Des Moines, Iowa: This year's Iowa caucus was always going to be one Donald Trump lost, Ron DeSantis won, and Nikki Haley exploited.
Heading into the first race of the 2024 election year, Trump was the clear favorite, with nearly every poll showing about half of the state's Republican caucus voters willing to nominate him as their preferred presidential candidate.
Trump's performance was so strong that he was projected to win just minutes after voting began.credit: AP
Had he not achieved a resounding victory, his rivals would have been able to claim moral victory, and claim that more Iowans braved snow and subzero temperatures to vote against him than for him.
If he wins big, it will be another sign that the modern-day Republican Party is very much the party of Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement.
In the end, Trump's victory was so decisive that the Associated Press announced it just 31 minutes after the caucuses began, surprising some whose votes were still being counted when breaking news alerts started going out.
With most votes counted by 10 p.m. Iowa time, he had more than 51 percent — 30 points behind DeSantis and Healey, who are now vying for second place.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old conservative veteran who resembles Trump, came in a distant fourth and immediately dropped out of the race.
The result was particularly disappointing for DeSantis, the Florida governor who was once seen by some as the future of the party.
DeSantis did everything he could to win Iowa, hoping that would propel him into the next round of primaries and eventually into the White House as a Trump-like figure, without the baggage.
