Donald Trump received a majority of Iowa caucus GOP in a shrinking pool of right wing supporters

An echo opinion by Matt Lewis published in the Daily Beast:  After Iowa’s 57,000 GOP caucus voter result support for Donald Trump, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine anyone wresting control of the nomination away from him—even if Nikki Haley rebounds next week with a New Hampshire win.

Rather than inflating Trump’s support, it’s possible that Iowa underrepresented Trump’s nationwide dominance by bestowing him with a mere 51 percent of their caucus vote. According to a recent CBS News poll, 69 percent of Republicans nationwide are supporting Trump.

If you’re still not convinced that the GOP electorate is thoroughly Trumpified, then consider some of the exit polls coming out of Iowa.

According to The Washington Post, about two-thirds of Iowa caucusgoers said Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. And about 70 percent of the voters who said that caucused for Trump.

This is to say that a majority of Republicans are a) willing to at least pretend to believe something that is patently absurd, and b) focused on relitigating the past.

In the waning days before the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis attempted to obliquely address Trump’s backward-looking obsession (without actually mentioning that Biden won the 2020, election). DeSantis cast himself as the candidate of the future, saying that Trump is running on “his issues,” while DeSantis is focused on “your issues” and “this country’s future.”

It didn’t work—partly because DeSantis cannot deliver a pithy (short and meaningful) message, but mostly because Republican voters don’t want to reject The Big Lie or focus on the future. These voters seem hellbent on renominating Trump. 

Indeed, about two-thirds of caucusgoers said Trump would still be fit for the presidency, even if he was convicted of a crime (Trump won about 70 percent of these people). 😡😞⍰

On one hand, not caring whether your party’s nominee is a convicted criminal is crazy and scary. On the other hand, if the remaining one-third of Iowa caucusgoers conclude that a conviction means Trump is unfit for the presidency, that could spell trouble for Trump, come November.

But will they? 😞❓

I am reminded that back in 2016, 62 percent of Americans said Trump was “unqualified” to be president. Somehow, he still won the election. Faced with a binary choice, most Republicans will find a way to rationalize supporting a convicted felon.

Still, Trump barely won the general election in 2016—and he lost in 2020. If even a small percentage of Republican base voters (the kinds of people willing to show up in sub-zero temps), nationwide, stay home, it could defeat Trump in 2024. #NeverTrump❗

Speaking of the types of people who came out in Iowa on Monday night, it’s possible that the representation was self-selective in another way.

Turnout in the Iowa caucuses was low, (only a measly GOP 108,000 caucus voters in Iowa where the populationis 3.2 million people❗) likely because of the frigid conditions. 

But, as former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) also noted on Monday night, “Trumpism is the politics of subtraction: 56k fewer Republican caucus voters tonight in Iowa vs 2016. Trump wins by depressing and shrinking the electorate…”

While the consequences of this trend may already be impacting the 2024 election, there is also a multiplier effect. As more and more Americans see Trump as the avatar of the Republican Party, fewer college-educated suburbanites (for example) are likely to join the party in the future.

It is perhaps ironic that a shrinking Republican Party is also a purer, more Trumpy, Republican Party. Interestingly, though, just 46 percent of Iowa caucusgoers said they considered themselves MAGA (78 percent of them supported Trump). While supporters of candidates like Haley might be happy to hear that less than half of Iowans consider themselves MAGA, the results suggest this isn’t really much of a “win.” In fact, it’s cold (no pun intended) comfort.

If you add Vivek Ramaswamy’s votes to Trump’s 51 percent, you get nearly 60 percent of Iowa caucusgoers who are effectively “MAGA” (this is not an entirely hypothetical scenario, since Vivek dropped out after finishing fourth in the caucuses).

Throw in Ron DeSantis’ Iowa votes, and you’re close to 80 percent who are MAGA-ish. That leaves 20 percent for the “Nikki” vote.

Now, you might retort that caucuses are unique, so Iowa’s results cannot be extrapolated to say much of anything about upcoming primary results (see victories by Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, et al.). What is more, only a fraction of registered Republicans participate (even when turnout is up). If you are looking for a reason to believe that someone other than Trump still has a shot, you might cling to the “Iowa is weird” theory, while turning your lonely eyes toward Nikki and New Hampshire.

