Trump Crushed Everyone in Iowa. But DeSantis and Haley Still Have a Story to Spin.

Donald Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses on Monday night in a rout, taking the first nominating contest for a second—not third!—time. His vote share, at 51 percent, and margin of victory, around 30 percentage points, both broke records for competitive Iowa Republican contests.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, came in a distant second place, with around 21 percent of the vote, and Nikki Haley came in third, at 19 percent.

In his victory speech, Trump didn’t sound like a candidate concerned about being caught as the race moves on. He spoke about DeSantis and Haley as if they were, once and for all, defeated. In other words, he was relatively nice to them.

“I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together—we’re all having a good time together,” Trump said. “I think they both actually did very well, I do. I think they did very well. We don’t even know what the outcome of second place is.” He also, for good measure, said that fourth-place finisher Vivek Ramaswamy—who suspended his campaign Monday night—had done a “hell of a job.”

What a peach.

Caucusing began at 7 p.m. Central Time, and the Associated Press called the race in Trump’s favor by 7:31 based on entrance poll data. Television news networks called it around the same time.

This wasn’t great. Anyone who’s ever been to a caucus knows that while they may “begin” at a certain time, there’s a lot of throat-clearing—electing precinct officials, allowing nominating speeches, etc.—before any voting takes place. This meant that media organizations had already called the race before a lot of voters—who have phones on them and can see the news—voted. It is not as though Donald Trump was ever going to lose. The AP could have called the winner three months ago. But the decision not to wait until, say, 8:30 opened the door for, say, Ron DeSantis’ team to cry foul and claim that the media was “in the tank for Trump.” I wouldn’t put it like that. Major news outlets just want to beat one another by 11 seconds.

Indeed, the race was called before Trump or any of his supporters could even get to the Trump celebration.

There is much for the Trump team to celebrate, as the numbers under the hood were as suffocating to his challengers as the top-line result itself. According to entrance polls (an imperfect, oft-revised metric), Trump beat his rivals among men and women; rural, urban, and suburban voters; voters age 30 to 44, 45 to 64, and 65 and older; evangelical Christians and voters who are not evangelical Christians; college graduates and non–college graduates; and very conservative and somewhat conservative voters.

This is a broad coalition befitting a quasi-incumbent. What room does either DeSantis or Haley have to challenge him going forward?

DeSantis had staked his all on Iowa, with plenty of cash and high-profile endorsements within the state. He visited every county. And then he got waxed. DeSantis pitched himself as a more effective, more competent MAGA candidate. But MAGA stuck with Trump. DeSantis can check his campaign’s bank balance and sketch out his own timetable going forward, but Trump’s base remains Trump’s base.

Haley, meanwhile, had hoped for the second-place slot that some recent polls had shown her to be in. She didn’t get it—but that’s no reason to junk a perfectly good prewritten second-place speech.

“When you look at how we’re doing in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, and beyond, I can safely say: Tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race,” the third-place candidate said at her caucus-night event.

Haley did, per the entrance polls, beat Donald Trump in some demographics. She crushed Trump among moderate voters, winning two-thirds of them. She also led among voters who feel Trump would be unfit for the presidency if convicted of a crime, who believe Biden “legitimately won” in 2020, and who decided on a candidate this month.

The problem for her was that only about 10 percent of caucusgoers were “moderate.” Only a third wouldn’t vote for Trump if he is convicted of a crime, and only a third believe that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Two-thirds of voters decided on a candidate before this month, and two-thirds of them supported Trump.

The good news for Haley is that New Hampshire, which holds the first primary next week, has a more moderate electorate. If you can believe it, we might even see a close contest not just for second place in New Hampshire. But then primary season will return to conservative states. To win the Republican primary in the long run, you need to put together a coalition that resembles the meat of the Republican electorate. Hers doesn’t.

In other words, Monday night’s result both demonstrates the strength of the coalition Trump has kept together and gives both of his challengers enough excuses to keep their candidacies alive.

Onward.