Numbers are mysterious things. According to orthodox Roman Catholicism, there are instances in which 3 = 1. You might get by with that formula in your theology seminar. Don’t try it in your arithmetic class. Unraveling the reason why both might be right would take me far afield. But since numbers are in the air tonight — the night of the Big Deal Iowa Caucus Race — I thought I would remind you that numbers, and the reality behind them, can be mysterious.
In the run up to the Caucus, lots of pundits put on their best owlish eyeglasses and explained that even though Iowa had only forty delegates to send to the Republican National Convention, it was nevertheless important because it was the first contest in the primary season. Therefore (they explain) a decisive win helps bolster a candidate’s credibility. Of course, Ted Cruz won the Iowa Caucus in 2016 and went on to lose the nomination. Ditto Rick Santorum in 2012.
So what about now, in 2024? One thing we know is that, unlike the Caucus Race in Alice in Wonderland, we won’t have Dodos shouting “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” (We might have Dodos, but that’s not what they will be saying.)
Until now, the person who won the Iowa Caucus by the largest margin was Bob Dole back in 1988. He won by twelve-point-something points. A ray of hope that the Nikki Haley contingent and the Ron DeSantis faction harbored was that even though Trump was likely to win, perhaps he wouldn’t win convincingly. An achievement they understood — history and Bob Dole be damned — to be fifty points. If he won by less than that — by forty, say — they could claim that he won by a “disappointing” margin.
A writer for Vox, for example, wrote this: “If Trump underperforms polls — getting around 40 percent or lower, or having another contender come surprisingly close to him — he will be deemed a ‘loser’ of Iowa even though he won because the results showed his support looking less rock-solid than expected.”
I am writing about forty minutes after the Caucus opened in Iowa. I was expecting to be here a long time. But as of a few minutes ago, everyone has already called the race for Trump. The exact numbers will change, but as of 8:54 Eastern Time, Trump clocks in at 55.7 percent, Haley with 20.9 percent and DeSantis with 15.5 percent.
In other words: Trump trounced everyone. RealClearPolitics reports that it took him only thirty-one minutes to clear the table. The outcome or upshot? It’s game over for Ron DeSantis. Whether he suspends his campaign tonight or waits a few weeks doesn’t really matter. Time’s up for the governor of Florida. Nikki Haley will doubtless trudge on to New Hampshire, where she will also lose, and perhaps even to South Carolina, her home state, where Trump will win by a huge margin.
It wasn’t much of a horse race, but it was, for those with eyes to see, a clarifying moment.
Update: At the end of the day, Trump got his 50 percent, 51 percent, in fact, while Ron DeSantis, who had gone all in on Iowa spending loads of time as well as money there, edged out Nikki Haley 21.2 percent to 19.1 percent. My conclusion is the same: Trump is on track to grab the nomination, DeSantis is toast, Haley is slow roasting. The other big news of the night is that Vivek Ramaswamy, the articulate Energizer bunny of the race, has decided to drop out. He was easily the most amusing, most direct and most thoughtful candidate, but he managed to attract only 7.7 percent of the votes. His hour has not yet come. Endorsing Trump in his remarks, Vivek asked his followers to “follow me and take our America First movement to the next level.” Many of them will. We have not heard the last of him.
