DES MOINES, Iowa – Former President Donald Trump coasted to victory in Iowa as Iowa Republicans braved subzero temperatures to participate in the Iowa Caucus.
Former Governor Ron DeSantis trailed by 30 points in second place, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley finishing in third place. Ohio businessesman Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth and announced he would supsend his campaign.
Trump won 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties, with Haley winning only Johnson County.
Here are the results via the Iowa GOP, with 98 percent of the precinct caucus vote counted (the vote tally will be updated when final results are in):
- Donald Trump – 51.0 percent (56,210)
- Ron DeSantis – 21.2 percent (23,400)
- Nikki Haley – 19.1 percent (21,076)
- Vivek Ramaswamy – 7.7 percent (8,447)
- Ryan Binkley – 0.7 percent (774)
Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie also received a small number of votes, both had already dropped out of the race.
The 2024 Iowa Caucus saw a significantly lower turnout than 2016, that saw almost 187,000 Iowa Republicans turn out to caucus. Due to cold weather and possible lack of enthusiam about an uncompetitve race, the current turnout looks to be almost 60 percent of what the party saw in 2016.
The national media also made the unprecedented decision to call the race while most Iowans were still caucusing. The Associated Press was the first to call the race for Trump at 7:31p when just six precincts out of 1,657 had reported results, other outlets quickly followed suit.
The DeSantis campaign accused the media of election interference.
“It is absolutely outrageous that the media would participate in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote. The media is in the tank for Trump and this is the most egregious example yet,” Andrew Romeo, spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign, said in a released statement.
Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann told Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register that the media decision to call the decision early was “highly disappointing and concerning.”
“One of the key differences between the Iowa Caucus and a standard primary election is that Iowans have the chance to listen to presidential candidates or their surrogates and deliberate to make an informed decision,” he said. “There was no need to rush one of the most transparent, grassroots democratic processes in the country.”
Trump was uncharacteristicly gracious toward his opponents when thanking supporters stating that DeSantis and Haley did well. He told supporters, “We’re going to come together. It’s going to happen soon.”
“They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us,” DeSantis said during his speech to supporters. “They spent almost $50 million attacking us. No one’s faced that much all the way just through Iowa. The media was against us. They were writing our obituary months ago. They even called the election before people even got a chance to vote.”
DeSantis plans to continue his campaign.
Haley who also plans to continue to campaign and currently is in the midst of what appears to be a competitive race in New Hampshire took aim at Trump and President Joe Biden during her remarks.
“Seventy percent of Americans don’t want another Trump-Biden rematch. A majority disapprove of both of them. Trump and Biden are both about 80 years old. Trump and Biden both put our country trillions of dollars deeper in debt, and our kids will never forgive them. Trump and Biden both lack a vision for our country’s future because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendettas and grievances,” she said. “America deserves better.”
