Trump’s landslide Iowa win is a stunning show of strength after leaving Washington in disgrace

CNN —

Former President Donald Trump’s huge win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday enshrines one of the most astonishing comebacks in American political history.

Losing one-term presidents almost never mount subsequent successful primary campaigns, much less pull off landslides that demonstrate utter dominance of their party. Trump transformed the GOP in his populist, nationalist, nihilistic image in 2016. By claiming 50% of the vote in the biggest win in caucushistory, putting him on course to his third consecutive nomination, he showed that eight years after his outsider presidential victory, the current GOP is entirely his party.

“The big night is going to be in November, when we take back our country,” Trump told his first proper victory party since he shocked the world by winning the 2016 election. His MAGA-hat wearing crowd greeted him with chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” beneath two vast screens reading “Trump wins Iowa!”

Former President Donald Trump walks onstage at a campaign rally in Mason City, Iowa, on January 5, 2024.

Trump will win Iowa Republican caucuses, CNN projects

But the ex-president’s rebound is more stunning for another reason. He won despite 91 criminal charges and other legal entanglements that threaten his freedom and his fortune. In a head-spinning snapshot of the unprecedented times, he’s expected to show up in a courtroom in Manhattan on Tuesday morning for the opening of a defamation trial.

His Iowa triumph came three years and nine days after he told a mob to “fight like hell” before it ransacked the US Capitol in an attempt to thwart the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. Trump’s dominance on Monday night shows that among the most committed