US Iowa Republican presidential caucus live

Live coverage of today’s Iowa caucus that Trump is expected to win easily. Also: a roundup of recent international electoral developments.

Live Commentary

4:10pm Ramaswamy has dropped out, so Trump, DeSantis and Haley are the final three standing with real support.

4:03pm Nearly final results are Trump 51.0%, DeSantis 21.2%, Haley 19.1% and Ramaswamy 7.7%. A great result for Trump. I’ll have a post on the New Hampshire primary next week.

2:55pm With 91% in, it’s Trump 51.0%, DeSantis 21.3%, Haley 19.0% and Ramaswamy 7.7%. The NYT forecast now has DeSantis finishing second. So a HUGE Trump win and no momentum for Haley probably means he’s going to win New Hampshire next week.

2:12pm The NYT has precinct maps showing there’s a big gap in Trump’s support by education and income, with higher-education and income areas less supportive. It’s the reverse pattern for Haley.

2:03pm With 39% reporting, it’s 52.8% Trump, 20.0% DeSantis, 18.7% Haley and 7.7% for Vivek Ramaswamy. The NYT prediction is Trump 51%, DeSantis 20%, Haley 19% and Ramaswamy 8%. DeSantis has a 57% chance to finish second.

1:34pm The NY Times live forecast has Haley ahead of DeSantis by an estimated 20% to 18% for second when all votes are counted. They give Haley a 57% chance to finish second.

1:14pm With 3% counted, Trump leads with 53%, followed by DeSantis at 21.5% and Haley at 17.6%. As expected, Trump wins Iowa.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The Iowa Republican caucuses start at 12pm AEDT today. There will probably be some discussion before votes are taken. These caucuses will allocate 40 delegates by statewide proportional representation. While Iowa and some other states allocate their Republican delegates proportionally, many other states use a winner takes all or winner takes most method, with South Carolina on February 24 the first such state.

A “caucus” is managed by the state party, and often requires voters to gather at a particular time. A “primary” is managed by the state’s electoral authority, and is administered in the same way as a general election. Turnout at primaries is much higher than at caucuses. In 2024, the large majority of contests use primaries. Turnout in Iowa could be affected by frigid weather.

These contests elect delegates who will formally select their party’s presidential candidate at conventions in July (for Republicans) and August (Democrats). With Donald Trump and Joe Biden way ahead in polls, a rematch of the 2020 election is very likely. Both Biden and Trump are likely to effectively seal their parties’ nominations on Super Tuesday March 5 when many states vote.

The New Hampshire primary for both parties is next Tuesday January 23, but it was stripped of all its Democratic delegates for voting earlier than allowed under the Democrats’ rules. The first contest to bind Democratic delegates will be South Carolina on February 3.

In FiveThirtyEight aggregates, Trump is way ahead in Iowa with 51.3% followed by Nikki Haley at 17.3% and Ron DeSantis at 16.1%. It’s closer in New Hampshire with Trump leading Haley by 41.4-30.0. In national Republican primary polls, Trump has 60.4%, DeSantis 12.1% and Haley 11.7%.

Democratic delegates are allocated proportionally, but with a 15% threshold. Only Biden is likely to clear this threshold in most contests. He has 69.8% in national Democratic polls, Marianne Williamson 6.1% and Dean Phillips 3.5%.

Poland, Serbia, Chile, Switzerland and Germany

Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party lost the October 15 election, but a new government was not sworn in until December 13 owing mainly to delays by the PiS-aligned president Andrzej Duda. The new governing coalition of liberal conservative Civic Platform, centrist Third Way and the Left won a confidence vote by 248-201. Duda can veto legislation and it takes a 60% majority to override his veto, which the non-PiS parties don’t have. The next presidential election is in 2025.

Snap parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on December 17. They were called early after authoritarian President Aleksandar Vučić’s SNS coalition did not win a majority in 2022 elections. The 250 parliamentarians were elected by national PR with a 3% threshold. The SNS won 129 seats (up nine), with an opposition coalition winning 65 seats (up 25). SNS won a majority.

On December 17, Chile rejected a right-wing constitution by a 55.8-44.2 margin. In September 2022, a left-wing constitution had been rejected by 61.9-38.1. The 1980 constitution that dictator Augusto Pinochet created continues to be in effect.

I previously covered the 2023 Swiss parliamentary elections. Rather than a single president or PM, Switzerland uses a seven-member federal council, which was elected by parliament on December 13. The composition was unchanged from 2019, with two from the right-wing SVP, two Social Democrats, two Liberals and one from the conservative Centre.

