Iowa caucuses 2024: Trump projected to win, DeSantis 2nd

Four years ago, the Iowa caucuses came under fire because of a malfunctioning tabulation app, which delayed Democratic results. There’s also been some skepticism about the importance of a single state, and, as the presidential selection process has received more scrutiny, caucuses may be in for some criticism. The early call for Trump might feed into these perceptions. I want to be careful how I say this, because we don’t have any evidence that anything unusual happened. And it’s not that there’s a realistic case that another candidate might have won, given what we know. But news sources calling the race before people vote does have the potential to be a bad look, even if it was done according to accepted practices. It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes one of the big stories of the night, further undercutting the idea of the Iowa caucuses.
—Julia Azari, 538 contributor

As Nathaniel mentioned earlier, Ramaswamy is projected to come in fourth place in Iowa, so he's not a direct threat to Trump, but I think it’s enough for Trump to turn on him. Ramaswamy has essentially made it his mission to serve as a Trump surrogate in these primaries, but what happens when Trump starts to see Ramaswamy as siphoning off his votes? Over the weekend, Trump posted on Truth Social, "a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side. It's fair to assume that much of the support for Ramaswamy could go to Trump if he dropped out. These early races in Iowa and New Hampshire are about meeting or exceeding expectations to gain momentum. I’ll be interested to see how these two conspiratorial candidacies have that out, if they do.

—Meredith Conroy, 538

With DeSantis at 20 percent and Haley at 19 percent, the race for second place is still too close to call. But since the results seem to have settled around specific numbers, it does seem unlikely that either of them will get much more than 20 percent of the vote tonight. That’s a pretty anemic performance, so I’m not sure whoever does eventually finish second should be doing all that much celebrating. They really needed to put up an impressive number tonight if they had any hope of shaking up the overall nomination race.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

While Iowa has a relatively small Black population overall (less than 4 percent of the total population, according to the latest American Community Survey estimates), Haley is doing a bit better than she is statewide in each of the three counties where Black individuals make up the largest share of the population.

With an estimated 34 percent of the vote reporting statewide, Trump has 52 percent, DeSantis 20 percent, and Haley 19 percent. But in Black Hawk County, the county with the largest Black population share (just under 10 percent), Trump has 54 percent of the vote, Haley has 21 percent and DeSantis has 16 percent, with an estimated 58 percent reporting. In Johnson County (7 percent Black), Trump is leading with 37 percent of the vote, Haley has 34 percent, and DeSantis has 22 percent, with an estimated 7 percent reporting. In Polk County, home to Des Moines and the state’s third-largest Black population share (7 percent), Trump has 41 percent, Haley has 30 percent, and DeSantis has 20 percent, with an estimated 12 percent reporting.

Of course, it’s still fairly early, so these numbers could shift as more precincts report their results and analysts get an opportunity to examine precinct-level results by racial composition. There could also be an education variable at play here: both Johnson and Polk counties are in the top 3 counties for college graduation. A potential race gap in the GOP primary has thus far been difficult to track in polling, given how small a share of the Republican primary electorate identifies as Black. And a race gap may come into play after New Hampshire, when the campaigns shift their focus to South Carolina, where almost 26 percent of the population identifies as Black.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538