Trump wins historic landslide in Iowa caucuses as DeSantis edges Haley for second

yahoo!news:  As widely expected, former President Donald Trump cruised to a 30-point victory in Monday’s chilly Iowa caucuses, the opening salvo of the 2024 GOP nominating contest. The rout further cemented Trump’s status as the most likely candidate to face off against President Biden in November’s general election.

The Associated Press called Iowa for Trump at 8:32 p.m. EST — just half an hour after the caucuses began.

Yet Iowans also braved snowy, subzero conditions to weigh in on which of the former president’s remaining Republican rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina governor turned United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley — had earned the right to be the GOP’s top Trump alternative going forward.

They delivered a split decision, awarding both DeSantis (about 21%) and Haley (about 19%) a fifth of the vote — and all but ensuring that the two candidates continue to divide the party’s anti-Trump faction in future primary contests.

After 11:00 p.m. EST, the AP determined that DeSantis had finished in second place, narrowly edging Haley.

 Good news for Trump

Trump set sky-high expectations for his performance ahead of caucus night, urging volunteers Sunday in Des Moines to “see if we can get to 50%" support — a bar no GOP candidate has ever cleared. With more than 90% of precincts reporting, Trump appeared poised to make history with 51% of the vote.

Previously, the biggest GOP margin of victory in Iowa was Bob Dole's nearly 13-point landslide over Pat Robertson in 1988.

But it wasn’t just Trump’s record-setting win that made Monday such a good night for the former president. Haley also helped Trump by failing to finish in second place — an outcome that could have forced DeSantis from the race, allowing her to consolidate support ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary.

"I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together," Trump said in his victory speech. "We're all having a good time together and I think they both actually did very well."

Why Iowa went for Trump

Despite lower-than-usual turnout due to weather, an estimated 120,000 Iowans still braved snowy, subzero conditions to caucus — and the lion’s share caucused for a figure who faces four criminal trials on 91 felony charges ranging from election interference to hoarding classified documents.

Why? According to the AP's VoteCast survey, a full three-quarters of Iowa caucus-goers said the charges against Trump are political attempts to undermine him rather than legitimate attempts to investigate alleged crimes.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents to the National Election Pool entrance poll said that Trump would still be fit to serve as president if convicted of a crime — double the number who said the opposite (32%). And among white evangelicals, Trump’s support — just 22% in 2016 — soared to 53% this time around.

“I’m here in part out of spite,” Marc Smiarowski, a 44-year-old public utility worker, told the AP at Trump's final pre-caucus rally Sunday in Indianola. “I can’t abandon him. [With] the political persecution he faces, I feel like I owe him this.”