Dominant But Vulnerable
Dominant But Vulnerable
Iowa’s mixed message.
He doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs. — Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
Well, maybe not.
Lest there was any lingering doubt, the Iowa caucuses confirmed Trump’s dominance in the GOP. He crushed his opposition and is now described as basking in the momentum of his landslide. He bestrides a supine Republican Party like a colossus and petty men beg his favor.
But that’s only part of the story, and perhaps not the most important one. Iowa also revealed just how weak Trump may be in the general election. The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone takes a closer look at the numbers:
[Monday’s] caucuses saw just over 110,000 Republicans turn out to vote. In 2016, that number was nearly 187,000, around 70 percent higher. Some voters stayed home because of the cold snap, of course—it was 30 degrees below freezing in Iowa last night—notwithstanding Trump’s invitation to them to take their lives into their own hands.
But registering only around three votes for every five votes cast the last time there was an “open” primary suggests there could be a real enthusiasm problem among GOP voters. And in addition to this year’s low turnout, consider the fact that Trump, a quasi-incumbent with greater name recognition than anyone alive, earned the votes of just over half of the state’s caucusgoers—the most committed members of Iowa’s GOP.
Let’s break it down even further:
Only about 14-15% of GOP voters showed up; which means that Trump’s landslide total comprised about 8 percent of Iowa Republicans.
A substantial number of Republican voters are signaling that they are Never Trump. NBC reports that nearly half of Haley’s Iowa backers say they’d vote for Biden over Trump. As Mona Charen noted yesterday the pre-caucus poll by the Des Moine Register found that fully 25 percent of Iowa Republican caucus-goers say they won’t vote for Trump in November.
That’s reflected in some of the on-the-ground reporting from the Dispatch:
[It] was remarkable how many Iowa voters backing Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley told The Dispatch some version of the same thing Monday evening after Donald Trump’s commanding caucus victory: If he’s the nominee, count them out….
“I can’t believe that out of 340 million Americans, those are the two best options that we can come up with,” a Haley supporter named Greg told us from an elementary school caucus site in suburban Waukee. “But yes, I cannot see myself voting for Trump under any circumstances. He’s an insurrectionist and a criminal, and I will not support him.”
Biden has a problem with voters who are in denial. Iowa could help him with that. Via the Messenger: “Biden’s internal polling shows the vast majority of the campaign’s targeted voters don’t believe Trump will be the GOP nominee, a major issue for a campaign desperate to make 2024 a binary choice.”
Even Biden’s internal polling, according to top campaign officials, has highlighted this trend, with recent surveys finding around 75% of the campaign’s targeted undecided voters do not believe Trump will be Biden’s opponent in November.
Trump's dominating win in Iowa Monday night could change that dynamic with undecideds.
And then there are the trials, and Trump’s decision to campaign from courtrooms across the country. Yesterday, he showed up at the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial — sitting a few feet away from the woman that a federal judge has said that he raped. Via NBC:
Trump’s quick hop from a victory speech on Monday night in Iowa to a courtroom in New York on Tuesday morning to a rally in New Hampshire Tuesday night is a microcosm of the former president’s coming year, when he’s expected to oscillate between campaigning and court cases, including four pending criminal trials.
This is an… interesting …choice.
Trump clearly relishes posing as a martyr, successfully leveraging the indictments and lawsuits to rally the GOP, and has now convinced himself that a courtroom strategy is political genius.
He believes that the optics of a former president in the dock displays strength, defiance, and a man besieged by his enemies. Whatever happens in the courtroom, he believes, will simply cause his poll numbers to go up. And he’s not completely wrong — as long as he’s appealing to his own base.
But how will that play to the general election electorate now that the primaries are drawing to a close?
Consider his choice to campaign at the Carroll trial. He’s already lost one lawsuit, and the jury in the civil trial found him liable for sexual assault. The federal judge in the case later said that the verdict meant that Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll.
“The finding that Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” Kaplan wrote. The judge explained that New York’s legal definition of the term is “far narrower” than the word “rape” is understood in “common modern parlance.”
“Indeed,” he added, “as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan's ruling was unambiguous and blunt. “Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the sexual abuse finding as perhaps resting on nothing more than groping of Ms. Carroll’s breasts through her clothing is frivolous,” he wrote. “The proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”
Since he cannot restrain himself, Trump continued to smear his victim; thus the latest defamation trial, which he is also likely to lose.
