor-in-chief on the news and analysis website vox. is immigration the chief issue you see dividing the party? >> i think a lot of these issues, trade, immigration, they have a real subtext of economic insecurity. we're in a place right now as a country where the demographic changes that we're going through are significant. not just with immigration but with relative birth rates and other things in recent years. so we're just about to hit the point where a majority of infants are minority. we're sort of a majority- minority nation, if you're under three years old. that is a profound change for people to live through. and i think it's a change that the political system doesn't really know how to talk about. >> when you ask the question, do you think you'll be better off in 10 years than you are today? do you think your children will

have a better life than you? the most pessimistic group in america are whites without a college degree. and the second most pessimistic group in america are whites with a college degree. >> woodruff: so into this situation steps new york billionaire donald trump. what happens? >> donald trump is one of america's great marketing geniuses. and trump has, as great marketers do, an intuitive understanding of what the customer wants. so he saw this opportunity. in the spring of 2015, if you asked republicans, you gave them a straight binary choice, what do you want to do with illegal immigrants, do you want to somehow legalize them, or do you want to deport them. you made the choice that stark. more republicans said deport than legalize. so the great marketer came along and said, "i see a niche. i see a niche. it's the bigger niche. and i can have it all to myself." >> woodruff: bill kristol, you're the editor of the weekly standard, a long-time leading

voice among the neo- conservatives in this country. you have said that if the republicans nominate donald trump for president, you're ready to support a third party. is that still your position? >>it is. i suppose i should leave the door a little bit open, because who knows what the world will look like in june or july if that were to happen, what trump would have said, what positions he would have taken. but at the end of the day, could you trust him to appoint constitutional supreme court judges, could you trust him to be serious about limiting the scope of government? trump just seems to have no interest in any of that. >> trump, unlike a lot of republicans, says he's going to protect medicare, protect social security. that he believes in the government. he's not here to cut your government programs. what he's here to do is make sure the government is helping you, the downscale economically struggling white voter. and this money's not going to be going to immigrants who are flooding across a border to take advantage of our generosity. and that, for a particular part of the party, is very appealing. and for other parts of the party, it's really noxious.

>> even now, about 2/3 of republicans find trump unacceptable. he is unpopular with the more affluent, the more educated and the more religious within the republican party. and those are the people who usually do tend to prevail in republican contests. >> the conventional view is to lump cruz and trump together. but i think cruz and trump are very different. and it's not an accident that they're now fighting a big war. cruz, people can like him, dislike him, at the end of the day, cruz clerked for the chief justice of the united states. cruz wants a very conservative form of limited government, constitutionalism and so forth. it's very different from trump. >> woodruff: what happens to the tea party in all this? we don't hear about "the tea party" per se. >> i think trump has done a pretty good job of hijacking, in a way, the tea party impetus. and in my view, in an unhealthy way. that is, i think the tea party believed in constitutional government. it was trying to re-limit government. it hated obamacare, it didn't

like the bailouts. >> woodruff: jim demint, you're the former senator from south carolina. you're the president of the heritage foundation. some call you the godfather of the tea party movement. how did you get that designation? >> i finally saw we weren't going to change the system with the same people who were there. and i went out across the country and began to try to help primary opponents to republican establishment candidates. and the country rose up in 2010, put a lot of new people in the house and the senate. and there were a lot of complaints by the establishment. >> woodruff: eric cantor, it was 2014, you were the majority leader of the house, presumed to be the next speaker of the house of representatives. you lost a primary battle to an unknown economics professor, dave brat, a member of the tea party. now with the passage of time, do you better understand what happened? >> certainly there were a lot of factors at work, a real anger

out there on the part of a lot of people. >> woodruff: what do you think is the source of the anger? >> that real anger out there in the grassroots, when people would go home and there'd be layoffs, and wage-earners in their 40s and 50s who say, 'ihey wait a minute, what happened to my job?," and then didn't have the skills to go find another job. members of congress going home and seeing that. and saying, "hey, something's broken." and then that compounds itself, which leads some people to say, "hey wait a minute, we gotta throw it all out and go to the extreme, because we are in that bad of a situation." >> in 2010, this wave of tea party sent a whole new group to washington. nothing happened. 2012, the republican party took back, they pushed the tea party out, they tried to run the presidential race with karl rove and other top-down approach. and it was a disaster. but in 2014, the candidates were

back out there for the senate and the house campaigning on, okay, we're going to do it this time. give us a majority in the senate. nothing happened after they got the majority. and so what you see now is people basically saying, "the heck with these guys. it doesn't matter what they promise. they're not going to do anything." >> woodruff: you had what happened to eric cantor in 2014. and then last year, the downfall of- or the resignation of speaker boehner. what's been going on in the house of representatives? >> john boehner, who we used to be friends, but then we worked together in the house- he saw conservatives and this idea of limited government as more of an obstacle and a frustration. and he punished conservatives who really tried to push for some fairly simple things. what john boehner found is he couldn't crush the conservatives, but he he made it painful for them. >> you hear people say, "hey, you aren't trying hard enough. you didn't shut the government down. you didn't allow the government to go into default."

i mean these are all things that, to me, so counterintuitive. i mean nobody understands what that would really mean if you went into default, and all the people that could potentially get hurt. people say "yeah, things are that bad, go ahead and just blow it all up so we can reconstitute it." >> this is part of the problem for the republican party, and particularly for the republican base. they will run elections based on these promises of deep confrontation and tremendous results. and then once in office, they can't deliver on that much, because the american system of government requires a lot of compromise and a lot of consensus for anything to get done. that leads to a cycle of disillusionment within the republican base, because they feel they voted for these politicians, these politicians made clear promises, they didn't deliver on the promises. but one thing that has become, i think, really toxic is the way the base tends to interpret that disappointment, is that the real issue is that the politicians went and got bought by washington. >> woodruff: do moderates have a

place in the republican party? >> the most important kind of moderation that's needed is republicans need to preach respect for the work and institutions of government. the government has to be made to work. the government is, i think all republicans agree, is too expensive. but that doesn't mean that we'd be better off without one, or that you want to destroy the traditional agreements and understandings that make the american government work. >> republicans have really stressed those since 2009, and that's been dangerous. so we have to rediscover some respect for the institutions of government. >> and also accept that in a democracy, you don't get all your way all the time. and it's not a failure of the system if you do not win every particular argument. >> ifill: on the newshour online:

as you may have discovered, it may be a long night. you can always get the latest results from iowa on our homepage. and while you're there, check out our election calendar, with upcoming debates and primaries. all that and more is on our web site: pbs.org/newshour >> woodruff: join us at 11 pm eastern for special live coverage of the caucuses. >> woodruff: i'm judy woodruff in iowa. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org how i wish you were he

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we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same old ground. what have we found? the same old fears. wish you were here. ♪♪

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