Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucuses with a landslide victory over the rest of the Republican opponents. 51% that can be described as historic. Both Ron DeSantis (21.2%) and Nikki Haley (19.1%), the two best-placed candidates, are far away from making it plausible that at some point in the campaign they will become an alternative to the former president of the United States.
The Iowa caucuses are a political antique, a convoluted and complex process that persists because it is part of the ritual of American democracy. It has a high symbolic value. But its diagnostic capacity is relative. Only three of the Republican candidates who won Iowa in their day, Ronald Reagan, and the Bushes, father and son, ended up as president. It is a process in which the most motivated vote, those who feel most challenged by the race for the presidency, which in Europe would be the militant bases. Iowa, a white, rural, conservative state with a strong influence of the evangelical church, has been the ideal setting for Trump. He has not needed to campaign.
Iowa marks the beginning of the process that will lead to the presidential elections that will culminate in November. And, apart from clarifying the number of candidates for the Republican nomination, it leaves some clear messages. The first is Trump’s ability to overcome any setback, be it political or judicial. The most relevant, his ‘impeachment’ at the end of his term in the White House for having induced and supported the assault on the Capitol on the day of Biden’s inauguration, January 6, 2020. Not counting the rest of the accusations and procedures. What happened with Trump can be described as a Resurrection. He demonstrates his ability to attract his voters. The majority of them continue to believe, according to all kinds of polls, that Democrat Joe Biden stole the presidency from them. And that gives this story a very American aftertaste. The revenge.
The second message has to do with what worries voters. In the debates and events that have been held these days, economics has been discussed. Despite what the statistics say and despite the fact that the economy has performed better during Biden’s term than under Trump’s, they think otherwise. The second half of the year may even prove them right. There is a risk that the war in the Red Sea will reverse the decline in inflation and the economy’s landing will be less soft than expected. There has also been talk of immigration, of the concern that the border with Mexico raises among the older rural middle classes, a perception that is shared by other aging societies such as Europe. The third issue is foreign policy. Everyone considers Joe Biden to be a prisoner of the military industrial complex. That he is mired in the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and that he does not know how to get out of them.
After the Iowa caucuses, the chance of the other two contenders having any chance is remote. Ron DeSantis, the one who most resembles Trump in message, lacks the builder’s grace and speed. He comforts his followers, but does not ignite the masses. After a major logistical effort in Iowa, he is running out of funds. Nikki Haley does have money. She has the support of the Koch family’s Americans for Prosperity network. The recent rise in the polls of the former United States ambassador to the UN made people think that she was going to come second in Iowa and, with a humiliated DeSantis, show him the way out. It has not been like that, and the confrontation between the two will continue in the New Hampshire primaries, where she has more options. The fight between the two will continue to benefit Trump. Better two in dispute than one antagonist, no matter how weak.
Trump’s resounding victory in Iowa strengthens the candidate and is intimidating for the judges who must decide in the coming months on the pending cases. And it makes it practically inevitable that we will see a duel again in November between the builder and the Democrat who “stole” the presidency from him in 2020. All the polls indicate, there is no need to insist on it, that Trump will be the winner.
