Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis remained locked in a battle for second place in the Iowa Republican caucuses on Monday, with both vying to emerge as the main alternative to former President Donald Trump, who will win a majority of the delegates, according to CBS News’ projection.
Just 40 delegates were at stake out of over 2,400 nationwide in Iowa, but the caucuses have outsized influence in setting the stage for the race to come. Trump’s victory goes a long way toward reinforcing his grip on the party, with many Iowa GOP voters standing by him even as he faces 91 felony charges in four criminal cases that have at times sidelined him from the campaign trail.
Trump, who has held a dominant lead in the polls and has avoided debating his GOP rivals, is seeking to wrap up the primary race quickly and turn his focus on President Biden.
DeSantis has largely staked his campaign on the results in Iowa, where he devoted most of his time and resources in the run-up to the primary season. Haley, meanwhile, has focused on competing against Trump in New Hampshire, which will hold its primary on Jan. 23.
There is ample precedent for Republican candidates losing in Iowa and ultimately capturing the nomination. Trump himself did it in 2016, when Sen. Ted Cruz won the caucuses. Mitt Romney barely lost to former Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012. And Mike Huckabee won in 2008, when Sen. John McCain, the ultimate nominee, turned to New Hampshire to resurrect his bid.
But Trump’s lead heading into Monday’s contest was much larger than any of those would-be nominees, and the CBS News entrance poll showed him enjoying support among a broad swath of the conservative electorate, including many groups who viewed him skeptically in 2016.
The entrance poll also found the top quality sought by voters who chose DeSantis over Haley was someone who shares their values. Among voters who saw a candidate with “the right temperament” as the most important quality, Haley was the clear favorite, according to the entrance poll.
Voters who decided which candidate to support just in the last few days were split between Haley and DeSantis.
Before the caucuses, the Haley campaign said it expected a strong showing, but that the pressure was on Trump and DeSantis to “over perform.”
“Ultimately, I think there are two tickets out of Iowa,” Olivia Perez-Cubas, a Haley campaign spokesperson, told CBS News on Monday. “I think one will go to Donald Trump and the next is going to go to Nikki Haley and this is quickly becoming a two-person race.”
A spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign tried to tamp down expectations for the Florida governor, selling him as the “underdog” candidate.
MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, claimed victory in a statement and said that “[e]very dollar spent by President Trump’s primary losers is a dollar that could be fighting Joe Biden.”
A CBS News poll released Sunday showed Haley leading Mr. Biden by a wider margin in a hypothetical general election matchup than either Trump or DeSantis. But the poll also showed Trump maintains a significant lead over his rivals and his support among national Republican primary voters hitting its highest level yet.
Haley touted her lead in the polls in a general election matchup against Mr. Biden as one reason for voters to support her, arguing that her name on top of the ticket would lead to down-ballot wins for Republicans.
“Do you know what that means?” she said Monday. “That’s bigger than the presidency. That’s governorships, that’s House, that’s Senate, that’s school board.”
Grace Kazarian contributed reporting.
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