Trump Wins Iowa Caucuses in Historic Landslide

Former President Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses in a commanding fashion on Monday as his supporters braved freezing temperatures to deliver him a historic landslide victory.

Summary

Former President Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses in a commanding fashion on Monday as his supporters braved freezing temperatures to deliver him a historic landslide victory.

• A majority of voters (51%) turned out to support the former president, good enough for 20 delegates. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trailed in a distant second place with 21% of the vote, with former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley close behind with 19% support.
• DeSantis and Haley were separated by around 2,000 votes, while DeSantis trailed Trump by around 33,000 votes.
• Trump’s 30-point margin of victory far surpasses the previous record (13 points) set in 1988, although it could take months to formally decide on a nominee should Haley and DeSantis remain in the race for the long haul.
• The race was called soon after the caucuses kicked off on Monday night, leading the DeSantis campaign to accuse the mainstream press of “election interference” for announcing their projections before voters had finished caucusing. 
• Vivek Ramaswamy finished far behind with around 8% of the support, good for a distant fourth place. Ramaswamy dropped out of the race during his post-election address to supporters and threw his support behind Trump.
• Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson threw in the towel on Tuesday morning after winning a mere 191 votes or 0.2%, which amounted to a distant sixth-place finish.
• Hutchinson even finished behind little-known pastor Ryan Binkley, who garnered 774 votes, more than 3 times the support of a former state governor who appeared in the first televised debate.

• The New York Times called Trump’s connection with his voters “the most durable force in American politics.” Michael C. Bender and Katie Glueck continued, “Donald J. Trump’s decisive victory in Iowa revealed a new depth to the reservoir of devotion inside his party. For eight years, he has nurtured a relationship with his supporters with little precedent in politics. He validates them, he entertains them, he speaks for them and he uses them for his political and legal advantage.”
• NBC News reported the Trump and Haley campaigns are readying for a one-on-one brawl in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Haley went after Trump in his post-caucus speech, lumping both of the “about” 80-year-old men together as “Trump and Biden both lack a vision for our country’s future, because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendetta, by grievances.” Haley added, “America deserves better.”
• Politico noted the estimated turnout of 109,000 voters was significantly down from the 187,000 voters who showed up in 2016. Regardless, his commanding victory has made one thing clear: “Trump is in control” of the GOP nominating process going forward.

• The Fox News Voter Analysis found that Trump won majorities of white evangelical Christians (55%) and MAGA supporters (74%), while placing third among “non-MAGA” voters behind Haley and DeSantis. DeSantis did not win any major demographic cohort, while Haley performed best among college grads, suburbanites and self-identified moderates.
• The New York Post noted Trump posted the largest margin of victory for any GOP candidate in the history of the Iowa Caucus, and is the first GOP candidate facing primary opposition to win a majority of the vote. “I really think this is time now for everybody in our country to come together. We want to come together — whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative,” Trump said in his victory speech.
• After the former President’s big Iowa win, National Review’s Jim Geraghty concluded, “it’s Trump’s world, we’re just living in it.” Geraghty continued, “Donald Trump is on pace to cruise to the nomination. We’ll see if New Hampshire amounts to a speed bump or a genuine obstacle.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2023