**
It’s safe to assume that most voters already know something (however vague) about the criminal indictments against the former president. But how many know about the rape/defamation charges? With the firehose of indictments, charges, motions, and hearings flooding the zone, how many voters missed or glossed over the details? Most of them simply weren’t paying attention.
But now, showing up to strut his hour upon the stage, Trump inevitably calls vastly more attention to the charges that he attacked and raped a woman in a dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, and then defamed her by calling her a "whack job" and her story a "hoax.”
Given the state of the MAGAfied GOP, this may, indeed, help him in the upcoming primaries.
But it is harder to see how a renewed — and dramatically heightened focus — on the rapist president will win over any of the swing voters who will decide the 2024 election.
Trump seems certain that nothing matters and that he could shoot blah blah blah… But Axios notes: “While 65% of caucusgoers said they would still consider Trump fit for president if he were convicted of a crime, 31% said they would not.
That could be huge in the general election, in which a few thousand swing voters in a few swing states could see a Trump conviction — which isn't inevitable — as a reason to sit out or vote for President Biden.
Happy Wednesday.
Dead Ends after Iowa
On our morning-after podcast, A.B. Stoddard and I look at what’s ahead for the GOP’s roadkill. Almost half of Iowa’s caucus-goers voted for someone besides Trump—evidence that a criminal defendant preaching to the choir can only go so far. Meanwhile, Haley makes up her own reality, DeSantis crawls to South Carolina, and the Trump suck-ups plot against McConnell.
You can listen to the whole thing here. Or watch us on YouTube.
BONUS: In our weekly podcast for Bulwark + members, Mona Charen and ask the perennial question: What is Wrong With People?
Bulwark + Members can listen to the whole thing here.
Quick Hits
1. It’s White Flag Week for the GOP
DREAD DIDN’T WORK. UNICORNS NEVER APPEARED. Not one felony charge, violation of his oath, sick statement about wounded or fallen soldiers, or even insurrection did anything—ever—to break the hold Donald Trump has over his voters.
So every elected Republican who found comfort in denial must now embrace reality as they stumble over themselves to embrace Trump. While the endorsement rush picked up in recent weeks, and intensified in the waning days and hours before the Iowa caucuses, Trump’s blowout win Monday will force every last holdout in the dying establishment to soon come to heel.
2. Why the World Is Betting Against American Democracy
Must-read by Nahal Toosi in Politico Magazine:
When I asked the European ambassador to talk to me about America’s deepening partisan divide, I expected a polite brushoff at best. Foreign diplomats are usually loath to discuss domestic U.S. politics.
Instead, the ambassador unloaded for an hour, warning that America’s poisonous politics are hurting its security, its economy, its friends and its standing as a pillar of democracy and global stability.
The U.S. is a “fat buffalo trying to take a nap” as hungry wolves approach, the envoy mused. “I can hear those Champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day.”
3. Here’s Why DeSantis *Should* Be Losing
Jill Lawrence in today’s Bulwark with a pre-obituary for a failing campaign.
The DeSantis disappointment in Iowa, where he bet everything, followed months of getting panned for his robotic, “charisma-free persona,” the spotless white boots he wore to inspect hurricane damage, his ill-advised Twitter Spaces announcement with Elon Musk in May (“campaign launch melts down in Twitter glitches”), and chronic upheaval at his allied Never Back Down super PAC. All the while he endured Trump nicknames like “Meatball Ron,” “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and “Always Back Down.” Trump even appropriated DeSantis’s 2022 mantle of sent by God.
Cheap Shots
The DNC’s unforced assh*lery.
**
This is an excellent newsletter as always. A few comments: First, Give Biden credit for quickly correcting the DMC blunder in making fun of Asa Hutchinson. The Republican Party could never apologize quickly and politely after a blunder. Second, Ron DeSantis would have been better off attacking Trump from the beginning. His campaigning improved as the caucus approached. He sounded more human, less robotic and weird. Third, the turnout in Iowa was low, not just due to cold weather. Had someone run a decent anti-Trump campaign more people would have shown up. The low turnout appears to be a lack of enthusiasm for the entire Republican Party.
One saving grace could be this: we can depend on Trump to act worse and worse the more comfortable he gets. He knows he has the nomination. So he’ll be more brazen and say more awful things to dig holes with swing voters who will start paying attention. Let’s hope he continues to be himself so everyone who isn’t looking today can be reminded tomorrow.