[News] Iowa caucuses: What Trump's dominant win means for White House race

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It was perhaps the least surprising victory in the history of the Iowa caucuses.

Donald Trump won by a landslide in the first contest in the Republican race for a presidential nominee, the margin in the end as comfortable as the polls had predicted for months.

But dominating the vote count was just one reason why the former president was celebrating on Monday night after his supporters braved extreme cold weather to deliver him the win.

Neither of Mr Trump's main rivals, Nikki Haley nor Ron DeSantis, emerged as a lead challenger - so the not-Trump vote remains divided. Meanwhile, his most ideologically similar rival, Vivek Ramaswamy, announced he was dropping out - and will endorse Mr Trump in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Here is a closer look at why the results in Iowa were so significant in the race for the White House.

Mr Trump's victory in Iowa was historically massive. He won "bigly", as the former president might say.

 

No one had prevailed in an Iowa contest by more than 12 points before - Mr Trump's margin will approach 30% and he could end up winning an outright majority of the Republicans who turned out.

A survey of Iowans entering caucus sites on Monday night helps explain exactly why his bid for an electoral encore has been successful so far.

About half of Republican caucus-goers consider themselves part of Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

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Mr Trump's victory was a broad one as well. He won the young and old, men and women. He also won over the evangelical and hard-right conservative voters he had difficulty winning in 2016.

Typically, defeated presidential candidates fade from memory, never able to shake the taint of the loss. Mr Trump, however, has managed to convince Republicans - here in Iowa and nationally - that he didn't lose.

A large majority of caucus-goers in Iowa told CBS they believed Mr Trump was the actual winner of the 2020 presidential election - a number that increased to 90% among Trump supporters.

Mr Trump's dominant position within the Republican Party has been irrefutable - but his win here, in the larger context of modern American politics, is extraordinary.

Two years, 22 months and 25 days ago, he ended his first presidential term under a cloud of controversy, his campaign to challenge his loss to Democrat Joe Biden culminating in the January 6 Capitol riot. He faces two criminal trials stemming from those actions.

Now, as the winner of the Iowa caucuses, he has taken the first significant step toward becoming the Republican Party's nominee in November's presidential election.

Trump still has work to do to become the Republican standard-bearer. He will face a more formidable challenge from Ms Haley in New Hampshire next week, where polls show his once dominating lead has been whittled to near single digits.

But he is still the overwhelming favourite in the race, endorsed in his first test by actual Republican voters, despite all the drama - legal and political - around his campaign.

Entering Monday's Iowa caucuses, most of the electoral intrigue involved which candidate would take second place behind Mr Trump. In the end, it was Mr DeSantis who walked away with the runner-up prize.

 

It's not much of achievement, however, given the narrowness with which the Florida governor finished ahead of Ms Haley.

The result, and Mr DeSantis's pledge to press on with his campaign, won't provide the kind of clear result that would set up a one-on-one face-off with Trump in the days ahead.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67989443