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.
Trump might benefit from low turnout, but I've also been thinking about Trump's support from first-time caucusgoers. Will they stick with it and show up? He's also traditionally relied on support in rural areas, and I wonder if there will be travel concerns on unplowed back roads. At the same time, he has the enthusiasm, as others have noted.
I agree that Trump is probably the beneficiary of the extreme cold given how devoted his supporters are, but I wonder also if Haley will disproportionately lose out. There’s been a lot of reporting about how she’s been attracting some support from independents and even Democrats. If you’re a Democrat trying to make a Haley bank shot, I feel like you’re probably less likely to venture out in this weather than someone with a greater connection and obligation to the Republican Party. It’s probably a small slice of potential caucus-goers, but it could make a difference.
That’s true, Monica, Haley supporters are particularly unenthusiastic about a potential Trump nomination. In the latest Selzer & Co./Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll, 54 percent of likely caucusgoers who said they would caucus for Haley also said it would be nearly impossible for Trump to win against Biden given his legal challenges, compared to only 23 percent of caucusgoers overall.
But strikingly, most of Haley’s supporters said they wouldn’t support Trump in the general anyway. While 71 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers overall said they’ll vote for Trump in November if the race is between Trump, Biden and Kennedy, just 23 percent of Haley supporters would vote for the former president. Forty-three percent said they would choose Biden, while the rest said they would choose Kennedy or another third-party candidate, would not vote or were not sure.
So if she does well tonight, I wonder if we’ll see her less reluctant to criticize Trump in the future, since it may not be that detrimental to her base of support.
As Galen posted earlier, the weather in Iowa tonight is downright nasty — below zero even without the wind. There’s been a lot of speculation about how that could affect the results tonight, so I wanted to get everyone’s two cents! Do you think any candidate in particular would benefit from a low-turnout scenario?
Personally, I think Trump might be the beneficiary. According to the final Selzer poll of the race, 49 percent of Trump supporters said they were extremely enthusiastic about their candidate. But only 23 percent of DeSantis supporters said the same, and 9 percent of Haley supporters did.
