The severe winter weather moving across much of the Midwest could prove to be the wild card in tonight’s Iowa caucus results—the first contest in the GOP primary calendar.

Even so, Donald Trump is expected to run away with the state, having dominated the Iowa polls from the outset in early 2023. The most recent polls show him with 52.5% of the Iowa GOP voters, leaving Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis fighting over a very distant second place.

realclearpolling.com/polls/president/re…

Yet Trump could still lose. If bad weather keeps too many of his supporters away from the caucuses, he could leave Iowa in second place or even third. These are unlikely outcomes, given his polling dominance to date, but they are not impossible.

If Donald Trump does win—which is by far the expected outcome for Iowa—his securing the Iowa delegates for himself greatly complicates both the criminal cases arrayed against him and efforts by Democrats to bar him from the ballot in several states. After tonight, an Iowa win means Trump is the preferred GOP candidate for at least Iowa, and for every state he wins afterwards. The courts would be wading into politically explosive territory if they were to subsequently rule that Iowa and other states could not have the candidate of their choice.

Several pundits are attempting to downplay the significance of a Trump win in Iowa, but Trump wins will make it progressively harder to deny Trump ballot access in later states.

How far will the State go to stop Donald Trump? We may find out the answer to that in the very near future.