Haley finishes 3rd, Ramaswamy drops out after finishing 4th.
The first election of the 2024 presidential primaries is in the books, and former President Donald Trump was the big winner. ABC News projects that Trump finished first in the Iowa caucuses, about 30 percentage points ahead of second-place finisher Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is projected to finish third, while businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is projected to finish fourth. As a result, Ramaswamy has dropped out of the presidential race.
Throughout the night, 538 reporters broke down the results in Iowa in real time with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.
With 53 percent of the estimated vote reporting, Trump is currently at 53 percent, DeSantis at 22 percent, Haley at 20 percent and Ramaswamy at 8 percent. Those results could still shift, but so far, they are very close to the final polls. Our final polling average of Iowa was Trump 53 percent, Haley 19 percent, DeSantis 17 percent and Ramaswamy 6 percent.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Entrance polls in Iowa shows the economy was a top concern for voters. All Americans have felt glum about the economy since Biden took office, despite the economy doing well by many measures. Part of this is an accident of when Biden took office, during the tail end of the COVID-19 economic slump. Biden's going to campaign on Bidenomics finally turning into results for the middle class and recent efforts to revive student loan forgiveness, but most voters say they trust Republicans on the economy.
—Monica Potts, 538
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
