The 2024 Republican race, in one GIF

Yup, that's it.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, how many is a GIF worth?

In any case, here’s the one GIF — properly pronounced with a hard “g” — that tells you everything you need to know about the Republican presidential race:

Yes, that’s Vince Carter, in the 2000 NBA slam dunk championship, declaring the contest over after his final dunk.

Vince was right then. (He won.) And’s he right now. The Republican primary race is over. Donald Trump is going to be the nominee.

The latest piece of evidence of this fact came Monday morning — when the Des Moines Register released its latest poll on the coming caucuses in the state. Here’s what the poll showed:

Donald Trump 51% (+8 from the DMR October poll)

Ron DeSantis 19% (+3)

Nikki Haley 16% (no gain or loss)

No one else got double digit support.

Here’s how the Register framed the results:

Donald Trump’s support now tops 50% in Iowa, where the former president has strengthened his already overwhelming lead over Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis — neither of whom has fully broken away as the clear second choice.

Which isn’t wrong! But also, I think, drastically undersells the advantage Trump has in the race right now.

To wit:

• He is OVER 50% of the vote in a seven-way field

• He has GROWN his support by 8 points since October, roughly triple that of the next best gainer (DeSantis at 3%).

• The consolidation of the field (Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, Perry Johnson have all dropped out) have HELPED Trump rather than hurt him.

By way of comparison, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses in 2016 with 28% of the vote. (Trump came in second with 24% — but said Cruz cheated and he had actually won. He provided no evidence for those claims.)

Trump is nearly DOUBLING Cruz’s winning number from seven years ago. That is stunning.

The simple fact is that Trump looks very likely to not just win Iowa but to win by double digits. Which, if it comes to pass, would only be the third time ever that has happened. (Bob Dole won Iowa by 13 points in 1988; George W. Bush won it by 10 points in 2000.)

If Trump can come close to approximating his current standing in Iowa — and I see absolutely no reason why he wouldn’t — he would then win a historic victory in the state. The same state that, at the start of the Republican race, was seen as his weakest spot — the place where the likes of DeSantis could knock him off.

The race then moves to New Hampshire — a state, not for nothing, that Trump won by 20(!) points in 2016 (even after losing Iowa!).

Trump is already a heavy favorite to win New Hampshire — no matter what happens in Iowa. But, if he wins Iowa by, let’s say, 15 points, which appears to be on the low end given his current margin, is there any chance that he doesn’t crush all comers in New Hampshire? Answer: No. There is not.

And, if Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire by double digits, well then the race is over. Sure, Nikki Haley might stick it out until South Carolina, her home state, but all the polling there already has Trump with a wide lead — a lead that would only grow if he comes to the Palmetto State on the back of two sweeping victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.

(Quick Haley counterargument: She gets out BEFORE South Carolina so as to avoid being embarrassed by Trump in her home state. Maybe she even endorses him after New Hampshire to keep her status at the front of the vice presidential pack.)

I am with my friend Damon Linker, who writes the great “Notes from the Middleground” Substack, on all of this:

I think that’s exactly right. The likelihood that Trump wins every primary and caucus by double digits is higher — and I think significantly higher — than the chance that he either a) wins by less than double digits or b) loses any vote.

There’s a tendency in political journalism to always cast a race as tightening. Or to write about how the frontrunner could lose.

That tendency is driven, at least in part, by business concerns. Declaring a race over isn’t exactly a recipe to have people coming back to read your stories. (Which, now that I think about it, oops.)

But, the reality of the current race is that it isn’t really a race. And hasn’t been one since Trump got indicted for the first time in the spring. He is running away with the nomination and, barring a cataclysm, he is going to win it. Handily.