US election 2024: Haley’s comet dimmed over Iowa

The only surprise in an otherwise predictable Iowa caucus was that Nikki Haley didn’t beat Ron DeSantis into second place. So many headlines of the past two weeks were about her improved poll numbers and how she was beginning to emerge as the only meaningful rival to Donald Trump. That she didn’t do that might not be hugely significant in the long run, but much will now be read into this twist because, frankly, there’s very little else to read into the first result of the 2024 election campaign. 

Donald Trump won and won handsomely, ending with more than 50% of the vote, and ensuring that nobody can question his standing. Anything less than 50% would have encouraged the anti-Trumpers who would point out that had the opposition coalesced around a single candidate, then Trump would not now be leading the nominations. But even that logic is flawed since candidates who drop out don’t give their vote to one candidate but will boost all those still in the race. 

There’s a long way to go and Iowa is Iowa: a strange place politically and practising strange electoral moonlight rituals that make very little sense in daylight. Caucuses are not the best place to judge elections or the electability of candidates. In 2016, Donald Trump did not win in Iowa. In that year, Ted Cruz emerged victorious… and we know what happened to his Presidency of the United States.

The “what next” is New Hampshire, which is more like a “normal” primary, albeit with all the demographic nuances that come with each of these competitions. New Hampshire allows independents to vote, which lends itself to the belief that we’ll see vastly improved numbers around Haley who, give or take her cosying up to Trump, is considered (and probably is) the more moderate of the three frontrunners.

DeSantis’s showing was better than expected but short of anything like a resurgence for the Florida governor. It’s hard for any candidate to regain the kind of momentum he’s lost. Had he come third, he might well have dropped out. This result might keep him in the race a bit longer. The result might also reflect the overall poor turnout, due to the bad weather across Iowa, encouraging the slightly more devout Republicans to the polls who might be more inclined towards the DeSantis end of the party. All hypothetical but sometimes reading election results is not much more scientific than reading tea leaves.

The real focus now is on Haley. A good showing in Iowa would have set her up for a defining moment in her bid for the nomination. Some of the polling in the so-called “Granite State” suggests she’s now only 11 points behind Trump, though polls had also suggested she would do better in Iowa. If 2024 is going to be something other than a cakewalk for Donald Trump, then it will be in New Hampshire that we’ll see the first crumb (see what I did there?) of evidence. More apposite, perhaps, is the state’s motto. “Live Free or Die” is a good approximation of where we now are in the Republican race.

Vivek Ramaswamy certainly realised he wasn’t going to be living free anywhere soon except, perhaps, in Donald Trump’s pocket. He dropped out of the race and fell lovingly into the former President’s arms. He endorsed the former President after pretty much making his entire run into a bid to get on the underside of the Trump ticket. He’s unlikely to realise his dream. 

More telling, however, was the response to Trump’s victory by Democrats, whose strategy still looks like it will work best with Trump as the opponent. Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted out a message on the news of Trump’s victory. “Trump just won the Iowa caucus,” she said. “The same person who recently called the overturning of Roe v. Wade a “miracle” is one step closer to becoming the Republican nominee for president.”

There, in one tweet, we have the 2024 election defined.

As it currently stands, the most likely outcome is that Trump will win the nomination and Democrats will go in hard on the issue of abortion rights. It’s still a struggle to follow the logic of some who think Donald Trump is on a path to the White House. If things stay as they are, Biden will have the stronger hand to play later in the year.

@DavidWaywell

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