On December 19, Germany’s Constitutional Court ordered a February 11 rerun of the September 2021 German federal election in 455 of Berlin’s 2,256 polling booths. While a few seats are likely to change, the overall majority for the governing coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and pro-business Free Democrats is expected to be retained. But current national polls are bleak for the government, with the next election due by late 2025.

63 comments on “US Iowa Republican presidential caucus live”

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  1. Thanks Adrian. Seems obvious Trump will/should win.

    I have to ask, even on the Republican side, is there still any point holding the Iowa primary first? IF it is no longer a “bellweather” or representative state electorate, doesn’t it just delay and confuse the POTUS race? How many times do people have to say this before changing it?

  2. Socrates – It has been debated endlessly but America is naturally fairly conservative when it comes to elections, so I can’t see it being changed any time soon.
    The fact that elections are run on a county level is equally strange but unlikely to change.

  3. since 2008 the winner of the iowa caucus has not secured the nomination:

    2016: ted cruz
    2012: rick santorum
    2008: mike huckabee

  6. Arkysays:
    Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 12:21 pm
    @Jahlin – good to know, bad omen then for Trump once he inevitably wins the caucus.

    of course, as incumbent he did in fact win the 2020 iowa caucus against Bill Weld, though the result at the 2020 election is a matter of debate for some americans

  9. AP- Majority of Iowa caucusgoers identify with Trump’s MAGA movement

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/15/2217604/-Majority-of-Iowa-caucusgoers-identify-with-Trump-s-MAGA-movement?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_3&pm_medium=web

    “The majority of Iowa Republicans who are caucusing Monday believe in the need to “Make America Great Again,” a sign of how Donald Trump and his political movement have transformed a state party that denied him a victory eight years ago.

    AP VoteCast found that nearly all those participating in the nation’s first presidential contest want significant change in how the country is run, if not a total upheaval. About 6 in 10 identify as supporters of the movement that Trump jumpstarted in his winning 2016 campaign and the former president has nurtured further in his 2024 run for the White House.

    The findings from AP VoteCast suggest that Trump is in a strong position as the caucuses began. He shows significant strength among urban, small town and rural communities. Trump also performs well with evangelical Christians and those without a college degree. One relative weakness for Trump comes in the suburbs, where only about 4 in 10 support him.

    AP VoteCast is a survey of more than 1,500 voters who said they planned to take part in the caucuses. The survey is conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

  11. Story County, in which Iowa State University is located – is an outlier with

    Trump – 19
    DeSantis – 24
    Halley – 40

    Polk County – Des Moines capital city and suburbs has the largest voter number

    Trump – 41
    DeSantis – 20
    Halley – 30

    So some glimmer of light to who will reject Trump.

    Being swamped by the banjo players however

  13. What an embarrassing result for Asa Hutchinson, who is currently sitting on a whole 0.2% of the vote. I really do wonder what he was trying to achieve by staying in the race.

  14. Asha

    I’m thinking the answer is: donations.

    I recall the behaviour of a certain Pauline Hanson who at one stage cheerfully nominated for elections she would not win, spent virtually nothing campaigning, and then gleefully pocketed the AEC funding as long as she cleared the 4% hurdle.

  15. Anyone celebrating Trump getting “only” 50%+ of the primary vote in Iowa missed the fact that it was the one state where much of the influential Republican establishment, including the governor and evangelical powerbrokers, lined up against Trump.

    That he still beat the snot out of the competition in the state with the strongest level of conservative elite support for his opponents is not good news for anyone who doesn’t want him to win.

  16. Asa must be the last Clinton impeachment manager still involved in politics. With 0.2% of the vote it cant be long before he rectifies that situation.

  17. My bad Lindsay Graham was also a House impeachment manager and is still around. He will be the last one to have perused the blue dress.

  19. GOP primaries mean diddly squat given that Trump still needs to navigate through 91 criminal charges and various other civil lawsuits and legal challenges.
    Possibly his greatest threat, however, is his advancing dementia and his ever-spiraling descent into the depths of nonsensical absurdity.

  22. De Santis will be gooorn by the time voting is done in New Hampshire.

    So Haley will be the anti-Trump candidate.

    The Democrats would have to be thinking long and hard about whether Biden can beat Trump. Voting for Dean Phillips as a stalking horse to get Biden out is a good prospect now.

  24. Phillips is polling 26% in New Hampshire primary polling.

    Biden isnt on the ballot in NH so has to write in. Dont be surprised if there is a surprise here. It was underperformance in the early primaries that got LBJ to drop out. Not impossible that Phillips shocks Biden and a Dem Governor steps in.

  26. Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki

    And by a margin of 1 vote Nikki Haley appears to have won Johnson County (Iowa City), leaving Donald Trump that close to a 99-county sweep:

  27. Dean Phillips just came out and proposed appointing Elon Musk to his Cabinet, which is a position about as popular among Democratic voters as promising to make Trump your Attorney-General nominee.

