schmidt have steffen speaking. how does the landscape in politics look for 2016? think the technology will help to establish different results, but i think that donald trump and bernie sanders have made this a thereating year because is a lot of speculation about how well they will do and how well their supporters will actually turn out and then there are parallels between barack obama in 2008. so i think it is wonderful to have a caucus year when you are trying to have someone run for make a recordwill year, frankly. >> we have a voter here who claims that she has not had a phone call and not even had someone knock on their door. interestingt: the thing is that the parties themselves really don't play role they try to do things -- role, they try to buthings behind the scenes, they try to find motivations to find people and give the motivation and to get them to work out and i think in the case of the candidates who sort of have a constituency that knows move a caucus, they don't have to train very much. areary clinton supporters people who have voted before in el

steffen schmidt is a political science professor at iowa state university, and has been local 5's political analyst for this week in iowa. jack: tonight, dr. schmidt joins us in studio to talk about what to expect from the campaign trail with just four caucus night. stephanie: dr. schmidt, the big news this week is donald trump deciding not to attend the fox news debate tonight at drake university. how do you think this will affect the debate? steffen: jack: what role has the pool of candidates since the pool of caucus night with all of our live coverage downtown. jack: now let's get a check in with the weather with brad edwards. brad? brad:wxcdl ( local 5 weather is coming up next. experts" brad/wxwall: weather adlib: after some warming, morning sunshine, the clouds returned this afternoon to keep us a bit cooler, but we still are above average with temps in the mid to upper 30s. and it looks like the mildest weather is yet to come in our forecast! tonight will be partly cloudy with our winds calming down to less than 10 mph. temperatures will fall back into the low 20s for most areas by f

steffen schmidt says right now it's a tossup. "on trump right? " jack: so tonight it was seven candidates up on was seven candidates up on the debate stage. the "big elephant not in the room," as senator ted cruz called it tonight, was donald trump. stephanie: the tone of the debate was a little less combative than some of the debates trump was involved in. but there was still plenty of passion, including dr. ben carson saying america needs to get serious about keeping isis operatives out of our borders. "because there are many people out there that want to destroy us. now i recognize that the vast majority of people coming in here are not those kinds of people. but that's not good enough, if you've got 10 people coming to your house and you know one of them is a terrorist, you probably gonna keep them all out. you know figure out a way to make sure we keep america safe. " even with trump gone tonight, a hot issue that caused a lot of disagreement between the candidates. one thing they did agree on was their feeling that another democrat in the w

host: i think steffen schmidt, we address the e-mails little bit.w about his last point on bernie sanders? guest: what am going to addresses the fact that this caller is brilliant. brought up the biggest single issue in the united states for democrats. they are losing elections at the state level. they are losing house races, they are losing senate races. they are losing races for governor, they are losing races for state houses. i'm not going to cite statistics, i could grab a nice chart and hold it up, but i'm not going to do that. i'm not ross perot. downemocrats need to go and figure out what they're are doing wrong at the state level. south dakota has no more elected democrats at all. and why is that? there are lots of democrats in south dakota. i'm would be up there giving a talk. what is the matter was set to go democrats that they are not adjusting their message and picking candidates who can connect with south dakota voters and get them elected? unless that happens, you are right. the president can we do executive orders and hope to work ma

stephanie: political analyst steffen schmidt is here to talk is here to talk more about this trump versus fox news battle that is taking over the iowa caucus talk this week. jack: stephanie: and steffen will be with us on caucus night caucus night with all of our live coverage. jack: now let's get a check in with the weather with brad edwards. brad? brad ((ad lib weather "now, we are iowweatherrate the independent weather experts" jack: chief meteorologist brad edwards with central iowa's most accurate forecast. brad? brad: (adlib) brad: (adlib) brad: weather adlib: put script here in green after some warming, morning sunshine, the clouds returned this afternoon to keep us a bit cooler, but we still are above average with temps in the mid to upper 30s. and it looks like the mildest weather is yet to come in our forecast! tonight will be partly cloudy with our winds calming down to less than 10 mph. temperatures will fall back into the low 20s for most areas by friday morning. we should have a mix of sun and clouds friday with southerly winds. this should help us warm up into the mid 40s f

steffen schmidt has to say. 17:50 "politically it's very bad for cruz ... whether it's constitutional or not." 18:15 dr. steffen "this week in iowa" weekly political program this sunday. we'll talk trump/cruz and what's going on with the democrats' frontrunner flip-flop in iowa, plus a new goal to "get along" as a new iowa statehouse session starts. "this week in iowa" airs sunday at 9 a-m right here on local five. nikki/ots: a variety show and a singles' auction tonight in des moines raised money for a local charity. tonight, a date with 18 single men and women from across the metro were auctioned off to raise money for variety, a local children's charity. tickets were 20 dollars at the door. guests got to have a dinner and mingle ahead of the big auction. this year, the goal was to raise $10-dollars for the charity. organizers say it's a fun competition to be part of. doug vinsand, organizer: "we had a pushup contest on stage, we have a guy on stage tonight that has a rocky theme entrance planned. so, it's always entertaining. and the more entertaining it

