The coldest Iowa caucuses in history arrive Monday night amid expectations that Republicans in the state will put former President Donald J. Trump on the march to a third G.O.P. presidential nomination.
The battle for second place, hard-fought between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, will anoint Mr. Trump’s closest rival ahead of the New Hampshire primary election and beyond.
The stakes for Iowans are high. Mr. Trump is pursuing a return to the presidency despite — or perhaps because of — 91 felony counts from four criminal prosecutions, a looming fraud judgment that could decide the fate of his New York real estate empire and a pending decision on the defamation of a woman he has already been held liable for sexually abusing.
His opponents have implored Republican voters to move past the “chaos” and controversies of the Trump era and pick a different standard-bearer to go up against President Biden, who beat Mr. Trump in 2020. Iowans will render the first verdict on those entreaties.
Here is what to watch as results roll in.
Will Mr. Trump crack 50 percent?
Traditionally, Iowa caucuses are squeakers, so close that Democrats failed to produce definitive results in the chaotic 2020 contest. Republicans falsely declared Mitt Romney the narrow winner in 2012, depriving the actual victor, Rick Santorum, the momentum that a caucus triumph can bring.
This time around, polling has consistently shown Mr. Trump well ahead, so much so that the former president hardly campaigned in the state. Until the final weekend, he and his campaign were projecting confidence in a blowout victory, which has raised expectations when most campaigns seek to lower them.
If Mr. Trump exceeds 50 percent, he will earn what he predicted would be “a historic landslide.” Perhaps more important, Iowa will have signaled that even if the Republican field winnows down to Mr. Trump and one competitor, he still may have the allegiance of a majority of the party’s primary voters, at least in the nation’s heartland.
Who will claim second place?
Mr. DeSantis officially joined the Republican presidential race in May with strong financial backing and talk that he would win Iowa and help the party turn the page on Mr. Trump while still embracing his policies.
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