    There is no chance Phillips does anything other than embarrass himself.

  28. Ven @ #25 Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 – 3:22 pm

    Trump is the first Presidential candidate ever to get over 50% of IOWAn caucus votes. In 2016, he got around 20%.

    That’s not true. Not only do unchallenged incumbents still get a result (usually getting close to 100%) but Al Gore beat Bill Bradley in 2000 in a lopsided victory (approx 2/3) and Tom Harkin won in a landslide in 1992 (around 77%.)

  30. (Note: I am using SDE data for the historic amounts, not popular vote – as that was only recorded as of 2020. However, it’s obvious from those lopsided results, the popular vote – in each case – would have been well above Trump’s.

    And to pre-empt the “Gore was an incumbent VP who was only facing a minor challenger, and Harkin was an Iowan native son and all the other candidates effectively skipped Iowa to avoid competing with him” Trump is a former US President who has a large support base within the party and a cult of personality. By basically claiming 2020 was stolen from him and he’s a President in exile, he’s effectively running as an incumbent in this race (minus having to defend anything from the last four years.)

  31. FUBAR @ Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 6:31 pm

    “Well done Democrats – you’ve created a martyr.”
    ========================

    US Democrats are on a hiding to nothing when it comes to MAGA adulation for their Führer. Oppose him, and he’s a martyr. Ignore him, and he gets to set the agenda on his own terms. Agree with him, and he crows about how he’s ‘owning’ them. In terms of gathering to himself a loyal core of diehards, Trump has it locked up good and tight, no matter what the Democrats do.

    However, if there was no indication from Iowa that Trump garnered support beyond his MAGA diehards, it’s hard to see him beating the 46% overall vote he got in both 2016 and 2020. I think the Democrats are best served doing those things which will inspire their own base to turn out. Among those things is vigorous pursuit of Trump for his many (alleged) crimes. So, I disagree that US Democrats would have been better off politically by giving Trump a free pass for his wrongdoings.

  33. FUBAR @ #29 Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 – 5:31 pm

    Well done Democrats – you’ve created a martyr.

    Oh ffs. Trump’s (among other things) a pathological liar, a fraudster, a criminal, and an insurrectionist. The Democrats have nothing whatsoever to do with any of those things. Accountability isn’t a partisan undertaking.

    You expect everyone to just ignore Trump’s very obvious and very real issues? Why, because he’s vaguely popular amongst a loud, delusional minority of the population?

  36. Trump’s an outright fascist who incited an attempted coup. If the Democrat were to let that slide just because they were scared of the backlash from his deranged supporters, they might as well just give up and concede every electoral contest going forward.

  37. I have heard this likely US Presidential contest match-up being described as Carter running for re-election in 1980, except, instead of facing Reagan, he’s facing a post-Watergate Nixon.

    Which I think is a reasonable assessment. Especially as it’s not 100% obvious who’d win such a match-up.

    (And yes, I know Nixon would have been constitutionally prohibited from running in 1980.)

  39. @Rebecca

    “Anyone celebrating Trump getting “only” 50%+ of the primary vote in Iowa missed the fact that it was the one state where much of the influential Republican establishment, including the governor and evangelical powerbrokers, lined up against Trump.”

    That’s a fairly gross misrepresentation I’m afraid. The Iowa GOP is largely very conservative, and a high % of evangelicals who have swung most heavily to Trump since 2016 when they weren’t so keen (largely thanks to his SCOTUS picks, among other things).

    Plus, Governor Reynolds aside, Trump has multiple key endorsements from influential politicians in Iowa.

    It’s so different to 2016. In reality, Trump IS the establishment candidate and as ‘swampy’ as any politician in the USA – yet somehow comes across to his blue collar MAGA base as an outsider still. It’s the victim card he plays so well.

  40. “So a HUGE Trump win and no momentum for Haley probably means he’s going to win New Hampshire next week.”

    Afraid I have to agree with this assessment Adrian.

    Had Trump been just a couple of % less so he had a 49 (%) at the front not a 50+ (%), and Haley had been just a couple of % higher then it would have been net neutral. Had Haley hit 25%, it would have been net positive momentum for her.

    Fine margins in this respect, albeit a blow-out win for Trump in normal parlance either way.

    I think the unprecedented cold weather on the day helped Trump as his followers are more diehard and his campaign’s Iowa organisation was incredible this time. We’ll never know for sure of course.

  41. Was watching MSNBC earlier today and there was an interview with a mid to late 30s male. His only motivation was that Trump delivered the Supreme Court.

