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

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.


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Any signs of a gender gap?

Preliminary entrance poll data suggests there won't be much of a gender gap in Trump support in Iowa. Those polls show him running equally well among men and women. But Trump might do better with men if Ramaswamy wasn't in the race, something his campaign may start to address. The preliminary entrance poll data shows 12 percent of men, but just 5 percent of women, saying they will support Ramaswamy.


Very few caucusgoers identify as Democrats

I’m not sure, Julia. In ABC News’ preliminary entrance poll data, only 2 percent of caucusgoers said they identify as Democrats. That doesn’t seem like enough to really change the state of things, especially since we can’t be sure that all of those voters will caucus for the same candidate.

Looking at the preliminary entrance poll data from another angle, 87 percent of caucusgoers identified as conservative, compared with 13 percent who identified as liberal or moderate. So I think we can expect that this isn’t going to be the race where crossover voters make a big impact. Perhaps next week… ??


Crossover voters

There’s some talk about whether Democrats in Iowa have changed their party registration to vote in tonight’s caucus, specifically for Nikki Haley. The impact of this kind of crossover voting — especially in states where it’s relatively easy to do so — is probably one of those mythical things that political junkies really like to talk about, but doesn’t make much difference. For it to matter, a lot of people would have to cross over, or it would have to be a very close race between two candidates — or both. But if there have ever been perfect conditions for it, it’s this year, with not much of a primary race on the Democratic side and a lot of strong feelings among Democrats about the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.


The rump election night

Only 30 minutes into the evening, and we already have a projected winner. Yet in a slightly perverse fashion, we — and everyone else — are going to be sticking around for a while yet to see who finishes in second, which will have profound implications for the futures of the DeSantis and Haley campaigns (if not who actually wins the nomination). It’s kind of a weird spot to be in, though, considering that major news outlets won’t officially be projecting a second-place finisher. We election analysts will have to eyeball it.


Trump addresses supporters in Iowa

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