Iowa revealed Trump’s flaws
The most important number coming out of the Iowa caucuses is 49. That’s the percentage of Republicans who backed a candidate other than former President Donald Trump.
All the headlines are trumpeting Trump’s “historic” triumph, and his stranglehold on the Republican base is unquestioned.
But turn those results around and view them from another angle, and they reveal Trump’s potential weaknesses.
If a single rival had attracted 49%, compared with Trump’s 51%, the headlines would be very different, describing a tight race that Trump had barely won.
As he did in 2016, however, Trump is enjoying the benefit of taking on a splintered field of opponents.
Eight years ago, it was Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz splitting the non-Trump vote, while this year it’s been Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, who quit after a fourth-place showing in Iowa.
Again, this year, that fragmentation will almost certainly enable Trump to win the GOP nomination. And again, Trump’s victory over a badly divided opposition will mask his drawbacks as a general election candidate.
Trump has yet to prove he can win a majority of American voters. In both previous races, he failed to break 47%, and only squeezed by in 2016 because 6% of the electorate backed thirdparty candidates.
One key reason for Trump’s ceiling is that a small but significant slice of Republicans despise the man and will never vote for him, and the Iowa results reveal that vulnerability.
Of the Iowa caucusgoers, 38% told entrance pollsters they would not be satisfied with a Trump candidacy, and 1 out of 5 said they would not support him in November if he won the nomination.
The former president won only 22% of two groups: voters under 30 and self-described moderates or liberals. More than 3 out of 5 Iowans with college degrees backed someone else. So did 9 of 10 who preferred a candidate with the “right temperament” for the job.
Given his own advanced age, Biden cannot duplicate a critical argument made by Trump’s chief rivals — that he’s too old for the job and a “new generation” is needed. But Haley’s campaign, in particular, does offer a road map that Biden will undoubtedly follow: Hammer at the chaos and craziness that Trump inevitably stirs up, and offer a calmer, steadier, safer alternative.
It’s a message aimed directly at the moderate voters, many of them women, living in the suburbs of cities like Milwaukee, Atlanta and Phoenix, who will decide what promises to be a very close contest next fall.
This analysis in no way minimizes Biden’s weaknesses. In the latest ABC poll, his favorable rating has plunged to 33%, a new low. Only 31% approve of his economic policies, while 56% disapprove.
Elevated prices for gas and groceries continue to sour the national mood, with only 1 in 4 voters rating the economy as “good,” while 7 of 10 call it “bad.” By large margins, voters think Trump is better prepared, mentally and physically, for the rigors of the presidency.
Along with Trump’s weaknesses, the Iowa results also highlight many of his strengths. Two-thirds of caucusgoers answered yes to this question: “If Donald Trump were to be convicted of a crime, would you consider him fit to be president?” Almost half defined themselves as “part of the MAGA movement,” and Trump won 78% of those True Believers.
Trump has shrewdly turned his legal troubles — 91 felony indictments in four separate cases — into a political asset, and he even bragged at one rally, to a cheering crowd, “I got indicted more than the late great Alphonse Capone.”
He’s turned courtrooms into campaign platforms, using various hearings as a chance to portray himself as a martyr, even a messiah, crucified by an unfair and unscrupulous enemy.
He wears his indictments as a crown of thorns, a badge of honor, a perfect excuse to remind his faithful followers: See, I told you they were all out to get me, to get us — the Deep State, the Swamp, the Elites.
Trump’s religious imagery certainly is not lost on his hardcore acolytes, who increasingly see him as a savior from all the ills of the modern world, from supposedly disease-ridden, drug-smuggling immigrants to gay couples, transgender athletes and uppity women.
It’s no surprise that Paul Figie, a pastor in Iowa, told The
Washington Post that Trump was “ordained by God.”
Perhaps. But Trump’s performance in Iowa showed his many flaws, despite his victory.
Trump has yet to prove he can win a majority of American voters. In both previous races, he failed to break 47%, and only squeezed by in 2016 because 6% of the electorate backed third-party candidates.