Trump’s Dominance in Iowa Sets Tone for Republican Primary

Donald Trump on Monday night cruised to victory in the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses.

Just 110,298, or less than 15%, of the state’s 752,000 registered Republican voters took part in Monday’s caucus.

Trump won with 56,260 votes, or 51%, setting a record for the largest margin of victory in a contested caucus in the state’s history.

The former president’s closest competitors were, in fact, not very close at all. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earned 23,420 votes (21.2%), while former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley garnered 21,085 votes (19.1%). Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy received 8,449 votes (7.7%) and used his concession speech to announce his exit from the race and his endorsement of Trump. None of the other candidates in the race received even 1% of the vote.

The win gives Trump momentum headed into next week’s primary election in New Hampshire, where Haley has been gathering strength in hopes of an upset victory that might inject new energy into her campaign.

Trump’s electorate

The last time Trump ran in a competitive caucus in Iowa, when he was seeking the nomination in 2016, he lost a close race to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. In that contest, Trump earned 24.3% of the vote, or less than half of the share he claimed on Monday.

A poll of voters entering Iowa caucus sites Monday evening demonstrated the degree to which Trump has consolidated the support of a large share of the Republican electorate.

Trump had the backing of 49% of male voters heading into caucus sites, and 53% of female voters. He held 47% pluralities among urban and suburban voters, and a 57% majority of rural votes.

In an electorate that skewed older than the nation as a whole, Trump took a plurality of 42% of voters between 30 and 44 years of age, and won 54% of voters between 45 and 64, and 58% of voters 65 and older. He was weakest among voters 17 to 29, winning only 22% of their votes, compared to DeSantis’ 30% and Haley’s 25%.

Dedicated conservatives

Among the more remarkable shifts was Trump’s performance among voters who identify themselves as evangelical or “born-again” Christians. In 2016, Cruz beat Trump soundly in the contest for that demographic. Yet on Monday, the former president claimed 53% of the evangelical vote, nearly twice DeSantis’ 27%.

The voters who show up for caucus-style votes are typically more committed than the general electorate, as the process can take several hours to complete. Polls showed that 52% of caucus-goers on Monday identified as being “very conservative,” with an additional 37% calling themselves “somewhat conservative.” Only 9% considered themselves “moderate.”

Two out of three caucus-goers told pollsters they believe Trump’s false claim that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. With Trump currently facing 91 felony counts in four different jurisdictions, 65% said they believe the former president would be fit for office even if he is convicted of a crime.

DeSantis in trouble

Monday’s results were a blow to DeSantis, who had staked much on his performance in Iowa. The Florida governor has been a regular presence in the state for months and plowed a large share of his once-formidable campaign war chest into investments in a get-out-the-vote operation there.

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to supporters during a caucus night party, Jan. 15, 2024, in West Des Moines, Iowa.

DeSantis received the endorsements of Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, and influential conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats. But high-profile backers and a strong campaign organization were simply no match for Trump’s broad base of support in the state.

In a sign of his strategy for moving forward, the DeSantis campaign said he would be in South Carolina on Tuesday for a campaign event. He will still campaign in New Hampshire, which votes on January 23, but the move appeared to be an attempt to lower expectations for his performance there.

While Haley is competitive with Trump in New Hampshire, polls indicate DeSantis’ support there is barely in the double digits.

Rolling the dice on South Carolina

Robert Oldendick, a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, said that DeSantis’ decision to highlight his effort in that state appeared to be a gamble that he could retain some viability in the race by challenging Haley in her home state when it votes in late February.

“If he would have had a very strong second place finish [in Iowa], he might have tried to compete in New Hampshire,” Oldendick told VOA. “But … the Republican primary electorate in New Hampshire is not really very consistent with the type of issues that he is presenting. They’re more independent voters and are much more likely to support Haley. So, rather than competing there and getting trounced, maybe he has a better chance competing with Haley in her home state.”

But even on Haley’s home turf, Oldendick said, the two will still likely be battling for second place.

“South Carolina essentially looks much like Iowa in the sense that Trump has pretty much unwavering support, so that he’s going to come out first. And then, it’s just a matter of what second and third look like,” he said.

Haley in New Hampshire

Haley’s third-place finish in Iowa, despite some polls suggesting she had pulled ahead of DeSantis, may have seemed like a setback to her supporters. But there was little time to dwell on the result, with voting in New Hampshire a week away.

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a caucus night party in West Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2024.

Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire who has studied the state’s primaries, said the candidate has a clear task in front of her.

“Nikki Haley is going to spend the next week barnstorming the state and trying to piece together a coalition of unlikely allies — moderate Republicans, anti-Trump independents, a few Democrats who are bored with nothing to do,” Scala told VOA.

With Trump ahead of her by about 10% in most polls, she will need to assemble “some kind of coalition that crosses party lines, that includes large numbers of independents,” he said.

Scala described the possibility of a Haley upset victory in New Hampshire as “plausible,” but said that her chances, “surely would have been fortified by a strong second-place finish instead of a third-place finish [in Iowa].”

‘Writing on the wall’

Experts told VOA that barring a major upheaval in the race, Trump appears to be on track to secure the Republican nomination.

“We’ve been seeing the writing on the wall for a while now that Trump just has this huge amount of support within the party,” Seth Masket, a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, told VOA.

“Party voters overwhelmingly prefer him, and he is running more or less like an incumbent. The real question was whether the polling was overestimating or underestimating his support. It turns out, it basically had it right,” he said.

Masket added that there is always a possibility that something could happen to derail Trump’s progress — an illness, or a criminal conviction, for example — but that it looks less likely every day.

“Trump has the support he has,” Masket said. “He’s already gotten a little above 50% in this first state, and there’s probably not that many states where he’s going to do worse. So, this could go on for a while still. But it’s hard to see where one of these other candidates really makes up a lot of ground.”

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