The results are in for the 2024 Republican Iowa caucus and former President Donald Trump has secured his position as the frontrunner with over 50% of the vote. But has Trump all but secured the nomination, or do Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley still have a chance? Glenn and Stu discuss what the next primary elections in New Hampshire and South Carolina - where Haley is polling well - may look like. Will Haley kick DeSantis out of second place? Will the rest of the country follow suit? And will anyone get close to Trump's numbers?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Trump obviously won last night. A commanding victory for Donald Trump.
Not really a surprise. But he was -- what was the final?
Was it 51?
STU: Yeah. Donald Trump 51 percent, against 20 delegates. Ron DeSantis 21.2 percent against eight delegates.
Nikki Haley, 19.1 percent.
Seven delegates. Vivek Ramiswami, finished at 7.7 percent, against three delegates. Those are his, even though he dropped out at the race. He'll still have them at the convention. And then Ryan Binkley, pastor from Dallas, 0.7. And Asa Hutchinson, 191 votes statewide after a year of campaigning. He gets 0.2 percent.
GLENN: He did worse than Binkley. Binkman.
STU: Binkley. And it was not even close. Was not even close.
GLENN: Right. That is crazy. That is crazy.
STU: Catastrophic for poor Asa.
GLENN: Yeah.
Asa is on suicide watch today, I think. Don't let him have his shoestrings or a belt.
Let me talk now about what is coming.
There is a new poll out from New Hampshire. But this is without any of the news that happened last night.
So this is a poll that was taken just after Nikki Haley started to show some growth.
So we don't know what it means today.
Whether it will affect it one way oratory.
We don't know. But here is the latest poll from New Hampshire.
STU: Yeah, this is New Hampshire.
I think it's the American Research Group, we did the poll. This is the 12th through the 15th of this month.
So it includes yesterday.
Obviously would not include anything after the results. It has Donald Trump and Nikki Haley tied at 40. At the top in New Hampshire.
Polled way, way, way back with Vivek Ramaswamy. And Ron DeSantis still both on the ballot.
At 4 percent.
GLENN: Why do you think she's doing so well in New Hampshire?
STU: Largely it's because of the way the -- the primary works.
You're going to have a lot of independents and Democrats.
And she will crush in that group. As she did in Iowa, by the way. The numbers in Iowa, are not nearly as high as they are in New Hampshire.
Among those groups. She does very, very well in those groups.
Wins by wide, wide margins.
And that will help her there.
But it won't help her in these other states.
This is the problem with the candidacy.
GLENN: Yeah. Have you ever seen any research done on whether people switch and say, you know, I'm going to vote for the Republican.
And I'm usually voting for Democrat, and vice-versa.
Because they mean it. Or is it just to crew with the election.
STU: There are definitely some.
The percentages are relatively small, when you're talking about people doing what the -- what Rush Limbaugh used to call operation chaos. Back in, what was it? 2008. There's definitely some that do it. The majority of people who vote in those primaries, typically, at least according to the polls, are people who are either legitimately considering or undecided voters. Who are looking. Or they are people who are, have -- are deciding to vote that way for sure.
There are always some. But, I mean, for example, one of these states. I can't remember. It might have been -- I can't remember which state it was. I've looked at so many polls over the last few days.
But it was like 2 percent of the electorate consider themselves liberal.
So it's not a massive part of this. In a tight primary, like the one in New Hampshire. Can make a big, big difference.
Of course, in New Hampshire, you have a lot of people, who are mores. Maybe Libertarians.
Maybe people who are even leaning a little bit left. That may consider Republican candidates. Where you might not see that. In, you know, other states like New York or Massachusetts. Or Vermont.
There's a -- maybe a more independent electorate there in New Hampshire, which we kind of all recognize.
But, you know, look Haley has a chance to actually win New Hampshire. I don't know if this -- my guess is, it doesn't really hurt her for finishing third by two points, behind DeSantis.
Doesn't hurt her in New Hampshire.
You know, we were talking about the way these polls came out.
And I heard the votes came out in Iowa. There were a couple of different dynamics, right?
There was a question of whether Donald Trump could clear 50 percent. He did do that. There was a question who would finish second. We saw, with DeSantis squeaking out.
I think he had to beat her.
And he did.
GLENN: He had to, or he would have been done.
STU: Yeah. Nikki Haley, look.
Nikki Haley, if you go back six months, this is a dream result for Nikki Haley. Right?
But she wound up being a little bit below expectations, the last couple of weeks. Still, a decent showing. She's still in the game in New Hampshire.
Then Vivek Ramaswamy, who was promising all sorts of things, with a big turnout. And he drops out, almost immediately, after promising to stay in.
Of course, that happens every year.
So you look at Ron DeSantis.
Because people will say.
Hey, Ron DeSantis. He didn't make any inroads. People don't feel the way they thought about Ron DeSantis.
That's not true.
He is -- if you're voting for Trump. He's either number one or number two for you.
As far as, you're either going to vote for Trump. If he's the candidate. But you would rather vote for Ron DeSantis. Or you're voting for Trump.
And if he was out. You would vote for Ron DeSantis.
So it's almost. In many ways. The same voter as Trump.
So why vote for Ron DeSantis, when you've got Donald Trump to run?
STU: Yeah. No.
GLENN: So I don't think his position in the party or anything.
I don't think this says anything about him, for a run in -- what will it be?
28?
