ANALYSIS — Thanks to Iowa Republicans, the first 2024 election is in the books, and we have the first opportunity of the year to chew over some results.
The bottom line is that Donald Trump did what he needed to do. The former president came into Monday as the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination and emerged with a majority of the vote and a dominant, 30-point victory over the rest of the field. Amidst all the chatter about who is in a distant second place, Trump continues on the clearest path to victory after the rest of the states finish their primaries.
Despite seven years of hand-wringing about polling, it was a pretty good night for surveys. The final FiveThirtyEight average before the Iowa caucus had Trump at 52.7 percent followed by former Gov. Nikki Haley (18.7 percent), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (15.8 percent), and Vivek Ramaswamy (6.4 percent). The final results look like Trump (51 percent), DeSantis (21 percent), Haley (19 percent), and Ramaswamy (8 percent).
