Iowa Was No Great Triumph for Donald Trump
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
“Historic,” “decisive,” “lominant,” and “Landslide” are some of the words being used by the press to describe former President Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa on Monday night.
Better ones were available. What about “sufficient,” “passable,” or “adequate”? “Mediocre” or “middling”? “So-so”?
Trump is seemingly on a collision course with the Republican presidential nomination. He has an unbreakable bond with somewhere between 30%-40% of the electorate, and has secured the support of enough of the rest of it in no small part because of the air of inevitability that he projects and media coverage of him feeds into.
But did Monday night really constitute the epochal achievement it’s being billed as by both Trump and his enemies in the Fourth Estate? Did it prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is destined to remain the master of the GOP for as long as he lives?
The answer, despite the common wisdom, is no.
Donald Trump is walking away from the first contest of the 2024 Republican primary cycle with 51% of the vote. That’s good enough, but is it actually a feat worthy of anywhere near the wonder that so many pundits have expressed over it?
Yes, Trump’s nearly 30-point margin of victory over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may technically represent a historical outlier in contested caucuses. But acknowledging as much without providing further context paints a misleading picture of Trump’s political strength.
This is no ordinary contested primary and Trump is no ordinary frontrunner, he is a former commander-in-chief only three years removed from suffering a narrow loss at a time when negative polarization drives American politics. To liken this GOP primary to the ones that occurred in 2000, 2008, 2012, or 2016 is to strain credulity. Trump can much more accurately be compared to incumbent presidents who have faced primary challengers.
And by that measure, Trump can hardly be pleased with the outcome in Iowa. He cobbled together an ultra-slim majority in a low-turnout election whose participants overwhelmingly believe he was robbed of a second term. He did so against two viable challengers who have trained their fire mostly only each other, and an acolyte who spent the entire race praising Trump before endorsing him shortly after the results rolled in on Monday night. That’s not a performance to be proud of, it’s one to breathe a sigh of relief about.
Monday night’s results can rightly be taken as a sign that on its present course, the GOP is set to again nominate Trump. But it cannot reasonably be taken as a testament to his continued political skill, his ability to win the general election, and even his iron-clad grip on the GOP. It failed to establish any of those things. If Joe Biden faced a serious challenger — as opposed to the unknowns and gadflies actually challenging him — and secured just 51% in Iowa, would his victory be celebrated in the same way that Trump’s is? What about if he was expected to do even worse in New Hampshire?
Donald Trump prevailed in the Iowa Caucuses on Monday, but that only means that he met expectations, not that he won some great triumph.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
