Republican candidates have spent heavily in Iowa, but the state is seeing fewer visitors, and winter storms have upended events and travel plans.
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Downtown Des Moines on Thursday night, before a snowstorm blanketed the city and temperatures dropped. Less competitive caucuses and the inclement weather have affected economic activity in Iowa.
Even before a snowstorm brought Des Moines to a near standstill on Friday, the city felt decidedly more subdued than it usually does around the Iowa caucuses: quiet restaurants, empty streets, bartenders with little to do.
The numbers confirm it: The 2024 caucuses are expected to bring less than 40 percent of the direct economic impact to the capital that the 2020 contest provided — an estimated $4.2 million, down from $11.3 million four years ago. Direct economic impact measures what visitors do, like sleeping, driving, eating and drinking.
It is a striking decline that reflects, among other things, diminished media engagement in a presidential race that is less competitive than in past years, when the state has been inundated by presidential hopefuls, their campaigns and teams of journalists in hot pursuit.
“Media is way down,” said Greg Edwards, the chief executive of the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau, which provided the numbers. “The major networks aren’t sending their major anchors like they have in the past.”
The $4.2 million figure does not represent the caucuses’ total economic boom to Iowa. Tens of millions of dollars have flowed into the state in recent months, culminating this week in a frenzy of events. The campaigns and their supporting super PACs have spent $119.6 million on television advertising in Iowa, according to an analysis by AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.
ImageDowntown Des Moines on Friday, when presidential candidates canceled several events.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times
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Source: nytimes.com
