It’s looking increasingly like Trump win not only dominate statewide, but will also win every single one of Iowa’s 99 counties. That might not be a traditional “Full Grassley,” of which DeSantis did one and Ramaswamy did two(!), but it’s a testament to Trump's strength as a candidate, and perhaps the decreasing importance of traditional retail politics.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

In 2016, Trump finished a close second in Iowa with 24 percent of the vote, trailing Cruz's 28 percent. But since then, Trump has won over much of the very conservative and more religious voter base that backed Cruz while holding onto the more populist parts of the party. Understandably then, we see a fair bit of alignment with tonight's vote and how Trump and Cruz performed combined at the county level in 2016. Based on 27 counties where we have at last 85 percent of the expected vote, there's a fairly strong correlation of 0.72 between Trump's vote tonight and the Trump+Cruz 2016 caucus showing.

Correlation isn't causation, but we can see in the preliminary entrance poll data how Trump has captured much of the Cruz wing of the GOP. Among voters who identified as "very conservative," who made up half of the electorate, Trump won 60 percent. In 2016, Cruz won 44 percent of the vote among very conservative voters in a more crowded race, while Trump only won 21 percent.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

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

Trump gave a victory speech to supporters in Iowa at about 10:30 p.m., and spent an uncharacteristically long time talking about other people. He thanked his supporters, his family, and even his opponents. It took several minutes for him to pivot to his target for the night: Biden, and, in doing so, he picked up the mantle of presumptive nominee.

Here, he listed some of the themes of his campaign, immigration and increasing energy production. He borrowed a phrase from former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and said, "Drill, baby, drill." (He even made a joke about electric vehicles.) In talking about immigration he repeated a number of falsehoods about a border that's out of control and immigrants coming in from "insane asylums," echoing some of the themes from his 2016 campaign launch.

In truth, Biden has ramped up deportations, deporting more families and children than Trump did in his last year in office. But border crossings have surged regardless, Republican voters care a lot about immigration, and voters trust Republicans more on the issue. In a reversal of 2020, Trump is poised to be a challenger instead of an incumbent president in this round, and he's already throwing punches.
—Monica Potts, 538