The problem is that New Hampshire’s primary is arguably even less representative of the national GOP electorate, because independents can vote in the first-in-the-nation primary.

Chris Christie "broken clock" moment in time: Tells right wing Republicans the truth about the former guy Trump

Win or Lose, Chris Christie Is Running the Best Campaign Against Trump:  Not only is Chris Christie the only Republican who understands he is running against the former guy Trump, but he’s the only candidate who comes close to matching him as an entertainer.

Former Governor Christie of New Jersey fits the political posture of a broken clock being "right twice a day". 

Echo opinion essay published in The Daily Beast by Matt Lewis:

Don’t look now, but Chris Christie is having a moment. Calling on his experience as a federal prosecutor, he is now prosecuting a case against Donald Trump.

While Donald Trump is clearly the prohibitive front-runner for the Republican nomination, there is no denying that Christie is the most interesting of the growing Republican field of candidates clamoring for that coveted spot. Consider just a few of Christie’s recent greatest hits.

When Trump mocked Christie’s weight, Christie, appearing on Fox News’ “MediaBuzz,” responded, “Oh what, like he’s some Adonis?” When asked about Trump diverting campaign money to pay for his legal expenses, Christie called him “the cheapest S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life.” And regarding the GOP’s performances in 2018, 2020, and 2022, Christie called the former president a “three-time loser.” For better or worse, when it comes to throwing elbows, at least, he kind of sounds like…Trump.

"Chris Christie is telling the unvarnished truth about Trump", Frank Bruni in The New York Times.

Christie is also not above dinging other Republicans for their cowardice towards Trump.

For example, after Ron DeSantis tried to dodge a question about Januaray 6th, by saying he wasn’t in Washington at the time, Christie mocked him, saying, “Did he have a TV? Was he alive that day? Did he see what was going on? I mean, that’s one of the most ridiculous answers I’ve heard in this race so far.” Vinny Gambini in My Cousin Vinny couldn’t have put it any better.

I don’t want to go too far out on a brittle limb here. Christie is still polling at under 3 percent.

Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if (unlike many of his GOP competitors) Christie’s trajectory is still on the rise. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, Christie is the only contender who actually realizes the 2024, election is about one question and one question only: Trump or not Trump.

This is to say, the 2024 GOP primary is not about who has the best 10-point policy plan or who is the most anti-woke. It’s simply about whether or not Republicans want Trump again.

Christie is the only candidate whose strategy and message suggest he accepts this reality—and is acting accordingly.

What this means is that Christie can get on TV at any time he wants because Trump is always in the news.

Will this allow him to gradually consolidate a larger chunk of the GOP primary and get to double digits, possibly even blowing everyone’s mind by becoming Trump’s main rival? That’s the unanswerable question.

But what I do know is that Christie is the only Republican opponent who has the correct interpretation of what the primary is about. And that is a huge advantage.

This also brings us to the second reason Christie has a chance to gain traction. He’s the only non-Trump candidate who is not only tough, but also funny and entertaining.

Perhaps it’s a commentary on our culture, but this is vitally important. In fact, I would say that Trump’s entertainment value is a wildly underrated political attribute.

A recent column in the Financial Times notes that in a 2016 paper, “...three anthropologists from the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Texas at Austin argued it was the fact that Trump was so entertaining, above all else, that won him the Republican nomination that year.”

Jemima Kelly, the FT columnist, goes on to note that “If there’s one thing the former president does have, it’s personality. It’s not that he’s likeable. No, Trump has a much rarer gift: he’s funny.”

I get that “funny” is a weird description for a guy who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power, but let’s be honest, Trump is at least partly a stand-up comedian.

And while it might be convenient to assume that to his fans, the cruelty is the point, at least some of his fans think entertainment is the point. To them, Trump is an authentic class clown in a world full of boring rule-followers who spew scripted talking points.

This brings us back to Christie. Not only is he the only Republican who understands he is running against Trump, he’s the only candidate who comes close to matching him as an entertainer.

It might not be enough to sway Republican primary voters, but that’s on their collective conscience. Christie can’t control how voters will respond to his message. What he can control is how he delivers it.

And on that count, he’s hitting it out of the park.