7 Numbers That Tell the Tale of the G.O.P. Primary

The only numbers that will truly matter in the Iowa caucuses on Monday will be the number of votes tallied for Donald J. Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

But there are a number of, well, numbers that help explain the Republican nominating contest. In most polls, Mr. Trump holds a solid lead, while Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are battling it out far behind in a fight for second place.

Here are seven numbers that show how we got here — and what comes next.

The bar has been set.

In the Iowa Poll released on Saturday evening by The Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom, Mr. Trump was winning 48 percent of likely caucusgoers. It’s a dominant showing that’s more than the total support measured for Ms. Haley (20 percent) and Mr. DeSantis (16 percent) combined.

Just how dominant is his 28 percentage-point lead?

It is more than double the largest margin of victory for a Republican in a competitive previous caucus. Mr. Trump led among every demographic group in the survey. And his voters expressed greater enthusiasm than those of his rivals.

It wasn’t always expected to be this lopsided. Mr. Trump lost Iowa in 2016 and his rivals, especially Mr. DeSantis, had a chance to outwork him in the state.

But on the eve of the caucuses, the biggest fight of the first-in-the-nation state is the battle for second, and whether Ms. Haley can emerge in the place where Mr. DeSantis has bet his candidacy.

If Mr. DeSantis has a stronger-than-expected showing on Monday night, his operation will credit the large organizing effort that has been spearheaded by his super PAC, Never Back Down, which has been knocking on doors aggressively since the summer.

The super PAC said that, across the country, it knocked on its millionth door in