Donald Trump has won Iowa’s leadoff presidential caucuses.
The former president’s victory on Monday night gives him a strong start in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination as the contest moves to New Hampshire.
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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are Trump’s most prominent primary rivals. They are aiming for a second-place finish in Iowa that would give them at least some momentum heading into future races.
Shortly before the Associated Press called Trump the winner in Iowa, the former president spoke at a caucus site in Des Moines.
Trump was greeted with loud cheers and applause as he addressed the crowd.
“I would appreciate your vote. I think I deserve it,” he said, making the case that things were much better when he was in charge. “We were a great nation three years ago and today people are laughing at us,” he said.
Trump was proceeded on stage by Asa Hutchinson and followed by Vivek Ramaswamy.
Read More: Iowa Doesn’t Pick Winners. It Culls Losers.
The AP declared Trump the winner of the Iowa caucuses based on an analysis of early returns as well as results of AP VoteCast, a survey of voters who planned to caucus on Monday night. Both showed Trump with an insurmountable lead.
Initial results from eight counties showed Trump with far more than half of the total votes counted as of 8:31 pm. ET, with the rest of the field trailing far behind. These counties include rural areas that are demographically and politically similar to a large number of counties that have yet to report.
AP VoteCast also shows Trump with sizable leads among both men and women, as well as every age group and geographic regions throughout the state.
AP VoteCast is a survey conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research of more than 1,500 voters who said they planned to take part in Monday’s Republican caucuses in Iowa.
Among voters who identify as born-again Christians, the survey found that Trump was favored by 58% voters intending to caucus, compared to 18% for DeSantis and 13% for Nikki Haley. Polls showed that was a relatively weak group of backers for Trump in Iowa in 2016.
So far, Trump is significantly outperforming his second-place 2016 caucus finish, when he received 24% of the vote, compared to 28% for Ted Cruz.
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