STU: Yeah. You know, look, I think the polling shows, he's still popular within the party.
He's usually the second choice with Trump voters.
Of course, there is a much different profile as a candidate, of what -- the way they run their operations. Right?
So you will see some differences there.
But what's -- I think -- what's interesting, it's like, right now, most people would argue, even though Ron DeSantis finishes in second place. That Nikki Haley is really in second place in this campaign right now. She is about even with DeSantis nationally. She has a much better chance of winning a state, that is coming up soon, which is New Hampshire.
The next state after that, you know, Nevada's caucuses are a little weird. So leading them aside, go with South Carolina as the next big state.
And South Carolina is Nikki Haley's home state. You can see there's an argument there. The difference is, while Ron DeSantis is probably not going to be as competitive as any given state after Iowa, as Nikki Haley will be in New Hampshire.
There's a path to win with Ron DeSantis' approach.
It's -- like, he is going for the voters, that like Donald Trump.
And he got about 20 percent of that 70 percent of voters.
And Donald Trump got 50 in Iowa.
That's not enough, obviously. That's not enough to win. However, Nikki Haley, you know, really is looking at the 70 percent of voters, who really like Donald Trump. And getting almost none of them.
And if you can't get any of those voters. You really have no path to the nomination.
And she can't seem to pick any of them off.
GLENN: No. What your path is, is that you are hoping that enough Republicans will hold their nose, and enough Democrats or independents. You know, the parties have never been weaker than they are right now. People are identifying as independents.
They are -- the average independent is not for, you know, socialism. And all of this crap that Joe Biden is doing.
But they also. I think the average independent. Many of them have been convinced by the media. That Republicans want and radical.
When really, no. We just would like a return to normalcy.
You know, a lot of Republicans were on that bandwagon. When Joe Biden said that.
We just didn't believe he would bring normalcy.
We knew what he would bring.
This!
And that's the only path. It would be truly, the independent vote, I think that she would be going for. And she would need a lot of Democrats, to make up. A lot.
STU: Yeah. And it's just -- you can't win Republican primaries.
You can win them in individual states with that approach. You can. You can't win Republican primary elections. As a whole. With that approach.
It just doesn't wind up working over the long-term. So she's put herself in a position.
And, you know, I -- she's not trying to say she's liberal. She's not trying to say, she's more moderate.
She's just cut out that group, you know, that part of the electorate. Ask for whatever reason.
Even though she hasn't been very critical of Donald Trump. In fact, over and over again. She said, he was the right president, at the right time.
They've all tried to walk this weird line. Where they don't say anything bad about Donald Trump, for months and months on end.
I don't know that there's an opposite approach that works there. No one has been able to find this if it exists.
But it's fascinating to watch this. As you were pointing out earlier on, maybe it was Steve Deace we were talking to.
She was a Tea Party candidate.
When she ran, she was a popular governor among Republicans. And just her brand of Republican politics, has largely just fallen out of favor.
And she doesn't really have a path to win over this new energy of populism. She's from an older school Republicanism.
That actually doesn't poll badly in general election audiences. You mentioned a poll earlier today.
That has her way out in front of Joe Biden, if she actually made it to the yen. And that's really her main argument here. Where both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in most of these polls can squeak it out over Biden. She usually has a seven or eight-point lead over Biden.
Which is impressive.
But there's no path for her to get to the position in which she can utilize that support.
GLENN: Yeah.
So what is -- what is the poll number look like in South Carolina?
STU: South Carolina has not honestly had a ton of new polling. I can pull up a summary here in a second.
But, you know, I think you -- South Carolina, being you know -- I don't remember the date of it here.
I have it in my calendar. South Carolina is still 39 days away.
So we have a while before South Carolina pops up. A lot can change.
Right now, Trump at 54, Haley at 25.
DeSantis at 12, and Asa Hutchinson at 0.5 percent. I don't know where Ryan Binkley is in this state. Check that apparently, where we're monitoring these polls.
GLENN: Right.
I'm for that Bakerman. I love Bakerman. I love him.
STU: Look, Haley at 25 percent.
If she has a good New Hampshire showing, you can see that closing, and her being relatively competitive in that state, especially, if something were to change.
The one thing that people keep talking about. The Wall Street Journal has written an op-ed. Saying, Ron DeSantis should drop out.
And I think what people are not calculating here.
The DeSantis vote is not an anti-Trump vote. If Ron DeSantis drops out. I think it's probable that the majority of his voters will go to Donald Trump, not to Nikki Haley.
And I think there's a strong possibility, that DeSantis might even endorse Trump in that scenario.
So, again, these people who are like, you know, live or die. I don't want anyone but Trump to win. I don't think DeSantis dropping out is what you want.
You probably want DeSantis to stay in. And keep fighting. To see if he can get one of these later states to turn around a little bit. Or maybe just the tone of the entire campaign, changes with some external event, like a crazy legal development or something like that.
That's probably what you have to look for.
But Trump.
Look, Trump has a massive lead here.
He is -- I don't know that he was ever beatable in this situation, Glenn.
GLENN: Let me give you a new poll from the Economist. You.gov. Asked citizens to predict, who would win regardless of who they preferred.
Of those surveyed, 44 percent said Trump. 35 percent said Biden. 21 percent said, I have no idea. Split down the middle, regarding support. 43 percent said they were supporting Biden. 43 percent say they were supporting Trump.
