After Iowa’s resounding results for Donald Trump, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine anyone wresting control of the nomination away from him—even if Nikki Haley rebounds next week with a New Hampshire win.
Rather than inflating Trump’s support, it’s possible that Iowa underrepresented Trump’s nationwide dominance by bestowing him with a mere 51 percent of their caucus vote. According to a recent CBS News poll, 69 percent of Republicans nationwide are supporting Trump.
If you’re still not convinced that the GOP electorate is thoroughly Trumpified, then consider some of the exit polls coming out of Iowa.
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According to The Washington Post, about two-thirds of Iowa caucusgoers said Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. And about 70 percent of the voters who said that caucused for Trump.
This is to say that a majority of Republicans are a) willing to at least pretend to believe something that is patently absurd, and b) focused on relitigating the past.
In the waning days before the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis attempted to obliquely address Trump’s backward-looking obsession (without actually mentioning that Biden won the 2020 election). DeSantis cast himself as the candidate of the future, saying that Trump is running on “his issues,” while DeSantis is focused on “your issues” and “this country’s future.”
It didn’t work—partly because DeSantis cannot deliver a pithy message, but mostly because Republican voters don’t want to reject The Big Lie or focus on the future. These voters seem hellbent on renominating Trump.
Indeed, about two-thirds of caucusgoers said Trump would still be fit for the presidency, even if he was convicted of a crime (Trump won about 70 percent of these people).
On one hand, not caring whether your party’s nominee is a convicted criminal is crazy and scary. On the other hand, if the remaining one-third of Iowa caucusgoers conclude that a conviction means Trump is unfit for the presidency, that could spell trouble for Trump, come November.
But will they?
I am reminded that back in 2016, 62 percent of Americans said Trump was “unqualified” to be president. Somehow, he still won the election. Faced with a binary choice, most Republicans will find a way to rationalize supporting a convicted felon.
Still, Trump barely won the general election in 2016—and he lost in 2020. If even a small percentage of Republican base voters (the kinds of people willing to show up in sub-zero temps), nationwide, stay home, it could defeat Trump in 2024.
Speaking of the types of people who came out in Iowa on Monday night, it’s possible that the representation was self-selective in another way.
Turnout was low, likely because of the frigid conditions. But as former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) also noted on Monday night, “Trumpism is the politics of subtraction: 56k fewer Republican caucus voters tonight in Iowa vs 2016. Trump wins by depressing and shrinking the electorate…”
While the consequences of this trend may already be impacting the 2024 election, there is also a multiplier effect. As more and more Americans see Trump as the avatar of the Republican Party, fewer college-educated suburbanites (for example) are likely to join the party in the future.
It is perhaps ironic that a shrinking Republican Party is also a purer, more Trumpy, Republican Party. Interestingly, though, just 46 percent of Iowa caucusgoers said they considered themselves MAGA (78 percent of them supported Trump). While supporters of candidates like Haley might be happy to hear that less than half of Iowans consider themselves MAGA, the results suggest this isn’t really much of a “win.” In fact, it’s cold (no pun intended) comfort.
If you add Vivek Ramaswamy’s votes to Trump’s 51 percent, you get nearly 60 percent of Iowa caucusgoers who are effectively “MAGA” (this is not an entirely hypothetical scenario, since Vivek dropped out after finishing fourth in the caucuses).
Throw in Ron DeSantis’ Iowa votes, and you’re close to 80 percent who are MAGA-ish. That leaves 20 percent for the “Nikki” vote.
Now, you might retort that caucuses are unique, so Iowa’s results cannot be extrapolated to say much of anything about upcoming primary results (see victories by Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, et al.). What is more, only a fraction of registered Republicans participate (even when turnout is up). If you are looking for a reason to believe that someone other than Trump still has a shot, you might cling to the “Iowa is weird” theory, while turning your lonely eyes toward Nikki and New Hampshire.
The problem is that New Hampshire’s primary is arguably even less representative of the national GOP electorate, because independents can vote in the first-in-the-nation primary.
What is more, as Bill Scher writes at Washington Monthly, “According to 2016 exit polls, only one-quarter of the Granite State’s Republican primary votes identified as born-again or evangelical Christian, whereas in most states on the primary calendar through Super Tuesday, that share is at least two-thirds.”
What we are left with is a Republican Party that is hurtling toward nominating Donald Trump. And yet, Trump’s dominance simultaneously exposes clues that suggest trouble when it comes to attracting a broader, national electorate.
Waterloo, Iowa, might not be the GOP’s “Waterloo,” but Trump’s decisive nomination would be a pyrrhic victory if he loses (again) in November.
With Trump’s massive Iowa victory, his status as the GOP nominee is close to being a done deal. It feels like we have crossed the Rubicon.
