No question that a 30-point victory for Donald Trump was not the ideal outcome of the Iowa caucuses. Voters have only two opportunities to prevent the return to power of a Putin-besotted, antisemite-praising, Constitution-terminating, multiple felony indictee: the primaries and the general.
It would have been better if Trump had been rebuked early and hard by Republican voters. But that was not to be. Once the first indictment was handed down in New York in the hush- money-for-porn-star case, the die was cast. The party faithful (partly because the Bragg indictment was legally shaky and pretty easily dismissed as politically motivated) rallied round their prosecuted, persecuted hero. MAGA Republicans so dearly want the accusations to be false. To admit otherwise opens the door to considering that he may really have obstructed justice and blithely endangered national security in the classified documents case; lied about and attempted to steal an election; and looked on with depraved satisfaction as his minions searched for Mike Pence — to commit murder. (Even now, despite everything we’ve witnessed, I still cannot believe I must write those words.)
We’ll never know if things would have been different absent the Bragg indictment. Would the rally-round-the-mob-boss effect have been as pronounced if the classified documents in the bathroom case had gone first? Or if Ron DeSantis hadn’t proved such a doofus candidate? Or if all of the GOP candidates in the race had run as Chris Christie did? We cannot know.
And while one can always hope for a miracle like Nikki Haley defeating Trump in New Hampshire, prompting South Carolina voters to rediscover their affection for their former governor, which would in turn upend the entire race — the chances of that are about as good as winning the lottery, which in South Carolina are about 1 in 293 million.
So one cannot bank on most Republicans to save us from a second Trump term. Still, lurking in the pre-caucus polling is some reassuring news. We cannot count on most Republicans, but what about the skeptics? What about a few Republicans like Kenan Judge, a lifelong Republican who left the party over Trump? Or Loring Miller, who voted for Trump twice but explained that “Jan. 6 did it for me. A true leader would’ve put an end to that.”
Though 48% of likely Republican caucus-goers in the final Des Moines Register/NBC poll listed Trump as their first choice, 11% said that if Trump were the nominee, they would vote for Joe Biden. Among the 20% who said Haley was their first choice, 43% said they would vote for Biden in the general if Trump is nominated.
According to The Washington Post, “94 of Iowa’s 99 counties moved toward Republicans between 2012 and 2020.” Most voters don’t show up for primaries and even fewer for caucuses. In 2016, 187,000 turned out, just 15.7% of voters. On Monday, only about 110,000 made it. We are evaluating results from one of the whitest, most Evangelical, most rural states in the nation.
The Des Moines Register pre-caucus poll also found that among these gung-ho Republicans, 6% would support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rather than Trump, and 8% would seek another third-party choice. Bottom line: At least 25% of Iowa Republican caucus-goers say they will not vote for Trump in the general.
That’s significant. Our elections are decided by a few thousand votes in five swing states. Admittedly, Iowa is not one of those swing states, but if large numbers of Republicans in ruby-red Iowa are saying they will not vote for Trump in the general election, what does that suggest about Republicans in places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia?
Eleven percent of Republicans in Iowa tell a pollster that they will vote for Biden, the guy everyone says even Democrats are having trouble working up enthusiasm for. Whatever those misgivings may be, I very much doubt that 25% of Democratic primary voters would say they’re thinking of voting for Trump or a third party.
The interest in third parties remains a serious challenge, but if we’re indulging in hope, we can see the work ahead. Independents are even more determined to prevent Trump from gaining another term than the minority of Republicans who have drawn a line against him. Some, perhaps many, independents have not yet processed that we really will be facing another Trump/Biden choice in November. Once Trump is in front of their faces again, they will remember why he’s unacceptable, just as the Jan. 6 hearings in the summer of 2022 drove down Trump’s approval.
The undimmed Trump support among the most ensorcelled bloc of Republicans shouldn’t blind us to the other news from Iowa: There’s a saving remnant out there, and we need to buttress them before November.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.
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