In Iowa, the Beginning of Trump's End

Courtesy REUTERS/Cheney Orr

I’ve spent a lot of time in Iowa. From Sioux City to Ottumwa, and back again, I’ve seen most of the Hawkeye State up close. It is a place of enduring earthiness, its people full of humor and humanity (at least the ones I encountered.) You haven’t lived until you’ve sung Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair” with two cops and two Secret Service agents in the lead car of a presidential motorcade in Cedar Rapids.

But I digress…

Before we consign an entire American state to the clutches of MAGA, we should take a closer look at Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa Caucuses.

First, he won by a lot. This wasn’t a surprise.

Next, Trump is still the odds-on favorite to be the Republican nominee. Nothing in the caucuses changed that.

Still…

The Enthusiasm Gap

Despite breaking the 50% barrier, and Trump’s victory created questions about his General Election prospects. For a former (defeated) president of the United States, who claims the mantle of the Republican Party for only himself and is allegedly on track to reclaim the White House, nearly half of GOP caucus attendees last night wanted someone else to lead the party into November.

Those that turned out, that is. Yes, the weather was cold. If you’ve ever been to Iowa in January, it’s always cold: The wind blows out of the Rocky Mountains and doesn’t stop until it hits Eastern Kentucky. Less than 15% of registered Iowa Republicans made their way to church, the high school gym, or a VFW hall to participate. Given the ruby-red nature of the place, and what is supposed to be Trump’s overwhelming popularity, this is bad news for the Mar-A-Lago monstrosity.

Trump’s Evangelical Trap

Reviewing political coverage of the evening, the press emphasized the Trump campaign’s organization and his strength with white Christian evangelical voters. The distinction they missed, however, is that it is the network of Christian nationalist pastors and churchgoers that provided said ground game. As Katherine Stewart describes in her excellent book, The Power Worshippers, evangelicals have built an incredibly sophisticated web of organizations, money, and pastors who preach the Bible above the ballot box.

I thought their analysis was fine until a friend sent me the graphic below.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been hanging around 15-20% in the polls for months. He didn’t ever climb, but his floor was solid and sticky. Now we know why: A sizable proportion of single-issue pro-life voters favored Teddy Ruxpin’s less charismatic brother. Sitting around a conference room today, we noodled on this.

Bob Vander Plaats, the head of Family Leader endorsed DeSantis and came out publicly and vigorously against Trump (though now he’s back-pedalling.) They know what we all know: Donald Trump is no God-fearing man. He’s not Born Again. He’s a godless heathen. Many evangelical voters may want nothing to do with (shocker!) a lying, philandering, adjudicated rapist who doesn’t know a Bible from a Big Mac.

In an effort to soften his stance on abortion (and re-engage white suburban women) the Trump campaign lambasted DeSantis’ signing of a six-week abortion ban in Florida. Makes sense, if we lived in a normal world and Trump was a normal candidate who didn’t run around yelling, “I killed Roe!” every chance he got in front of his faithful (or faithless) base.

Courtesy, Rolling Stone.

Trump’s willingness to do the evangelical movement’s bidding might be his undoing in November. Like the bad wiring built into Apollo 13 two years before its launch, Trump’s stacking of the Supreme Court with arch conservatives, and their dutiful overturning of a half-century of abortion law, might very well have wrecked Trump and the GOP for decades to come.

It will be Trump’s personal instinct to move with his base. If they’re pro-life, he’s pro-life. But as he attempts to keep them engaged and energized, he will necessarily remind soft suburban Republicans, women, and young voters, that, yes, he did indeed kill Roe.

The damaged service module of Apollo 13. Courtesy, astronauts.

Low Bridge Ahead

Donald Trump has many problems: Obesity, a variety of chronic venereal ailments, small hands, a malignant personality disorder, to name a few.

He also has significant electoral shortcomings.

In both 2016 and 2020, Trump’s people knew his electoral ceiling was somewhere around 45-46%. It’s different in 2024 – it’s worse, in fact. There are significantly more Americans (and more registered voters) who do not want him back in the White House. Early analysis of the Iowa results point show that not only hasn’t Trump consolidated the most conservative voters in one of the most conservative states, but he’s also permanently hemorrhaged moderate Republicans (especially women.)

If DeSantis’ evangelical supporters present real problems (strategic and vote-wise) for Trump, Nikki Haley’s supporters are positively lethal to his hopes of a return to the White House. In exit polling, 43% of Haley voters said they’d vote for Biden if Trump is the Republican nominee. Another 27% said they’d vote for RFK Jr. or another third-party candidate. Only 23% of Haley supporters said they’d get behind Trump in the General Election.

A note about Vivek: Ramaswamy’s seven percent may seem insignificant. I posit that his support doesn’t go back to Trump. Those voters do one of two things: They vote for Bobby K. or they stay home. I call these men (and they are men) the “FU white guys.” They hate everybody, Trump included. Drip, drip, drip. The Trump iceberg is brittle and melting more every day.

This is insurmountable for Trump in November. It also explains why groups like No Labels and candidates like Jill Stein (I-Putin,) Cornell West, Kennedy (LSD – Steve Bannon,) and others have popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

The Trump campaign knows they cannot win a one-on-one match up against Joe Biden. In a two-man fight, Biden doesn’t just win, he wins in a walk.

What Iowa Isn’t

Iowa sits due-south of Wisconsin. But Wisconsin is not Iowa. Michigan isn’t Iowa. Pennsylvania isn’t Iowa. Georgia isn’t Iowa. Arizona isn’t Iowa. Nevada isn’t Iowa.

Iowa is now politically a southern state. Its politics mirror that of the old confederacy. The key Electoral College states are more diverse than Iowa. They have more Democratic voters. They have sitting governors, statewide officers, and legislators who will be fighting on behalf of their party and their president.

What Trump Is

As the Iowa Caucus approached, national media outlets continued their efforts to understand just what makes Trump voters tick. In several videos, his voters extol the virtues of a Trump dictatorship. Earlier this month, his own campaign put out a video titled “God Made Trump,” using longtime radio fixture Paul Harvey’s voice.

In response, The Lincoln Project, courtesy of Rick Wilson’s Bat Cave, has a message for Trump, Americans, and all democracy-loving people. Please take a minute to watch and share with your friends who question what the fight for 2024 is all about.