Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucus in a landslide. AP. At the time of this posting, Trump got 53% of the vote with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis battling for 2nd place with both getting around 20% of the vote. The caucuses happened despite chilly weather and bitter windchills, which had raised concerns that some of Trump's supporters would not show up. Those concerns appear unfounded as Trump did better in Iowa than he did in 2016, where he lost the state. The results also show that Ron DeSantis has a difficult path. DeSantis needed a solid 2nd place performance, but with a statistical tie with Nikki Haley his path becomes much more difficult. Nikki Haley had been an afterthought in the Iowa race but gained momentum after major add buys and positive media coverage. The other two candidates still in the race, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson were in the single digits in terms of results.
Live results:
My Comment:
This is a major victory for Donald Trump. There were some, quite frankly, delusional takes on Twitter where Ron DeSantis was going make a surprise comeback and win the state, but that obviously didn't happen. Trump was always going to win and it looks like he's got the nomination locked up barring something horrible or unprecedented happening.
It's bad news for both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. With them very close in the polls neither of them accomplished their goals in knocking the either out. Given how much in terms of funding and time both candidates spent there it's bad news for both of them that neither of them have a solid 2nd place.
Some people will say this was a victory for Haley since she was way behind in earlier polls. I don't think it really is as she is currently in 3rd place. To be fair, that could obviously change as the results come in, but even if she does overtake DeSantis it's still not the victory she was looking for.
The real disaster here is for Vivek Ramaswamy. He didn't even get to 10% and though he will win a few delegates, it's pretty clear that he is in a distant 4th place. Ramaswamy made a big push in Iowa and spent a lot of time there and had very little to show for it. It's actually surprising that he has gotten as many votes as he did since his only real appeal is to Trump voters and with Trump obviously in the race there isn't much of a reason to support him unless you are really worried about Trump being taken out before the race.
As for Asa Hutchinson, I was honestly surprised he is still in the race. As of this post he doesn't even have 100 votes and some guy named Ryan Binkley has 200 move votes than him. Given he's just Chris Christie lite, another guy that is only running because he hates Trump, I am not surprised that nobody voted for him.
The real question is who is going to drop out after this. I mean, other than Hutchinson who isn't a serious candidate anyways. I am guessing that both DeSantis and Haley are going to continue until New Hampshire. But I think that this is probably the end of the campaign for Ramaswamy's campaign. I don't think he has a path and I think he will probably run out of funding.
No comments:
Post a Comment