>>sabrina: so steffen, you and i have spoken about this quite a bit now. >>dr. schmidt: mmhmm. >>sabrina: do you think this is fair that he's doing this or i mean, is he just creating noise? (chuckling) >>dr. schmidt: i, look, the word fair comes up all the time. i just got a, a text message from someone saying it wasn't fair. this is politics. (chuckling) >>dr. schmidt: and politics, um, you know, all is fair in love and war and politics as they say. and it, it had to come up. i mean, it had to come up because it's come up with came up. mccain was born in the panama canal zone which was a u.s. territory and so there was no question that, that he was okay. but if you're born in canada it wasn't so clear and even if constitutionally it is not a real legal issue, you know, it is a political issue. and now there's a lawsuit that's just been filed in houston against cruz for him to kinda demonstrate that he actually is a natural born u.s. citizen which the constitution says is required. so what it means is politically it's very bad for cruz because it's drip, drip, drip, drip. it's

steffen schmidt and our state wide political team for as they bring insight to the issues and the candidates. we'll continue with live coverage all night long until the caucus winners are announced. jack: and with all the candidates fighting for your support, the airwaves are flooded by political ads. you just can't get away from them. 70 million dollars has been spent on campaign ads so far. stephanie: jeb bush's super pac has spent the most with 15 million dollars in ads. next is marco rubio's campaign, his super pac and an outside group spending 12 million. then, it's clinton and sanders. bernie sanders' spending is a little different. all 7.4 million dollars worth of ads have been paid for by his campaign. stephanie: but with the amount of ads, are people really listening or changing the channel. at platinum kutz, a baber shop and customers tell us they can't wait for monday to be over with. "i get tired of seeing all these ads. it can be going to the airport, i can be in the bathroom and a sticker would pop up saying vote for hillary." stephanie: we want to know what you think of the po

steffen schmidt from the university of iowa, or rather iowa state university, i'm sorry about that, joins us now. (chuckling) >>amanda: he's our resident political expert here on this week in iowa. so is trump rewriting the rules right now when it comes to campaigning? >>dr. schmidt: amanda, he has rewritten the rules from the first day. he has done everything that is unexpected. he is really, i, i c cl him (chuckling) >>dr. schmidt: he's like machiavelli, you know. he knows how to manipulate everybody and surprises everyday. >>sabrina: manipulate, surprise everyone, but he's also kind of outraged everyone on other campaigns because he's really changed the way they can operate as well. so talk to us a little bit about what that has done to those other campaigns. >>dr. schmidt: well, you're absolutely right. i mean, he's, he's not following any of the rules which means the other candidates don't have a playbook. they don'thow to react. they don't know how to plan for it and therefore, they are left essentially sort those are the two words. and what he's doing is providing people with bread

. ♪ >> tomorrow on washington journal, iowa state professor steffen schmidt. tim former u.s.ator hutchinson explains why he endorsed marco rubio. after that, another former u.s. discussesom harkin, hillary clinton's campaign and his support. and we will take your phone calls, facebook comments, and tweets live on washington journal tomorrow morning. former this week, maryland governor martin o'malley delivered remarks to voters and took questions at a town hall meeting in iowa. he talked about the syrian refugee crisis, and the economy. this is an hour and 10 minutes. [applause] you.n o'malley: thank thank you very much. thank you. back at you, iowa. thank you very, very much. i usually talk better when i'm on a chair. can i do that? it also adds an extra degree of entertainment. [laughter] how are you? good. it's good to be here. thank you for coming out. it's caucus time, isn't it? >> d.l.. -- yeah. o'malley: i love this state, its beauty, landscape, warmth. .f its people the thing i love most about iowa is this. you are not intimidated by big money, polls, pundits. you alw

announcer: the next washington journal, steffen schmidt previews the iowa caucuses on monday. former u.s. senator, tim hutchinson of arkansas discusses his support of marco rubio. and former senator tom harkin talks about his support for hillary clinton. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >>. iowa, simulcasting with c-span. >> god was the great state of just god bless the great state of iowa. >> here in iowa. >> i am so pleased to do this with one of all friends in iowa. >> if you would have told us one year ago we would have come in third in iowa, we would have given anything for that. ♪ >> is this an average caucus? to say.rd this is the third when i have been to. they are all different. it is good to back in iowa. >> thank you for the great sendoff you're giving to us. >> i want to thank the people of iowa. >> iowa is the first. >> i love iowa. if i lose i will, i will never speak to you people again. ♪ chucksenator grassley joined dr. ben carson at a campaign event in i

stephanie: political analyst steffen schmidt is here to talk is here to talk more about this trump versus fox news battle that is taking over the iowa caucus talk this week. jack: stephanie: and steffen will be with us on caucus night

schmidt, the big news this week is donald trump deciding not to attend the fox news debate tonight at drake university. how do you think this will affect the debate? steffen: jack: what role has the pool of