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Is it a death grip or a limp handshake? President Donald Trumps grasp on the Republican Party grassroots will get its first big test of 2020 next month in Iowa.

Iowa Republicans attending the Feb. 3 caucuses will have the opportunity to cast their preference for the partys presidential nomination. Thats different from other recent election cycles, when parties with incumbent presidents have not held true contests or reported accurate results.

Iowa political parties have peculiar history with uncontested presidential caucuses

For true small-government conservatives, there are many reasons to oppose Trumps reelection bid.

Competitive GOP caucuses in 2020 would be good for America

Actually, we need more candidates running for president in Iowa

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld are campaigning against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump is favored, to say the least. Polls show nearly 90 percent of Republicans approve of Trumps job performance, while around 80 percent support his renomination.

For true small-government conservatives, though, there are many reasons to oppose Trumps reelection bid: He has let the national debt balloon uninhibited, failed to replace Obamacare, largely reneged on his promise to wind down our unwinnable wars and regularly bucked the limits of his executive power (not least of which was withholding Congressionally approved aid from Ukraine, the subject of the ongoing impeachment trial).

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The two Republican challengers are simultaneously contemptuous of Trumps enablers in Washington, D.C., and sympathetic to the voters who put them in power. They are convinced there is hunger in the Republican base for an alternative to Trump, never mind the polls.

Walsh one-term Tea Party congressman from Illinois and a former talk radio host spent much of last week watching Trumps impeachment trial in the Senate and firing off spicy takes on Twitter, including calling out Republican senators by name. He has little hope the current crop of GOP legislators can be redeemed.

I think theyre too far gone. You gotta be on the record right now about Trump and Trumpism. These people like (U.S. Sen. Marco) Rubio and some who are trying to stay quiet, you cant do that. You either support him or you dont, Walsh told me last week.

GOP politicians redemption tour comes to Iowa

On the issues, Walsh takes libertarian and fiscally conservative stances. He seems less concerned nowadays with many of the divisive culture war issues he discussed in his talk radio career.

Walsh has made increasingly frequent trips to Iowa in the past couple of months, and plans to be here every day until the caucuses.

I want people to wake up after the caucuses and be surprised and say, Wow, there is a primary going on on the Republican side. Ive gotta do well, and Im staking a lot on Iowa, Walsh said.

Weld a former two-term Republican governor from left-leaning Massachusetts holds out hope that some Republican legislators will snap out of blindly supporting the president, but time is running out.

Ive been predicting for some time that its not going to go well for Republicans in the legislative elections in 2020. Well have a Democratic Senate if they just roll over and play dead, so Im hopeful they wont, Weld told me.

Are Republicans willing to disagree? Caucus challenger wants to find out

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Weld also has a broad libertarian streak, balanced with an old-school pro-business conservatism. He even ran with the Libertarian Party for vice president in 2016. At the partys nominating convention that year, he promised members he was a Libertarian for life, and wouldnt go back to any other party.

But in a guest column published last week by the conservative blog the Bulwark, Weld gives an impassioned defense of Republican values, and doesnt mention his Libertarian Party stint.

Ive been a libertarian since I was in law school and took up Friedrich Hayek and The Constitution of Liberty, Weld told me.

The reason I decided to run as a Republican this time is that someone needed to stand up and plant a flag against Trumps misdeeds, and I didnt see anyone else doing it.

Trump challenger is part of great American party-switching tradition

Its hard to say what a bad night for Trump in Iowa would look like. Assuming the president wins a clear majority of Iowa Republicans support, how many points would his challengers have to siphon off to make a statement?

Theres only one modern election that offers a comparison. In 2012, Iowa Democrats reported the full delegate counts from the caucuses, which they did not do in 1996: 98.4 percent for President Barack Obama, 1.5 percent uncommitted.

It looked like a total blowout for Obama, but his figures may have been inflated by party loyalists maneuvering. The caucus agenda included time for a livestream webcast from Obama, but preference groups to pick a candidate were only held if 15 percent of attendees agreed to it.

Under those rules, only Democrats with a little bit of confidence and knowledge of the process were able to have their preferences counted, as independent journalist and Democratic activist Laura Belin reported at the time.

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The Iowa Democratic Partys caucus rules and procedures put many obstacles before Democrats who arent satisfied with the presidents performance, Belin wrote on her Bleeding Heartland website.

Disgruntled Republicans will face somewhat different challenges this February. There is no viability threshold, so all the votes will be counted. But the party infrastructure is all-in for Trump the Republican National Committee voted last year to commit undivided support to the Trump campaign and caucus chairs might resist efforts to speak in support of other candidates.

The hope is that a lackluster tally for Trump in Iowa would generate momentum and national attention for the opposition candidates. Both Weld and Walsh told me they are committed to staying in the race past Iowa and New Hampshire, when several Democrats will likely be dropping out.

Perhaps some unforeseen crisis will change minds and trigger massive turnout to late GOP primaries. Trumps removal from office or a battle at the party convention are extremely unlikely, but maybe not impossible.

Assuming Trump is on the general election ballot, both Walsh and Weld reserve the right to endorse an opposing candidate or even launch a third-party campaign of their own. The ultimate goal, theyre both adamant, is to end Trumps presidency.

Im dedicating my life to stopping Trump. If it doesnt work out through a Republican challenge in the Republican primary, I dont know what Ill do next. ... I would do anything if I thought it would help stop him, Walsh said.

Comments: (319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com

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Unstoppable? Iowa GOP caucuses will measure depth of Trump's support - The Gazette