Years worth of narrative building, hundreds of millions of dollars, countless hours of media time, massively manned and funded campaign operations, and all the bombast and trappings of promising presidential campaigns built up to the first counting of votes, and for everyone not named Donald Trump all was lost 31 minutes into the process. Trump didn’t just win Iowa, he dominated without even really trying.
Trump and his campaign effectively turned the traditional Iowa Caucus playbook on its head, continuing to aim to define the Republican Party and election cycle on his own terms.
He spurned some of the most prominent conservative leaders in the state, attacking Gov. Kim Reynolds for remaining neutral early in the race and then endorsing DeSantis, soon followed by Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats. Trump dismissed the endorsements as inconsequential, even as he attacked Reynolds for disloyalty.
He largely shrugged off the retail politicking made famous by the caucuses, making just 22 scheduled public visits the entire cycle, according to the Des Moines Register’s Candidate Tracker. Almost all of them were campaign-organized rallies in population centers, while his challengers shook hands at Pizza Ranches and visited as many counties as possible.
At all but a few “cattle call” events, where prominent organizations or elected officials invite the entire slate of candidates, Trump was absent.
And pressed on key conservative issues like abortion, Trump toed the line on policy in ways that frustrated evangelical leaders, calling a six-week abortion ban like the one passed in Iowa a “horrible thing” and insisting that Republicans who took a hard-line approach to the issue would lose elections.
None of it appeared to matter.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis finished a distant second 30 pts behind Trump. After months of crowing about their forthcoming historic ground game in Iowa that had by some reports more than $100m price tag, a campaign full of former Ted Cruz operatives did seven points worse than TrusTed managed. Brutal.
Nikki Haley finished third, two points behind DeSantis, and bizarrely declared afterwards that Iowa had made the GOP primary a two-person race. Which, being in a “I can’t see the winner from here” third place pretty much sums up the then end of the mostly-online “Haley Surge” narrative the American news watching public was subjected to the last few weeks.
That jackass Vivek finished a distant fourth and promptly dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump, the candidate Ramaswamy was a surrogate for in all but name. Thanks for coming, Vivek Ramaswamy.
So much of what was said over the last few months of campaigning died a cold death in frigid Iowa. No, the polls weren’t inaccurate. No, there was no momentum by any candidate. No, most of the Republican Party doesn’t want a more socially acceptable version of Donald Trump when Donald Trump himself is on the ballot. No, the GOP base isn’t going to be dissuaded from Trump by indictments, losses, or anything else. This has been a Primary In Name Only all along. The pre-polling data showed 70-30 splits within caucus goers that yes, they think the 2020 election was stolen and yes, they will still vote for Trump even if indicted tell the story. This isn’t a primary at all; two-thirds of the Republican Party are all in on the Donald Trump vengeance ride that is going to prove that they were right all along, and the other third are having a group struggle session through the stages of grief that savvy campaign pros are making a fortune off of.
Competition brings clarity, and folks who were paying a lick of attention have known for months that Trump was going to steamroll this primary. So now some might go through the motions like New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina might change the reality that now is upon the political process. Don’t bother. The vast majority of the Republican Party still wants Donald Trump no matter what, and they are going to get him good and hard in 2024 no matter what, no matter what that might mean in the future.
You can skip all this, check in for when DeSantis and Haley concede and endorse Trump in a few weeks, and start looking ahead to Biden-Trump 2.
Anything else is just ignoring reality.
Iowa during a cold snap rewards the candidate with the most devoted followers because it’s hard and time consuming to vote.Report
Trump got something 97% of the vote as the incumbent in 2020. Roughly 50% of the delegates choosing someone else this year leaves me mildly optimistic about November. A lot of these people are pretty turned off by Trump’s behavior, and would prefer an alternative.
With that said, the pull of Team Red is strong, and conservatives especially have an amazing ability to undertake all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to justify an R vote.
My hope is that as we see a tsunami of details coming out on classified documents and Jan 6th this year, will that tip them into the Never Trump category, but that’s a tough one to see right now.Report
Good to see you checking in, Mike.
If, and it’s a big if, Trump underperforms due to those kinds of factors, my guess is that it isn’t going to show up in the polls. I see it as very unlikely that many Republicans disillusioned by Trump would actually go out and vote D in the current landscape. However it’s possible they might forget to show up on election day for the general in a few key places. This isn’t a prediction at all, just a thought on how it might play out.Report
Yeah, at this point, the two biggest IF factors for me in the general are A) Will Republicans circle the wagons after Trump gets the nomination and B) How much does Palestine hurt Biden among the Far Left and Gen Z?
