Donald Trump was projected as the runaway winner in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses on Monday night, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was projected as coming in second place.
Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the U.N. and governor of South Carolina, was on track to finish third, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on course for fourth.
Ramaswamy subsequently announced he’d quit the race and endorsed Trump.
Trump has enjoyed big leads for months in most polls of the early states, so a main focus for Iowa’s first-in-the-nation voting has been who would come in second — and how close that candidate could get to the former president.
Now that the results are nearly all in, the second-place finish could help keep the DeSantis campaign alive. Haley’s team may be unhappy with third after having gained momentum in recent weeks, though she was not far off from the No. 2 spot.
With 96% of Iowa’s vote counted, Trump had 51.1% support, DeSantis was at 21.2%, while Haley got 19.1% and Ramaswamy 7.7%. That’s according to Associated Press data.
The Iowa result for DeSantis “allows him to feel like he can continue to go on,” but it also is just “delaying the inevitable for him, which is that he’s going to drop out,” said Jeff Gulati, a professor of political science at Bentley University in Massachusetts.
Gulati said the Florida governor is likely to finish third in the GOP primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he has “no real path” to the 2024 Republican nomination.
For Haley, Iowa was “very disappointing,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, as recent polls “had her popping up to second place.”
She has a “real chance to win” in New Hampshire’s GOP primary next week because the state is “so different than Iowa and allows independents to vote. But where does she go from there?” Sabato added.
Few states are like New Hampshire for Republicans, and it’s not clear that Haley can win in South Carolina, where was governor before Trump tapped her as U.N. envoy, the University of Virginia expert said. “How do you explain losing your home state?”
For Trump, he “cleared 50% against four other candidates. That’s what everybody said he needed to do, and he did it,” Sabato said. The result in Iowa shows “how difficult it will be for anyone else to dislodge Trump” from becoming the 2024 Republican nominee, in Sabato’s view.
New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 Republican primary has been expected to be a closer contest, especially after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie left the 2024 presidential race last week. Christie, a vocal Trump critic, didn’t have much traction in Iowa, but he had been attracting about 11% support in New Hampshire, putting him in third place there, according to RCP’s average. Adding his support to the 29% that Haley has been getting in the Granite State might put her total near Trump’s 44%.
Other key steps in the race to become the GOP challenger to President Joe Biden, the prohibitive Democratic Party favorite, include South Carolina’s Feb. 24 Republican primary and the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5, when more than a dozen states are scheduled to vote.
Trump’s economic proposals for a second term include a 10% tariff on all imports, making another attempt to end Obamacare XLV and addressing student debt by launching a free online college called the American Academy.
Haley’s economic proposals include raising Social Security’s retirement age but only for younger people just entering the system, along with eliminating the federal tax on gasoline RB00, +1.63%.
In his economic plan, DeSantis has leaned heavily into energy XLE policy to address inflation, and he’s promised to rein in spending and criticized the Trump administration’s outlays.
Ahead of Monday’s voting in Iowa, Trump was looking on track for a victory as he had support above 50% in polls focused on the state, while DeSantis and Haley were in the teens. That’s according to a RealClearPolitics moving average for Iowa polls.
U.S. stock futures ES00, -0.43% were lower.