    Sad state of living when your only motivation as a male is controlling women’s health. Hopefully it’s the issue that gets the turnout in November that stops Trump. It’s worked in local, state and federal elections since the Dobbs decision.

    I’m heading to the States in May to visit family and friends. Will be interesting to get the ‘vibe’ on the ground instead of only through news and t.v.

  42. FUBAR @ #34 Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 – 7:10 pm

    Vaguely popular?

    The National polling figures of Trump v Biden disagree.

    The actual popular vote figures from two general elections against (widely considered/labelled “deeply unpopular”) Democratic candidates disagree harder. Trump has not even once enjoyed popular support from the majority of voters. Even against Hillary Clinton he couldn’t clear that hurdle.

  43. One thing to remember about New Hampshire, it is an open primary, so in other words Democrats and Independents can participate too – I would assume Nikki Haley will be hoping for a lot of that vote.

  45. I think that one point that requires consideration is this: Caucuses take HOURS of peoples’ time. And I don’t mean hours of waiting in queues to vote, I mean hours of publicly declaring one’s allegiance to Candidate X. To be blunt: Caucuses are not for the casual politico. Which means that caucuses tend to skew significantly more radical than primaries, or than general elections. It’s one reason why the IA caucuses have a poor track record of picking the eventual occupants of the White House.

    Trump went into Iowa with massive advantages:

    1) He was the ideological candidate, who naturally appeals to the hardcore “believers”;
    2) As a former President, he enjoyed universal name recognition, as well as the media treating his every move as newsworthy;
    3) As a former President who won the GOP nomination the last two times around, Trump is very much a pseudo-incumbent, with all of the institutional advantages of this;
    4) As a pseudo-incumbent, he was running against an opposition which was heavily divided between at least 3 viable candidates.

    To get only 51% of the vote, with all those advantages in play…it speaks poorly of his underlying level of appeal. It says that – even among the true believers – Trump can only just barely muster a majority. That’s his ceiling. It says that even the GOP isn’t certain that they want Trump as their candidate for the third time in a row – so how do they expect to persuade America to embrace him? If Trump wins in November, it will mostly be due to anti-Biden sentiment, not pro-Trump sentiment. Which means that Democrats have at least one option: Scrap Biden (who really is getting a bit old for the most stressful job on Earth) and run a replacement – most likely Harris.

  46. I’m wondering what effect caucus vs primary will have, ie public vs secret ballot, how much of a ‘shy vote’ there is, and in which direction. How much are Republicans freely and honestly saying if they do or don’t support Trump? I can imagine in a conservative state like Iowa, and in the current political climate, that it would take courage to stand up in a room full of his supporters and cast a vote for someone else. And vice versa in a less conservative state. The primaries will be more reflective of actual Republican sentiment than what people are prepared to say in public in a caucus.

  47. parkySP

    “…His only motivation was that Trump delivered the Supreme Court.

    Sad state of living when your only motivation as a male is controlling women’s health….”

    Even if we overlook your partisan characterisation of a pro-life stance, how on earth do you get from the 1st sentence above to the 2nd unless the said male made that connection?!

    There’s a myriad of other (conservative) reasons why someone might be pleased about the judges Trump appointed other than Roe v Wade.

  48. Matt

    51% is definitely not Trump’s ceiling with the GOP electorate. Every NATIONAL poll of this group shows him with in excess of 60%, some bordering 70%.

    Of course, when there are real candidates bidding in individual states against him and managing to get at least a little oxygen (Trump is starving the other candidates of oxygen with all his court cases, on a national level), Trump ‘dips’ to more like the 50% mark.

    Had New Hampshire voted 1st, Trump would almost certainly not have achieved 50% and Haley might have run him close for 1st place. She still might, but his chances of both 1st place and breaching 50% have gone up since last night.

    If he does both next week, that’s effectively the close of the GOP primary.

    Back to your comment quoted above, multiple polls show Trump is liked by a bunch of voters who are at the moment preferring another candidate – and more still would “not be dissatisfied” (I think that’s one of the options in one poll I read!) if Trump became the candidate.

    So his ceiling with the GOP electorate is somewhere between 50% and 100% but definitely not 51%. 🙂

  49. Whether it will be maintained all the way to November remains to be seen, but Trump is now edging Biden in the popular vote nationally in polls – not just in the ‘toss-up’ states which is all that matters for an electoral college win of course.

  50. There seem to be a lot of deluded optimism on here.

    Trump’s victory in Iowa fully supports the proposition that he is 99% certain to become the nominee and then far better than 50/50 to win the election, especially given that the distribution of electoral college votes favours him by 2-3%.

    I don’t like it one bit, but it’s definitely where things are heading. Biden seems to have no answers.

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