Former President Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses, cementing his place as the favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination as he attempts a historic political comeback nearly three years after leaving the White House in disgrace.
DeSantis came in second in the caucuses, ahead of Haley. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who was in fourth place, ended his campaign Monday night and endorsed Trump.
Trump's victory in this, his first election since losing to Joe Biden in 2020, ended any lingering questions about his hold on the Republican Party, the potency of his right-wing message and whether his legal troubles would hinder him with voters. primaries. The decisive nature of the result also made Trump unusually magnanimous in his remarks to his supporters in Des Moines on Monday night, where he congratulated DeSantis and Haley.
“I want to congratulate Ron (DeSantis) and Nikki (Haley) for having a good time together,” the former president said of his main rivals for the Republican nomination. “We are all having a good time together. “I think they both did very well.”
As the Republican field continues to shrink and Trump reasserts his dominance among conservatives, DeSantis and Haley now face added pressure to prove they have a path to the nomination. Haley has the most at stake in the next race on the Republican calendar: New Hampshire, where she hopes to impress a more ideologically diverse electorate in next week's primary.
The Iowa result is a deeper cut for DeSantis, who, along with aligned outside groups, spent heavily in the state in hopes of overtaking Trump and signaling a changing of the guard in national Republican politics. It wasn't going to be.
Read more about the results of the Iowa caucuses.
