So, the Iowa results are in. Let's look at them:
Donald Trump
51.1%55,835 votes
Gained 20 delegates
Ron DeSantis
21.2%23,172 votes
Gained 8 delegates
Nikki Haley
19.1%20,817 votes
Gained 7 delegates
Vivek Ramaswamy
7.6%8,358 votes
Gained 3 delegates
This....isn't ENTIRELY different than my predictions. I had 53.6% for Trump, 17.2% for Haley, and 15.2% for DeSantis. I didn't do vivek as he was irrelevant (I'll get to him in a minute) but I probably would've guessed 7-8% and he got that.
Trump is the overwhelming winner. We all know he was supposed to be, but in all fairness, it was about 6.5% closer than I expected it to be. Still, that's within the margin of error. keep in mind theres a 95% chance (two tailed) of the net results being within 8 points of the estimate. And it really shows how even with an overperformance among Trump alternatives and an underperformance from Trump, that it really makes no difference. This is why I said he had a 100% chance, because when the polls are this extreme, it doesnt matter if they overperform, because are they going to overperform by like 40 points? NO! You might get at most 8 points. We got a net of 6.5 here. That's an impressive showing for the competition. Also, both Haley and DeSantis overperformed relative to expectations, so yeah this is just about the best result you could hope for. it's a drop in the bucket compared to what was needed to topple the Donald here.
The real interesting aspect of this race is the 2nd and 3rd place candidates. I honestly thought Haley would be second. But people ended up swinging hard for Ron. Ron himself overperformed by 6 points. Haley only overperformed by about 2. This was enough to put him in second, and Haley in third. This is interesting because at some point, ideally early on (I mean, by super tuesday is ideal, remember 2020 on the democratic side), the republicans are gonna have to consolidate if they want to stand ANY chance against trump. This HAS to devolve to a two horse race. It has to be Trump vs either DeSantis or Haley at this point. But with both of them having strong showings, I have a habit that they're both gonna be stuck trying to outdo each other while Trump runs away with the nomination. I mean, if Haley was second, I would argue Desantis should drop out as he's been declining for a while, but for him to outdo haley gives him a sense of relevance he otherwise wouldn't have. He has the stronger case to be "the anti trump person" with this win. Haley still has stronger polling in future states as well as the general, but who knows. This is gonna drag that out.
Well, one thing we all know, Vivek is no longer relevant. he was hoping for an upset in iowa, but the polls were...just about dead on on him. I guessed around 7-8%, and here we are (actually looking it up he was 6.8% in the polls so I'd probably guess closer to 7, but yeah, I was pulling numbers out of you know where, still close). Anyway, ramaswamy is dropping out. Thank god, nananana hey hey, goodbye.
I mean, really, am I the only one who absolutely couldn't stand that walking personification of dunning kruger syndrome? Like, if trump didn't commit january 6th, I would hate him more than trump. Actually I'd hate a lot of conservatives more than trump, but i digress. The point is, even WITH janaury 6th, the idea of vivek as president makes my skin crawl. Between his authoritarian ideas (like raising the voting age to 25), appeals to "faith, family, and hard work", his ignorance on foreign policy, and his caustic arrogance on the debate stage, I HATED that guy. I hated him more than virtually any other candidate running, which is saying a lot. If he's the successor to trump's movement, be afraid, be very afraid. But yeah. He's gone. he's endorsing trump so now we gotta see him basically go from being trump's de facto surrogate in his absence to full on brown nosing on the campaign trail, but at least he ain't running any more. And hopefully he will lose relevance.I really hope he doesnt end up as VP or something important in trump's administration. The very thought terrifies me.
Anyway, that's where we're at. Trump won, as expected, vivek is now gone, and haley and desantis are duking it out for 2nd place. Even if one candidate came out on top, say in new hampshire, I dont think it will matter. Trump is just so far ahead even if it were a two candidate race with no one else getting votes, he would still win. Because hes over 50%. Heck, to my knowledge, the only place where someone COULD beat Trump is new hampshire, where he's only at like 43% last i checked. But even then, if haley and desantis keep splitting votes, trump is just gonna run away with this, so they better have a plan to rally behind one of the two if they want ANY hopes of beating trump. Because even THAT isn't enough at this time, although it is theoretically possible to chip away at his votes over time. We'll see. Im still confident trump is gonna win, barring any legal stuff that brings him down. Which it might. We literally have a better hope of him getting thrown in jail for one of his five trillion crimes than we do of him being beaten at the ballot box. Just think about that for a second.
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