Clive Fields flew into Iowa from Texas to vouch for Ron DeSantis’s campaign at a caucus site inside a former lumber store in Urbandale. Beginning at 7 p.m. across the state, representatives for each candidate were given a few minutes to make their case to Iowans before ballots were cast. Fields, a doctor from Houston, prepared to give what would be his first public speech at a political function to the 164 people assembled before him when he looked down at his phone at 7:30 and saw the news: the Associated Press declared Donald Trump already won.
“It was like announcing the winner before the kickoff,” Fields said.
It was a blowout. Trump won 51 percent of the vote, finishing a staggering 30 points ahead of DeSantis, who eked out a campaign-saving second place finish over Nikki Haley. The former president’s victory was never in doubt, but there was some question heading into Monday about whether he could get an absolute majority of the vote or if his grip on the Republican base had slipped. In fact, it’s stronger than ever.
A little over a year ago, Trump looked unusually weak. He launched his third bid for president in a lackluster speech before a bored crowd at his Florida club, immediately after his hand-picked slate of Republican candidates flopped in the midterms. He was also still reeling from his loss to Joe Biden and the subsequent failure effort to overturn the election.
At the same time, elsewhere in Florida, DeSantis was coming off a landslide reelection that was expected to set him up as Trump’s top rival in 2024. The young governor who made himself partially in Trump’s image would try to run for president as Trump without the baggage, a right-wing culture warrior with an effective track record of governance and not a single indictment, let alone four. The plan was to show he was a viable Trump alternative by winning in Iowa, where DeSantis practically lived, crisscrossing the state to visit all 99 counties. He wouldn’t win a single one. Despite spending over $100 million, his support in polls withered under furious attacks from Trumpland, and his campaign operation fell into disarray. It was perhaps the biggest failure by a Republican primary candidate since John Connally had spent $11 million in 1980, a then-record sum, to win only one delegate.
In a way, Haley’s third place finish said the most about the shifting foundations of the Republican Party. The former governor of South Carolina and former U.N. ambassador ran as a Republican like George W. Bush and Paul Ryan, representing prosperous suburbs filled with college-educated voters who supported a lean government and a strong foreign policy. Monday’s results showed that faction is now a distinct minority within Trump’s party. She ran behind Marco Rubio, who tried to build a similar coalition in Iowa. Back then, those voters were divided between Jeb Bush and John Kasich, and some had even backed Trump as a last-ditch alternative to Ted Cruz, who went on to win. This time, Haley had that lane to herself, but it had shrunk significantly over the past eight years, with some having left the GOP entirely. In the end, Trump won a plurality of those who remained, according to entrance polls.
Trump’s ultimate advantage is a base of voters who simply adore him. At one Haley event, people politely applauded, but they didn’t wave signs provided by her campaign. At Trump events, supporters hooted and hollered at the candidate’s remarks and would stay standing long after he took the stage because they were too distracted by his presence to sit down.
Don Buhrow was one of them. A Trump caucus captain with the special autographed white MAGA hat to verify his commitment to the campaign, Buhrow said that he had been committed to Trump since he “came down the escalator in 2015.” Buhrow left the stovepipe hat he wears as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at home on Monday, because his wife didn’t want him to ignore her in favor of people taking selfies with the Great Emancipator. “I think there’s a lot of similarities between the two,” Buhrow said, saying both presidents were “very strong willed and they didn’t take no for an answer.”
As with most caucusgoers and Republicans, Buhrow thought Trump was the victim of foul play in the 2020 election. He got “Taken out of office because the left decided they needed to have Joe Biden instead,” said Buhrow, who described those Trump supporters in prison for attacking the Capitol as victims of “a total sham.”
Trump’s appeal, though strong, was not universal and the issue of January 6 is a problem of some size. Thomas Hromatka, a Des Moines banker and DeSantis precinct captain in Urbandale, said he was an ardent Trump backer eight years ago, believing that Trump would be “A business person with bold ideas about how to manage government.” He supported DeSantis and said he doesn’t think he can bring himself to vote for Trump again if he was the nominee, over January 6 and the former president’s election denial.
New Hampshire votes next Tuesday, January 23, and Haley could not be content with a bronze medal there. In her speech on Monday night, she insisted that “Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race” despite her third-place finish. DeSantis, who narrowly edged out Haley for second place, told a cheering crowd, “We’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa.”
Only one candidate could give a victory speech, though. “We are going to come together. It’s gonna happen soon too. It’s gonna happen soon,” Trump said. “I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together. We’re all having a good time together. I think they both actually did very well.”
He could afford to be magnanimous. It’s Trump’s party and everyone else is just a guest.
