Iowa was the beginning of the end for GOP candidates 'not named Donald Trump'

16 January 2024

Critics of former President Donald Trump, including Never Trump conservatives, have been lamenting the fact that despite facing four criminal indictments, Trump remains the face of the Republican Party. And the outcome of the 2024 Iowa Caucuses on Monday, January 15 only validated that view: Trump won more votes than GOP rivals Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy combined.

In a listicle published by NBC News the following day, journalists Jonathan Allen and Henry J. Gomez offer four takeaways from the Iowa Caucuses — which, they emphasize, "were full of hints that the music will eventually stop for candidates not named Donald Trump."

Allen and Gomez's takeaways are: (1) "Don't call DeSantis 'The Comeback Kid,'" (2) "Haley didn't get her pre-New Hampshire bump," (3) Haley has a "Biden problem," and (4) "MAGA fans prefer the original recipe."

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Trump won roughly 51 percent of the vote compared to 21 percent for DeSantis, 19 percent for Haley and 7 percent for Ramaswamy — who dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

"Haley, who had less riding on her performance in Iowa, missed a chance to knock DeSantis out," Allen and Gomez explain. "Still, she is turning to much friendlier terrain in New Hampshire, where some polling shows her within shouting distance of Trump. But the potential seeds of destruction for each of Trump's opponents were planted beneath the ice-covered cornfields of this state."

The Iowa Caucuses' outcome, according to Allen and Gomez, gives DeSantis' campaign little reason for optimism.

"The good news for DeSantis in Iowa was that his base remained enthusiastic enough to brave the cold and make him the runner-up," the NBC News reporters observe. "The bad news here is the same for him as it is across the rest of the country: He's down to his most committed voters because he has lost almost everyone else. There's no obvious place on the map for him to follow up Iowa, where he attended hundreds of events…. He trails Trump and Haley by wide margins in New Hampshire."

Haley, they add, remains the "undisputed favorite" of Never Trump voters but is "running for the nomination of a party that is still firmly in Trump's thrall."

"Trump is expected to clean up in the Nevada Caucuses, in which Haley isn't participating," Allen and Gomez observe. "South Carolina has long been Trump country, and Haley is the state's former governor."

Read NBC News' full article at this link.

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