CLEAR LAKE, Iowa — Nathan Hanson and Rich Lewerke are perhaps the most discussed, most invisible and most important people in Iowa politics: Long-time Iowans who have never attended a caucus before but say they will do so for the first time on Feb. 1 to vote for Donald Trump.

“I just never really paid attention to politics as much as I do now,” Hanson, 36, who works in an auto dealership, told me as we waited for Trump to appear at the historic Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Saturday. “Everything that’s happening around us now, and the way things are going — it’s just sparked my interest a heck of a lot more now.”