Trump dominated the Iowa caucuses on Monday, taking a first but important step to his third straight GOP presidential nomination and delivering a blow to his rivals
Donald Trump dominated the Iowa caucuses on Monday, taking his first important step to his third straight GOP presidential nomination and delivering a blow to his rivals, who had hoped to capitalize on his legal troubles and earlier signs the base might be ready to move on from him.
Not so: Trump is projected by ABC News to have defeated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by about 30 points. DeSantis is projected to come in second, with about 21% of the vote; and Haley to come in third, taking about 19%.
New Hampshire will hold the next nominating contest with a Jan. 23 primary, and it could offer a more mixed bag for Trump given that independents and undeclared voters can participate there.
But Iowa’s results — and the widespread evidence that key conservative voting blocs continue to embrace Trump, as seen in entrance polling — marked an unquestionable win for the former president as the 2024 got underway.
Here are six takeaways from the caucus results.
Unlike Democrats‘ caucuses in Iowa in 2020, which was ultimately out of step with what the party voters nationwide wanted, this year’s Republican caucuses seem to have included relatively good representation of the larger GOP base around the country.
The state is overwhelmingly white and rural, and the percentage of residents with a college education is below the national average. It’s states like Iowa that represent the base of the modern Republican Party, built on very conservative, older and evangelical voters — and Trump cleaned up.
His overwhelming victory among voters who make up the heart of the and the primary electorate — underscores the daunting task facing Haley and DeSantis, as well as his other critics not running for office, who have now spent months on the trail and tens of millions of dollars trying to tamp down the former president’s influence over the party.
What’s more, the extent to which Republican voters in Iowa have signed on to Trump’s personal issues and embraced him even more than in past cycles was made clear in the entrance poll of caucusgoers.
According to an analysis of the entrance poll, 65% of GOP voters said they don’t think President Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020, echoing Trump’s baseless claims of fraud, and 63% percent said they’d consider Donald Trump fit for office even if he were convicted of a crime. Nearly half said they’re part of the „MAGA movement“ that Trump started.
Ideologically, 88% of caucusgoers said they are conservative, matching the high in Iowa GOP entrance polls, including 51% who identified as „very“ conservative. Trump ended up winning 54% of conservative voters, about 30 points better than in 2016. And he won „very“ conservative voters with 60% — about 40 points better than his 2016 showing in that group.
DeSantis is set to nab second place, claiming some success in a state where he had essentially staked his entire campaign — and seen his poll numbers weaken somewhat in recent days.
