How the Iowa Caucuses Fell Apart

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

72% : Trump also took credit for the victories of the state's other senator, Joni Ernst, as well as the governor, Kim Reynolds, whom he spoke of with scorn because of her support for DeSantis.
55% : It's an age when the endorsements of online influencers or podcasters carry as much weight as those of local elected officials and political viability is assessed as much by the arbitrary thresholds used to determine the stage for televised debates as by grassroots organizing.
49% : Still, both DeSantis and Ramaswamy invested in hospitality suites for attendees and had their pitches ready to woo a crowd of fervent evangelicals they hoped were not wedded to Trump.
49% : The elevator pitch for DeSantis' campaign -- that he would be like Trump, only more competent and far more sincere as a social conservative -- moved few.
48% : As Trump riffed on the podium -- about, in this case, his desire to reoccupy Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and his insistence that the audience watch the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate -- the former president casually mentioned that he'd "be back four or five times, maybe six times before the election," in a state where Ramaswamy had rented an apartment for the home stretch.
47% : Juiced by occasional rounds of applause instigated by a staffer sitting in the back of the room, Ramaswamy introduced his wife, took questions from the audience, and gave his spiel about why he is the natural successor to Donald Trump: a candidate willing to go even further than the former president for the populist, isolationist right but a youthful voice who can inspire a "revolution" in American politics.
47% : It's not just the looming presence of Donald Trump as the first former incumbent to mount a comeback bid in the modern era but also the sense that the very nature of American politics has changed -- at least for now.
42% : Fresh off a landslide victory for reelection and receiving rapturous coverage from conservative media, DeSantis appeared within striking distance of Trump in polls.
40% : There is still movement in the polls; in some, Haley has overtaken DeSantis as a distant second to Trump in Iowa, for example, but only after national momentum appeared to coalesce around her as the long-shot alternative candidate.
37% : It was his version of the delicate dance that all Republican candidates have had to undertake in a race where Trump is not merely the front-runner but the de facto incumbent and leader of the party.
35% : DeSantis' brief remarks were a mix of clichés and jabs at Trump, who remained unnamed.
34% : In November, Trump held a raucous rally in a high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, a fading factory town 90 miles northwest of Des Moines.
34% : Then again, if traditional retail politics still mattered, Trump wouldn't be poised to become the nominee.
29% : A candidate not doing that is Donald Trump.
24% : He led the successful 2010 effort to oust the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled that Iowa's ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution.
21% : It's hard to determine whether this lack of Iowan élan vital is because Trump is the front-runner or if Trump is the front-runner because of the lack of élan vital.
18% : But it all seems more homogenized and, as a result, less meaningful and less vital than the last Republican contest did even eight years ago, when voters here relegated Trump to second place behind Ted Cruz.
17% : Vander Plaats has long been a skeptic of Trump, and among Iowa operatives, it had been taken for granted he would endorse DeSantis.
11% : Trump lost Iowa in 2016 to Ted Cruz in part because of skepticism from many social conservatives that the thrice-married New Yorker could be trusted on issues like abortion in office.

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