Former U.S. President Donald Trump has established a significant lead over other Republican Party candidates in the first formal event of the election season, the Iowa caucuses. This puts him in pole position to be the Republican nominee for the November 2024 presidential election, even though the nomination process through state-level primaries and caucuses is usually hard-fought and can produce surprise outcomes. While the 45th President scooped up 20 delegates in Iowa, far ahead of the nine delegates of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and eight delegates of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, in order to win the Party’s nomination a candidate would require a total of 1,215 delegates. Meanwhile, the next Republican presidential debate was cancelled after Ms. Haley declined to appear on stage unless Mr. Trump participates too, something he has refused to do so far. Indeed, it is Ms. Haley who perhaps represents the greatest possibility of posing a challenge to Mr. Trump, and the next Republican contest in New Hampshire, a swing state, will be her best opportunity to dent his momentum. The state has a more white and rural population and nearly 40% of its electorate is comprised of independent voters who may prefer a more moderate candidate than Mr. Trump.
Regardless of what twists of fate might lie ahead for the three candidates in the Republican primaries, it is clear from the Iowa results that Mr. Trump has bounced back from what some consider the political embarrassment and legal quagmires of the four indictments that he has been slapped with for alleged improprieties of conduct during his time in office. The latest voting suggests that his popularity among conservatives has not dwindled much; contrarily, he appears to be their candidate of choice more than in previous elections. The Iowa caucuses surveys suggest that nearly 50% of Republican considered themselves to be members of Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and the breadth of his victory included older and younger age cohorts, men and women, and far-right and evangelical caucus-goers. Reports from Iowa indicate that nearly 90% among this group believed the Trump campaign falsehoods that the 2020 election was “stolen” and thus tend to overlook federal and state charges that he faces relating to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and election interference in Georgia. An early assessment of Mr. Trump’s overall position suggests that he would be well placed to win his party’s nomination and perhaps successfully challenge his Democratic rival, incumbent Joe Biden, in November. Whether this will be a positive development favouring the U.S.’s long-term national interest is an entirely different question.
