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Voting had barely begun when major media outlets called the race for the front-runner.
The Iowa Republican presidential caucuses have barely started, and major media outlets have already declared Donald Trump the winner.
Very few votes have been counted as Iowans meet in all the state’s counties to express their preferences, but Trump was polling 30 percentage points ahead of any other candidate going into the event, as indicated by FiveThirtyEight’s average of all polls.
Also, polls conducted by CBS News as voters entered the caucuses showed the former president with 49 to 50 percent support. Former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had support in the low 20s among both men and women. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy had support in the single digits.
When the votes were counted — 95 percent of them — Trump had 51 percent, DeSantis 21.3 percent, Haley 19.1 percent, and Ramaswamy 7.7 percent.
In his victory speech, Trump called President Joe Biden the "worst president ever." But he congratulated his Republican competitors and called on his audience to "come together." He also claimed the victory in Iowa was his third and biggest, when it was really his second (U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz beat him in 2016) and not the biggest. He further asserted that Israel would never have been attacked by the terrorist group Hamas if he had been president at the time.
The caucuses are the first event in the nation in which citizens can cast a vote for the nominee. The Republican events are proceeding as in previous years. Democrats in Iowa were caucusing Monday night as well, but they won’t cast votes at the events. They’ll instead express their preferences through a mail-in vote, and the results will be announced March 5, the date for Super Tuesday, when many states hold primaries. The first presidential primary will be held January 23 in New Hampshire.
The Iowa caucuses aren’t necessarily a predictor of the eventual nominee. Cruz, as noted won the Republican contest in 2016, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg won the 2020 Democratic competition (Sanders won the popular vote, Buttigieg the most pledged delegates).
Leading up to the caucuses, the Republican candidates have been competing to see who can be the most anti-LGBTQ+, especially the most anti-transgender. Debates, ads, and campaign events have seen condemnations of gender-affirming care, especially for young people; attacks on trans women’s participation in women’s sports; and characterization of trans identity as a mental disorder.
Trump’s supporters have appealed to the religious right by going so far as declaring him anointed by God, and the former president himself has called for Iowans to get out for the caucuses even if they’re sick or dying.
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