It's Official: Trump Wins the Iowa Caucuses—But There's a Catch

With 94% of counties reporting, former President Trump is the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses with 51% of the vote.

Unlike most media outlets, including CBS News, who called the race just minutes after the voting began with less than 1% reporting, PJ Media took a more measured approach, waiting to make the call until there was a larger pool of counties counted:

While it's likely that Trump wins, @PJMedia_com will not call the race until a significant number of counties are reporting. Frankly, it's irresponsible to call the race before everyone has voted. "Why Was a Winner Projected in Iowa with <1% Votes Counted?"…
— Paula Bolyard (@pbolyard) January 16, 2024

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in second at the time of this writing with 21.2%. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is just behind him with 19.1%, with Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump savagely attacked just hours before the voting commenced, finished with 7.7%.

While no one expected anyone other than Trump to dominate the caucuses, second and third were up for grabs. Recent polling had Haley with a small lead over DeSantis, but that did not pan out, although it could be said that she overperformed. At the same time, the Florida governor underperformed (based on ground efforts and money spent on the race).

Perhaps the most interesting data point to come out of this is that 48% wanted someone other than Trump to be the GOP nominee—3%, within the margin of error if this were a poll. Speaking of the polls, the RealClear Politics average had Trump at 52.5, Haley at 18.8, DeSantis at 15.7, and Ramaswamy at 6.8 in the lead-up to the caucuses. Apparently, the death of polling has been highly exaggerated.

Speaking to supporters after caucuses, Ramaswamy announced that he would suspend his campaign and endorse Trump.

BREAKING: Republican Vivek Ramaswamy has dropped out of the race and has endorsed Donald Trump.

Vivek has a bright future!

“As I've said since the beginning, there are two America first candidates in this race and I called Donald Trump to tell him that.”

“I congratulated him… pic.twitter.com/HVBIW7T3q9
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 16, 2024

No doubt Trump expected to see better numbers in the first test of the 2024 presidential race. Nevertheless, he thanked Iowa voters for the win on Truth Social: "THANK YOU IOWA, I LOVE YOU ALL!!! DONALD J. TRUMP."

His comms director called on the other GOP candidates to drop out. (Check back later for my column on why I think they shouldn't.)

This article has been updated to reflect the most recent data.