5 Takeaways From The Iowa GOP Caucuses

Everything’s coming up Donald.

Well, at least in the Republican presidential contests. Former President Donald Trump remains under four separate criminal indictments and is still broadly unpopular with the national electorate, but it’s difficult to imagine the Iowa caucuses going better for him. Not only did he win by a record margin for a Republican, his two main competitors ― Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ― each took just enough of the vote to insist they were his main rival in New Hampshire, the next state to vote, ensuring the field will remain divided against him.

Trump’s win was sweeping and dominant. According to the entrance polls conducted by major media organizations, he won every demographic group imaginable: the college-educated and those without a degree; men and women; urban, suburban and rural voters; and evangelical Christians. The only groups he didn’t win were moderates, who went with Haley, and voters ages 17 to 29, who backed DeSantis.

Trump won 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties, losing Johnson County, the home of the University of Iowa, by a single vote to Haley.

Oh, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who competed with Trump for the votes of the very conspiratorial, dropped out of the race, likely handing most of this voters over to the former reality TV show star.

New Hampshire will be tougher terrain: Some polling there shows Haley within striking distance, and it is filled with the moderate, college-educated voters who are Trump’s weak point. But Trump’s challengers will get only so many chances to knock the de facto leader of the Republican Party off his pedestal, and they whiffed on a big one Monday night.

Here are four other takeaways from the Iowa