Takeaways from the Republican caucus in Iowa

By James Oliphant

(Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump was declared winner of the Iowa caucuses on Monday, according to early projections, a resounding victory that sets him on course to capture the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Here are some takeaways from the first-in-the-nation nominating contest for the Nov. 5 election:

MIND MADE UP

If the early numbers coming from Iowa hold, the frontrunner Trump was never in danger of losing.

An overwhelming majority of Republican caucus-goers – 64% - made the decision on which candidate to support before this month. Of those voters, 64% went for Trump, according to entrance polls conducted by Edison Research, making all the late-stage campaigning by rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley almost futile.

Trump was positioned to dominate a rural state with a large white, working-class population, and Edison’s numbers bore that out: He won 76% of voters who said they never attended college and 54% of those age 45 and over. He won with those who consider themselves very conservative and somewhat conservative. He won the majority of independent voters.

Trump captured 60% of Republicans who said their top priority was immigration and 52% of those most worried about the economy.

Even more telling: Of the 66% of caucus-goers who do not believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected, 68% went for Trump. And 63% of Republicans surveyed said Trump, who faces criminal charges in federal and state courts for attempting to subvert the 2020 election, would be fit to be president even if convicted of a crime.

The numbers validated Trump's approach to Iowa. His campaign never took the state for granted, but neither did it ever approach the caucuses as a must-win. Only in recent weeks did Trump step up his presence, and he held just one rally during the final weekend.

It's conceivable he never even had to do that. A win appeared to be in the bag all along.

A LOSING BET

Florida Governor DeSantis has long staked his success in Iowa on courting Iowa's critical Christian conservative voting bloc.

But the early entrance polling showed Trump had more than twice the support of the state's evangelical voters than DeSantis, 53% to 26%.

As precincts across the state tallied their votes, DeSantis was running about 30 percentage points overall behind the former president, locked in a tight battle for second with Haley.

DeSantis spent months lining up endorsements from Christian leaders such as Bob Vander Plaats and touring rural enclaves where they held sway.

He embraced a hardline stand on abortion, backing a ban on the procedure at six weeks while Trump suggested that a more flexible standard be utilized.

DeSantis went so far as to accuse Trump, who as president helped assemble the U.S. Supreme Court majority that overturned constitutional protection for abortion, of being insufficiently “pro-life.” DeSantis formed a coalition of pastors who were charged with persuading Trump’s voters to switch sides.

He often spoke at rallies about strapping on "the armor of God." He inveighed against policies that supported transgender rights.

It didn’t work.

DeSantis indeed won the overwhelming majority of caucus-goers who named abortion as their top issue, according to Edison, but those voters comprised just 11% of the electorate. For evangelicals who were more concerned about immigration, foreign policy or the economy, Trump was easily their top choice.

DeSantis tried to replicate the strategy U.S. Senator Ted Cruz employed when he narrowly beat Trump in Iowa in 2016. He poured the bulk of his time, energy and resources into the state.

But having served a term as president, Trump is now more popular with Iowans than he was then. DeSantis needed to find a new formula – and Monday's returns show he never did.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)