About Last Night: Trump Wins Iowa
Years worth of narrative building, hundreds of millions of dollars, countless hours of media time, massively manned and funded campaign operations, and all the bombast and trappings of promising presidential campaigns built up to the first counting of votes, and for everyone not named Donald Trump all was lost 31 minutes into the process. Trump didn’t just win Iowa, he dominated without even really trying.
Trump and his campaign effectively turned the traditional Iowa Caucus playbook on its head, continuing to aim to define the Republican Party and election cycle on his own terms.
He spurned some of the most prominent conservative leaders in the state, attacking Gov. Kim Reynolds for remaining neutral early in the race and then endorsing DeSantis, soon followed by Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats. Trump dismissed the endorsements as inconsequential, even as he attacked Reynolds for disloyalty.
He largely shrugged off the retail politicking made famous by the caucuses, making just 22 scheduled public visits the entire cycle, according to the Des Moines Register’s Candidate Tracker. Almost all of them were campaign-organized rallies in population centers, while his challengers shook hands at Pizza Ranches and visited as many counties as possible.
