And We're Off ...
... to the Trump coronation
Well, that was fast.
I’ve been predicting since last summer that former president Donald Trump is going to win the Republican nomination this year in a walk—more recently, I’ve taken to saying he’ll win every single contest by double digits—but still, 8:34pm ET is pretty damn early for a call of the Iowa caucuses. Way too early, if you ask me, no matter how far up Trump turned out to be in the earliest tallies. If news outlets won't announce general-election results until the polls close, they shouldn’t have announced a Trump victory Monday night when many Iowa caucus-goers hadn’t even caucused yet.
But no matter. This isn’t a newsletter devoted to media criticism. It’s a newsletter devoted to politics—and the news from Monday night is that Trump is doing every bit as well as I and just about every informed observer had been assuming he would. Because a large chunk of Republican voters love the guy. Because in our mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world conservative, white, evangelical Protestants, who make up a sizable portion of the Iowa Republican Party, really love the morally and legally challenged former president. And because … he’s a former president, giving him the kind of edge usually enjoyed by an incumbent running for re-election rather than the random ambitious and usually foolish pols who look to challenge a sitting president.
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