Winners and losers from the Iowa caucuses

The best. Also, the worst.

(Donald Trump)

There was, in the end, no drama.

Donald Trump romped to victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses — more than doubling the largest margin of victory ever recorded for a Republican candidate in the contest.

His victory was not just big but it was also wide — he won 98 out of Iowa’s 99 counties.

Trump was, obviously, the big winner. But I went through the results and pulled out all of the best and the worst of the night that was. They’re below.

WINNERS

• Donald Trump: It’s hard to imagine Iowa going any better for Trump. Not only did he a) win by 30 points and b) break 50% in a 6-way field but he also watched as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley battled for 2nd place all night — leaving neither one with much momentum going into New Hampshire. (DeSantis wound up taking 2nd with 21% of the vote, roughly two points better than Haley.) In Trump’s victory speech, the former president already sounded like the nominee — praising the other candidates and urging them to “come together” for the good of the country. It was a far cry from eight years ago when Trump went into the Iowa caucuses as the favorite, only to watch as Ted Cruz beat him. (Trump claimed the election was stolen.) This was a muscular and convincing win for Trump and yet more evidence that — barring a cataclysm — he will be the Republican nominee for president.

• J. Ann Selzer: The woman who conducts the Des Moines Register poll got it right. Again. Her final poll showed Trump at 48 percent to Haley’s 20 percent and DeSantis’ 16 percent. Trump wound up with 51% to 21% for DeSantis and 19% for Haley. Selzer, in her analysis of the poll data, had even signaled that potential flip-flopping of Haley and DeSantis — noting that the former South Carolina governor’s support was softer than her rivals and might not show up on caucus night. She nailed it.

  

• Iowa Republican party: After multiple disasters — in both parties — in reporting the results out of the Iowa caucuses, last night’s vote tallying went smoothly and quickly. Now, the Iowa GOP was helped out by decidedly low turnout and the fact that Trump ran away with the victory — but still…

• Joe Biden: I continue to believe (and polls back this up) that Donald Trump is the weakest of the potential Republican nominees against the incumbent. (If Republicans were solely focused on winning, they would, without question, nominate Haley.) And last night’s results seem to put Trump on a glide path to the Republican nomination. Biden immediately seized on that fact, taking to Twitter X to note: “Looks like Donald Trump just won Iowa. He’s the clear front runner on the other side at this point. But here’s the thing: this election was always going to be you and me vs. extreme MAGA Republicans. It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow.”

• Ron DeSantis: Look, had he finished third in Iowa, he would be dropping out of the race today. That he finished second — narrowly — means the Florida governor will likely stay in the race for another month, all the way until the February 24 South Carolina primary. The spin out of the DeSantis campaign — “They threw everything at Ron DeSantis. They couldn’t kill him. He is not only still standing, but he’s now earned his ticket out of Iowa.” — is a little much for a guy who a month ago insisted he was going to win the caucuses. And his campaign’s cries of “election interference” because the networks made an early call on a blowout win for Trump were ridiculous. To be clear, DeSantis isn’t going to be the nominee — or come close to it. But, he lives to campaign for another day.

LOSERS

• Nikki Haley: It’s remarkable that DeSantis’ “I got my ticket punched” spin (for a 30 point loss!) wasn’t the worst political line of the night. That award goes to Haley for this whopper: “Tonight I can safely say Iowa made this a two-person race.” Like, what? You came in third! Did you accidentally give the I-came-in-second speech? The Haley team downplayed her third place finish but there is NO doubt they were hoping she leap-frogged DeSantis and even slimmed down the margin with Trump. That would have given her real momentum going into New Hampshire’s primary next Tuesday. Now she starts that week-long sprint flat-footed. I still think Haley could win New Hampshire due to the moderate nature of the likely electorate in the state. But it means less now following Trump’s Iowa romp.

• Vivek Ramaswamy: Well, he’s out of the race. And has thrown his support behind Trump. Of course. Right until the end, Ramaswamy and his advisers were telling anyone who would listen that he was going to shock the world in Iowa — pointing his huge crowds and the level of excitement in the state for him. In the end, he got a little over 8,000 votes — less than 8% in the overall race. Even as it ended, he and the campaign were speaking in grand terms about “the movement” he had created. I didn’t — and don’t — see any evidence of said movement. I’ll have more to say about Ramaswamy’s campaign, including his closing kick in Iowa, shortly in this space. But, in sum: He left no real mark.

  

• The Iowa caucuses: Ron DeSantis went to each one of the 99 counties in Iowa. Ramaswamy did that — twice. Trump didn’t even come close to campaigning in even half of Iowa’s counties. The idea that Iowa needs to go first in the nominating process because it rewards retail campaigners who are willing to devote the time and energy to meet voters in their homes, schools and places of worship just went out the window. This is a national campaign now. And has been since Donald Trump emerged on the scene. The old way of doing political business — at least for now — is over.

• Kim Reynolds: The Iowa governor made a big gamble in endorsing DeSantis. That bet didn’t pay off on Monday night as her preferred candidate got swamped. (If you are spinning that Reynolds pushed DeSantis to second place, let me remind you that he lost to Trump by 30 points.) If Reynolds was looking for a job after her time as governor is done, she likely hurt herself in Trump’s eyes by crossing him. Of course, she is already trying to rebuild her bridges to the former president so….