Top Democrats did not react to Donald Trump’s crushing win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday with the dismay that might have been expected. Instead, the victory of the twice-impeached, 91-times criminally charged former president was heralded as an early beginning to the battle for the White House itself.
Called early, Trump’s victory came by 30 points over the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who edged the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for second. Only one of 99 Iowa counties did not go for Trump: Johnson county, which includes the University of Iowa, was won by Haley, the relative moderate left in the race – by a single vote.
Responding to Trump’s win, and using an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America great again”, Biden told followers: “Here’s the thing: this election was always going to be you and me versus extreme Maga Republicans. It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow.”
at this point, does anyone have a reliable idea of how many undecided voters there really are who could have an influence on the outcome of the election? or is it, at this point, for the Dems, simply about motivating non-voters to get off their asses and vote?
i just have a hard time imagining that there are very many people left who haven’t already decided who they’re voting for.
I did see this: https://thehill.com/elections/4408071-almost-half-of-haley-supporters-say-they-would-vote-for-biden-over-trump-iowa-poll/amp/ saying that a sizable portion of Haley’s voter base would go for Biden over Trump in a general so I imagine part of the strategy is driving the point home for as many of the “moderate” republicans as possible.
Brilliant
Biden is redefining his base and it’s a new political party landscape. It’s not Democrat (50%) vs Republican (50%), it’s now sanity (85%) vs insanity (15%).
~15% of Republicans came out to vote in Iowa.
Half voted Trump: 7%.
Republicans make up 34.5% of total voters in Iowa.
7% of 34.5% is 2.415% of Iowans who actually voted for Trump.This is a crushing defeat for Trump and the entire Republican party.
In any sane political system this whole thing would not be more than a minor news item in the local press.
I mean, yeah, but it’s a caucus in a primary with an heir apparent and was held on a night with horrific weather. I don’t think we can conclude that much.
Why do people still vote for Trump?
Cult mentality
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Doing so will allow them to campaign more on the threat Trump poses to American democracy than the virtues of Biden himself, a historically unpopular president facing doubts about his age (81 now, 86 at the end of a second term), his handling of the economy and his support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
Seventeen concern election subversion, 40 were brought over the retention of classified information, and 34 arise from hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.
Trump also faces civil suits over his business affairs and a defamation claim arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”, and attempts to keep him off the ballot in Colorado and Maine, under the 14th amendment to the US constitution and for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.
Before voting began in Iowa, Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, marked the Martin Luther King Day holiday by attacking Trump over his threat to democracy.
She followed up by emphasising Trump’s central role in the overturning last year of Roe v Wade, the supreme court decision that once guaranteed the federal right to abortion.
From the Senate, Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, lambasted DeSantis and Haley for running campaigns in which they long fought shy of attacking Trump.
The original article contains 880 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
