Welcome to a special edition of Hot Dish, the Star Tribune's weekday newsletter on all things Minnesota politics. We're publishing special editions through the weekend ahead of the Iowa caucuses. You can sign up for daily dispatches straight to your inbox at www.startribune.com/hotdishpolitics.
Good afternoon!
Just one day remains until the Iowa caucuses.
Your daily must-read is Pat Condon's new piece on the state of the race — and stakes — for Klobuchar heading into Monday.
I spent Saturday bouncing around Iowa the campaign, as Klobuchar made her closing argument to voters during a two-day barnstorming blitz. A 700-person crowd at a junior high gym in Beaverdale, the final stop of a whirlwind travel day, was the campaign's largest rally so far.
The events attracted a mix of Klobuchar superfans and caucusgoers still trying to make up their mind. Many I encountered were still deciding between Klobuchar and Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg, i.e. the three moderates in the race (In the Quad Cities, we encountered an Illinois man who said he likes both Klobuchar and... Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican who is not running for president this year.)
The unprecedented last-second cancellation of the final Iowa Poll release (more on that drama here) means campaigns, pundits and caucusgoers themselves will enter Monday without a clear picture of who has (or hasn't) gained support in the stage of the campaign. That's significant given how many Iowa Democrats appear undecided just days out.
Seems a good showing in the poll could have helped Klobuchar, who's leaning heavily on arguments of electability and a late surge as she makes her closing case to caucusgoers. Reminder that she'll have to hit 15% support in most precincts to even rank in the final results. No publicly released polls have shown her doing that well here.
