BOONE, Iowa — Right around the time that U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was making her pitch to voters in this rural town 40 miles north of Des Moines, encouraging them to support former President Donald Trump during the caucus meeting, networks were already calling the race in his favor.
Still, Greene and hundreds of other Trump surrogates who had fanned out among the state’s more than 1,600 precincts fulfilled their duty by delivering speeches on his behalf to kick off the balloting process.
“You feel like friends and family, so this is easy for me,” Greene told the crowd, before launching into a pro-Trump stump speech about closing the Southern border, halting funding for Ukraine, and “keeping boys out of girls’ sports.”
Elsewhere in Iowa, U.S. Reps. Andrew Clyde and Mike Collins delivered similar speeches for Trump. Collins spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 people packed into an elementary school gymnasium in Urbandale, a Des Moines suburb.
“Let’s put that man back in the White House,” Collins told the crowd. “You will go back to winning, you will never get tired of it. You have the opportunity right now to not just put Trump on top tonight, but make a statement to the rest of the nation that this is the Republican candidate and he will be the next president of the United States.”
By the end of the evening, it was clear that the majority of Iowa Republicans agreed. Trump won the state with about 51 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis landed is second place just ahead of former Ambassador Nikki Haley with roughly 21 and 19 percent of votes, respectively.
Trump carried all 99 Iowa counties, and by winning more than half of votes blunted a key narrative from his opponents that a majority of conservatives are ready to move on from him. At least in Iowa, that is not the case.
Trump and his allies said the results in this first-in-the-nation contest were proof that he is the party leader and should be treated as the de facto nominee. They encouraged the remaining Republicans in the race to bow out and allow Trump to focus on a general election rematch against President Joe Biden.
One of them, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, did just that. He announced that he was suspending his campaign after receiving about 8 percent of the vote in Iowa and endorsed Trump.
DeSantis and Haley’s campaign indicated they would stay in the race as attention turns to the next two states headed to the polls: New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Despite the enthusiasm in Iowa for Trump, there were still voters who arrived at the precincts to support the other candidates.
George Eckstein, an 83-year-old veteran from Boone, spoke in favor of Haley at his precinct.
”No more old guys!” he said, before making his pitch. “She’s steady, smart, kind. Who could you be proud of? Be bold, be brave, vote for Nikki Haley.”
Others in Boone spoke for DeSantis and lesser-known candidate Ryan Binkley, a Texas businessman and pastor.
Kent Proudfit, 71, had never participated in a caucus before, but he sat in the second row in the elementary school gymnasium in Urbandale and waited for his chance to vote for Trump. Proudfit said he never made voting in Iowa’s unusual primary system a priority, but the Biden presidency had changed his outlook.
“That was my own fault for not putting the importance on it, but I think because the way the country’s gone downhill so much this last time, I felt was my duty as a citizen,” he said. “I need to get off the sidelines and do something about it.”
