The 2024 Presidential race launched on Monday night, Jan. 15, as Republican candidates battled it out for their party’s nomination in the state of Iowa.
Republican candidates vying for their party’s nomination competed for votes in the Iowa caucuses to kick off the primary elections for president and determine who will face incumbent democrat Joe Biden in November’s general election.
“NBC News projects that Donald Trump will win the Iowa Republican caucuses,” NBC correspondent Steve Kornacki tweeted.
Former President Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses, defeating his closest rival by a close to thirty percent margin. Trump accumulated over 56,000 votes in the caucus, for 51% percent of the total ballots cast.
“Are you kidding me?” Rep. Chip Roy, a supporter of Ron DeSantis, said to reporters. “They haven’t even started voting yet and heard all the speeches and A.P. calls it?”
Due to the very early call by reporters that Trump had won the contest, opponents and their supporters expressed concern that this might have led to suppressing the votes of other candidates in an era of quick mass information. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of the rivals concerned with the early call, ended in second place with about 23,000 raw votes and 21% of the total vote. Former Ambassador Nikki Haley came up in a distant third, despite recent polling surges, with around 21,000 votes and 19% of the total vote.
“We did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight,” Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said in Des Moines.
After an underwhelming fourth-place finish Ramaswamy suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a minor competitor in Iowa, also suspended his campaign after a lackluster performance.
“But overall they want this to be a clear race between Biden or Trump for the electorate,” Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
With an AP-NORC poll showing that few Americans want the 2024 election to end up as a Biden versus Trump rematch, the Iowa caucus’ result is important in showing that despite public opinion this matchup is near certain. The Biden campaign would like to use this to make it clear that the race will be against Trump, and begin their attacks against the former president, according to Psaki.
“We want to come together, whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative,” Trump said. “We’re going to come together. It’s going to happen soon.”