Final thoughts: As good as it gets?
Other than his one-vote loss in Johnson County, it's hard to find much that went wrong for Trump tonight. He won a majority of the vote and carried pretty much every demographic category (especially ones that make up the bedrock of the GOP primary electorate). The most Trump-like candidate in the race, who was still siphoning off a chunk of MAGA votes, dropped out and endorsed him. His two main challengers effectively tied, denying either of them the momentum or comeback narrative they desperately sought in Iowa. And you have to imagine the deep-pocketed donors who flooded Iowa with tens of millions of dollars of pro-Haley and pro-DeSantis advertising have to be wondering about their return on investment.
The New Hampshire primary is in eight days and might well be the toughest contest for Trump of the entire primary process, so it's good for him he can approach it with a full head of steam. The window of opportunity for any non-Trump candidate to alter the course of this race, such that it was ever open, is rapidly closing.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
