The Atlantic

What Trump’s Victory in Iowa Reveals

The result also offers him some warning signs.
The Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he visits a caucus site at Horizon Event Center in Clive, Iowa, on January 15, 2024.
Source: Sergio Flores / Reuters

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Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucus was as dominant as expected, underscoring the exceedingly narrow path available to any of the Republican forces hoping to prevent his third consecutive nomination. And yet, for all Trump’s strength within the party, the results also hinted at some of the risks the GOP will face if it nominates him again.

Based on Trump’s overwhelming lead in the poll conducted of voters on their way into the voting, the cable networks called the contest for Trump before the actual caucus was even completed. It was a fittingly anticlimactic conclusion to a caucus contest whose result all year has never seemed in doubt. In part, that may have been because none of Trump’s rivals offered Iowa voters a fully articulated case against him until Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unleashed more pointed arguments against the front-runner in the final days.

Trump steamrolled over

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