The Bulwark has a piece that ponders the low turnout (It WAS Freezing) and the FACT that Trump’s victory was JUST 51%…..
And Trump actually had to hustle a bit to get the amount of the win….
Trump’s victory was apparent from the moment the doors closed on the caucuses. He finished the night with 51 percent of the vote and twenty delegates who will back him at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this July. As expected, DeSantis and Haley trailed far behind, respectively earning 21 percent (nine delegates) and 19 percent (eight delegates).
That’s all quite impressive for Trump, but a broader look at the numbers suggests something Republicans might be nervous about as they look ahead a few months to their presumptive candidate’s upcoming general election campaign. Allow me to explain.
Yesterday’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.
The Haley campaign is aware of this apparent vulnerability and the risk it poses to the party in a general election1, comparing Trump’s standing to past incumbents—even if he’s not technically one, he’s acting like one—whose weak primary showings anticipated re-election failures. In a memo this morning, Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney wrote:
Historically, incumbent presidents who have struggled in New Hampshire have failed to recapture the White House….
…
While some pundits will try to convince you that Trump’s behavior shows he is deliberately trying to lose, consider the possibility that 2016 was an anomaly, and he is simply not very good at this….
Note…
This dog HAS BEEN peddling the above point for a while…
Donald Trump may ‘own’ the GOP base…
But I and others feel his ownership is ‘soft’....