Trump more than lived up to his role as favorite at the caucuses in the state of Iowa and achieved an absolute majority of the votes, while his fiercest opponents Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley only received 40 percent together. It put a further damper on them, as fourth-placed Vivek Ramaswamy sided with Trump.
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After 93 percent of the votes were counted, the ex-president had 51 percent. DeSantis got 21.2 percent, Haley 19.1 percent. Ramaswamy finished behind with 7.7 percent of the vote. The 38-year-old drew conclusions from his poor performance on election evening and announced his withdrawal from the primary race. At the same time, he declared his support for Trump, who will be even stronger going into the second primary next week in the east coast state of New Hampshire.
Trump’s victory was expected. The observers’ attention was therefore focused on the race for second place. DeSantis seemed to narrowly maintain his position as Trump’s fiercest opponent. In the run-up to the election, he came under massive pressure following Haley threatened to overtake him in the polls with pleasant appearances in television debates. To protect his chances, he campaigned intensively in Iowa, which ultimately paid off.
Third place is a setback for Trump’s former running mate and reduces her chances of scoring a surprise victory once morest Trump in the first open primary in New Hampshire. Polls made such a coup seem possible because the ex-president is not very popular with moderate voters on the US East Coast. In addition, not only Republicans can vote in the primaries in New Hampshire, but also independents and Democrats.
Iowa is not particularly important for the race for the nomination, as the small agricultural state only provides 40 delegates for the Republican nomination convention in the summer. After an interim stand, Trump had 20 delegates, DeSantis eight, Haley seven and Ramaswamy two. The fifth candidate, Asa Hutchinson, came away empty-handed with 0.2 percent of the vote.
The primary election in Iowa traditionally marks the start of the US election year. The voting method at party meetings (caucuses) differs from that in most other states. In the agricultural state, Republican party members meet in small groups in a total of 1,700 districts and debate before casting their vote.
Arctic winter weather affected the election campaign in Iowa in the final stretch and caused a number of schedule changes for the candidates over the weekend. Temperatures were also around minus 25 degrees on election day – the National Weather Service advised people to avoid the dangerous cold and, if possible, not to spend time outdoors. Observers had seen the extreme temperatures as a risk for the favorite Trump.
