The Day After Iowa

Polling was way off on DeSantis, but that's ok. We are back to reality about Nikki Haley's zero chance of snatching the nomination from Trump. And we don't have to discuss Iowa for another three years

Looks cold, doesn’t it? Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign bus at the Prairie Meadows Hotel in Altoona, Iowa, January 11, 2024. The weather only got worse in Iowa. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

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The results are in. Yours truly was wrong: the Iowa GOP was able to run the caucuses, declaring a Trump victory about 45 minutes into the process: he finished with 51% of the vote. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley did about what she was expected to do at 19%, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis surprised us (slightly.) His very expensive ground game ($31 million in ads alone) bought him a not entirely embarrassing second place. That said, DeSantis beat Haley by only two points, finishing at 21%.

Best thing about yesterday’s Iowa caucus results? Either it’s either evangelical Bob Van der Plaats who endorsed DeSantis, believing that Trump will not win the general election; or that Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in fourth with a surprising 8% of the vote has endorsed Trump and suspended his campaign. But Ramaswamy said it in a super-weird way: “There is no path for me to be the next president,” he told his supporters, “absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.”

What are those “things” Ramaswamy was referring to? A zombie apocalypse? That he imagines he will be Trump’s veep, and Trump will then die?