DES MOINES, Iowa—Former President Donald Trump claimed a huge victory in the Iowa caucuses, cementing his place as the prohibitive favorite in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The night wasn’t a total loss for others, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed a second-place finish, scoring well above his recent standing in the polls, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley finished third, falling below expectations based on recent polls that showed her in second place.
Trump’s Big Win
President Trump proved the polls correct, winning the Iowa caucuses with 51 percent of the vote and establishing his dominance in the race for the Republican nomination.
The former president consistently polled around 50 percent of support from likely Republican caucusgoers, a finding that Mr. DeSantis had dismissed as misleading.
In the end, the voters slightly exceeded the polling in their preference for President Trump, who mounted a formidable ground game, enlisting some 2,000 precinct captains, who committed to bring 10 people each with them to support President Trump on caucus night. The campaign gathered more than 50,000 commit-to-caucus cards, nonbinding agreements to support the former president.
President Trump’s 30-point victory is the largest in the history of the Iowa caucuses.
The front-runner is now expected to parlay this decisive win into momentum in the next presidential-preference contests in other states.
A big victory for President Trump “would likely blunt momentum that Haley has in New Hampshire,” Thomas Hagle, a professor at the University of Iowa, told The Epoch Times before the caucuses.
Early Call for Trump
Multiple media outlets called the Iowa Republican presidential caucus for President Trump very early—a little more than half an hour after caucusing first began at 7 p.m. CT, and at a point when many Iowans were still voting—and could easily check the results on their smartphones.In Pleasant Hill, Iowa, The Epoch Times’ Nathan Worcester learned of the call while the caucus was going on around him.
“This is the earliest I can remember ever calling such a thing,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said moments after CNN projected a victory for President Trump.
Mr. DeSantis’s team reacted swiftly and negatively to the move.
The Epoch Times has reached out to AP for comment on these assertions.
“That’s insane to call it that early. We didn’t even vote until at least 7:30,” said Alyssa Wallace, who, with her husband, Seth, attended Mr. Ramaswamy’s watch party in Des Moines.
Vivek Bows Out, Backs Trump
Although the three main players in the ongoing Republican campaign remain in the race, the avatar of what he has called MAGA 2.0 has bowed out in favor of MAGA Original.Mr. Ramaswamy ended his campaign late on Jan. 15 after finishing in a distant fourth place in Iowa’s Republican caucus, much to the dismay of his supporters.
“This one’s hard for me, I’ve got to admit this,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in a video that he livestreamed on X.
“We did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight—and I think that that’s just a hard fact that we’re going have to accept as a campaign,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.
“There is no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” the entrepreneur and anti-“woke” investor told a crowd of supporters.
“I am so proud of every one of you who have lifted us up.”
Mr. Ramaswamy then revealed that President Trump would have his “full endorsement.”
Angie Marie of Des Moines, a first-time caucusgoer, said she didn’t understand why Mr. Ramaswamy opted to end his campaign.
“I want to cry,” she said. “It’s just the first one. Why stop now?”
She said she was even more unhappy that he endorsed President Trump, who has “had nothing nice to say about him for the last 72 hours.”
Asked whether she would support President Trump, her answer was a sharp “No.”
Matthew Garcia, 34, also a first-time caucusgoer from Des Moines, expressed similar sentiments.
Describing himself as an independent who had never engaged much with politics, he said Mr. Ramaswamy was “open-testing [a] hypothesis on how to approach connecting with our generation” and had impressed him through his podcasts and social media discussions. Mr. Garcia said he doesn’t know who to support now.
“He’s young and he’s now on the radar,” he said. “I think he should run again. I think he will run again.”
President Trump spoke positively of Mr. Ramaswamy during his victory address.
A live stream of Mr. Ramaswamy after the announcement showed him hobnobbing with his supporters.
Haley’s Path an Open Question
As the night wore on, President Trump retained a strong lead over Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis, with Mr. DeSantis ultimately coming in second.In at least some parts of Iowa, however, the former ambassador to the United Nations may have done better than the big map suggests.
“Everywhere we’ve been, Nikki Haley won,” Jacqueline Rieckena, a caucus captain for Mr. Ramaswamy, told The Epoch Times at the watch party for Mr. Ramaswamy at The Surety Hotel in Des Moines.
One big question is what the results mean for Ms. Haley.
In some respects, the next few primaries may look favorable to her. She will soon compete in South Carolina, a state where her past service as governor may give her an edge, though likely not enough to defeat President Trump.
In New Hampshire, which will hold the next GOP primary on Jan. 23, RealClearPolitics’ polling average has her at 29.3 percent to President Trump’s 43.5 percent. New Hampshire holds an open primary, meaning Democrats and independents can more easily participate in that contest than in Iowa’s caucus.
“I think as we head into New Hampshire and then again into South Carolina, it’s going to look brighter and brighter,” David Roberts, a Haley supporter, told The Epoch Times at the Haley party.
Yet, even in Iowa, many participants registered as Republicans long enough to vote against President Trump by choosing the least threatening alternative for many Democrats and liberal-leaning independents—Ms. Haley.
“He wants to be a dictator,” Christine Urish told The Epoch Times. She said she had registered as a Republican to vote for Haley at the Pleasant Hill, Iowa, caucus site.
Yet for all those factors, the trends in Iowa don’t bode well.
In urban and suburban counties where Ms. Haley would be expected to overperform, President Trump still came out ahead. In Des Moines’s Polk County, for example, President Trump had 37.5 percent of the vote to Ms. Haley’s 26.6 percent with just under 80 percent of the vote counted at 9:50 p.m. CT.
But Ms. Haley’s faithful, of whatever party or ideological persuasion, haven’t yet counted her out.
DeSantis Gains Slightly
Mr. DeSantis took the stage at his watch party to tell an enthusiastic crowd of supporters that his campaign had overcome opposition to achieve its objective in Iowa and would now carry the fight to New Hampshire and South Carolina.“In spite of all that they threw at us, we’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” he said, indicating that Iowa voters had recommended him to the rest of the country as one of the top choices for president.
Mr. DeSantis managed to close the gap between himself and President Trump slightly, enough to claim that he outperformed expectations. He also reasserted his position ahead of Ms. Haley, who had been widely expected to place second.
Mr. DeSantis portrayed his campaign as carrying the torch to “preserve this sacred fire of liberty” and exhorted his followers to carry on the fight.
“Don’t run away from this responsibility,” he said. “We welcome this responsibility.”
On to New Hampshire
Mr. DeSantis gained a reprieve by placing second in Iowa but must now face Ms. Haley on tougher ground.Ms. Haley is significantly ahead of Mr. DeSantis in the Granite State, whose primary is slated for Jan. 22, just eight days after the Iowa caucuses.
President Trump leads the polls in New Hampshire, though the margin is smaller than in Iowa. President Trump is polling at 44 percent in the Granite State compared with Ms. Haley’s 28 percent. Mr. DeSantis is a distant fourth at 7 percent, behind former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign a week ago. Some polls have placed Ms. Haley within 10 points of the former president.
If the polls are accurate, Ms. Haley could deliver President Trump a black eye, if not an outright loss.
Ms. Haley seems very likely to beat Mr. DeSantis in New Hampshire. If so, Mr. DeSantis will likely need to gain ground on both Ms. Haley and President Trump in South Carolina, which will hold its primary on Feb. 24.
Ms. Haley is a native of and former two-term governor of South Carolina.