With that said, Trump lost nearly 50% of his votes from 2020, so that is worth considering. Really curious to see what happens in NH.Report
I’m sure R’s will circle the wagons… the question is how many will fade away and just vote down-ballot like we saw in 2022. None of the R folks out this way would ever actually vote for Biden, but some will just not vote for Trump.
Which is why I’m expecting campaigning on Negative Partisanship to go to 11 this cycle (or are we at 12 now?).
I’d like to say that Biden is just normal enough to give some R’s enough cover to give Trump a pass, but this isn’t 2020 and I’m not confident Biden has it in him any more.
My contrarian take is this: if somehow Trump inconceivably wins, it will be the Left’s ‘excite the base’ strategy that does it. If ever there was an election to *not* excite the base, this is it. Let Trump campaign on getting out the Base, that will suppress enough votes for him to lose.Report
I agree on people not voting for Trump, but not voting for Biden either. I see that a lot her in KY because we always go red, so they can stand on principles and still see their team win, but tell everyone it wasn’t their fault he is a turd.
Biden has to thread the needle because Millennials are not excited about him at all and GenZ is pissed about Gaza. Both groups see him as too old. So he has to do something to get them hyped up without alienating moderate conservatives that might switch teams. My money would be on legalizing weed in October.Report
I will vote for Joe this time.Report
I think that’s the right decision but of course I would.
I am curious what’s going to happen with the chunk of my relatives who fall more into the holdover/traditional Republican camp, especially the women. Not that it matters given that most of us live in safely blue places, but it makes me wonder if their discomfort with Trump couldn’t be extrapolated to places it may be much more important. Very hard to say.Report
MIKE!
There’s also this weird ability of Trump to get people to vote who didn’t vote before. It doesn’t translate to other candidates and it can only be overcome by someone like Biden promising a return to normalcy… (Well, assuming that Hillary Clinton wasn’t historically awful at this, anyway. If you assume that she’s pretty competent, it can only be overcome by someone like Biden making promises about getting back to normal.)
But Biden beat him last time so no problem.Report
I could definitely see Trump rallying the immigrant vote (nobody is more xenophobic than the last group off the boat). But that is offset by his deportation plans.
Things are getting interesting!Report
The LatinX vote looks worrisome for Biden. And Politico is… let’s call it “concern trolling” about the African-American vote.Report
Concerns about the black vote shifting or staying home seems to happen every four years. This is not the year to worry about it.Report
The Latino vote isn’t all that unified. Eg, when the LA Times asked its readers to suggest an alternative to Latinx, the overwhelming majority who responded said Mexican-American. I’m sure you’ll get a quite different answer in Miami or New York City.
It goes almost without saying that an “All America” survey isn’t particularly useful. How’s the Latino vote in Arizona, or Nevada, where it can make a real difference?Report
More importantly, how are they voting down ballot?
Its easy for people to respond to a survey by saying they don’t care for the presidential candidate, but that doesn’t tell us anything about their political views.
Hispanic voters are not uniform and there are significant differences between Cubans, Chicanos, and those from Central America, and also between more recent immigrants and more established or native born.
Generally speaking, however, Hispanic voters in Congressional and statewide races prefer Democrats, and as a general demographic, are younger and more liberal than the Republican demographic.Report
The LatinX community was polled in Arizona and the article about it is atrocious (from December 7th! Last month!). Here’s the conclusion:
Does it mention what the poll results were? OF COURSE NOT. Seriously, this is malpractice.
As for Nevada:
So, like, it’s possible for either player to capitalize on a huge freakin’ mistake, holy cow, I can’t believe how bad that mistake was! made by the other.
Who can go the longest without screwing up worse? My money’s on Biden but I’m not sure that hiding in the basement will work half as well as in the 2nd half of 2020.
Maybe we’ll get a new covid variant and it’ll help.Report
Good to see you back, MikeReport
Thanks!
(Man, I have really got to change that avatar 🙂Report
It’s a classic. While you’re logged feel free to write something, you are always welcomed.Report
But then people have to learn a new one :^) I’m sure there are people here and there around the internet that recognize me not by name, but by the stupid transistor.Report
Why? I’ve been using the same one since… forever, I think. Added the Portland flag in the background after I moved here, but other than that…Report
I originally started using it during my conservative days, and it was meant to lean into the idea of all Republicans being evil, mustache-twirling, bad guys. Now it doesn’t feel so funny.Report
I think its even more appropriate now.
And good to see you old friend.Report
Yeah always great to see Mike!Report
You too North!Report