Former President Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses, CNN projects, solidifying his place as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination as he attempts a historic political comeback nearly three years after leaving the White House in disgrace.
Trump’s victory in this, his first election since losing to Joe Biden in 2020, put to bed any lingering questions about his hold over the GOP, the potency of his right-wing message and whether his legal troubles would hobble him with primary voters.
“The people of Iowa sent a clear message tonight: Donald Trump will be the next Republican nominee for President. It’s now time to make him the next President of the United States,” Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., said in a statement.
Monday’s result also puts new pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ahead of next week’s contest in New Hampshire, where Haley is hoping to impress among a more ideologically diverse electorate. The Iowa outcome is a deeper cut for DeSantis, who along with aligned outside groups spent heavily in the state hoping to overtake Trump and signal a changing of the guard in national Republican politics.
It was not to be.
Determined to avoid the disappointment of eight years ago, when he finished second behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the caucuses, Trump’s campaign invested in an estimable ground game. The focus: finding and turning out new voters.
“Other candidates are betting on turning out existing caucus-goers,” a senior Trump campaign official told CNN last month. “Our focus is on finding and creating first-time caucus-goers.”
The snow and freezing temperatures ahead of the caucuses likely complicated those efforts and it is unclear, for now, how much of a role the new strategy played in delivering the state to Trump.
What’s more certain is that Trump also appears to have won over evangelical Christian voters in the state – a key voting bloc that broke for Cruz in 2016 but has since grown into one of the former president’s most loyal and fervent constituencies, in Iowa and beyond.
There is no doubt, however, that the Republican nomination – which would be a remarkable third in three tries – is now in sight for the former president.
The focus now pivots to the race for second place in the Iowa caucuses. DeSantis and Haley appeared to be running neck-and-neck early Monday evening with the vast majority of votes still to be counted. For the Florida governor, who has long been running as the conservative alternative to Trump, finishing behind Haley could prove politically fatal.
Haley has less at stake. Her true test will come next week in New Hampshire. But a strong performance in Iowa will give her momentum heading into that contest and, as anti-Trump Republicans consider their options, an opening to consolidate what remains of that faction of the party.
The DeSantis campaign criticized news outlets Monday for projecting Trump’s victory early in the evening and before some caucus sites had completed voting. In a statement posted on social media, spokesman Andrew Romeo called it “absolutely outrageous.”
CNN projected Trump’s victory in Iowa at 8:30 p.m. ET based on his commanding lead in the entrance polling and early results. Several other news outlets projected Trump would win in Iowa within minutes of each other.
