Until now, the person who won the Iowa caucus by the largest margin was Bob Dole back in 1988 – by 12 points. A ray of hope that the Nikki Haley contingent and the Ron DeSantis faction harboured was that even though Trump was likely to win, perhaps he wouldn’t win convincingly. An achievement they understood — history and Bob Dole be damned — to be 50 per cent of the vote. If he won less than that — by 40 per cent, say — they could claim that he won by a ‘disappointing’ result.
A writer for Vox, for example, wrote this: ‘If Trump underperforms polls — getting around 40 percent or lower, or having another contender come surprisingly close to him — he will be deemed a ‘loser’ of Iowa even though he won because the results showed his support looking less rock-solid than expected.’
I am writing about forty minutes after the caucus opened in Iowa. I was expecting to be here a long time. But as of a few minutes ago, everyone has already called the race for Trump. The exact numbers will change, but as of 8:54 Eastern Time, Trump clocks in at 56 per cent, Haley with 21 per cent and DeSantis with 15 per cent.
In other words: Trump has trounced everyone. RealClearPolitics reports that it took him only thirty-one minutes to clear the table. The outcome or upshot? It’s game over for Ron DeSantis. Whether he suspends his campaign tonight or waits a few weeks doesn’t really matter. Time’s up for the governor of Florida. Nikki Haley will doubtless trudge on to New Hampshire, where she will also lose, and perhaps even to South Carolina, her home state, where Trump will win by a huge margin.
It wasn’t much of a horse race, but it was, for those with eyes to see, a clarifying moment.
A version of this article originally appeared on Spectator World
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