It will be difficult to stop Trump after the big victory

 

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Donald Trump  

 

Trump lived up to expectations - will be hard to stop 

 

Wolfgang Hansson 

 

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.  

 

Published 2024-01-16 21.12  

 

Donald Trump's landslide victory in Iowa shows how difficult it will be to stop him from becoming the Republican presidential nominee.  

 

Now Nikki Haley needs to give him a tough fight in New Hampshire to keep the race for the nomination alive. 

 

She's already got some traction.  

 

Opinion polls are one thing. A result where the voters said something completely different.  

 

Surely there was one or two who had hoped that Donald Trump would not succeed in living up to the high expectations ahead of the nomination election in Iowa. That he would stumble right out of the starting blocks.  

 

The result shows that all such hopes were self-deception and illusions.  

 

Trump won with over 50 procent of the vote. Neither of the two main opponents, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with 21 percent or former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley with 19, was even close. Republican voters apparently don't care that Trump has 91 charges against him in four upcoming trials.  

 

No presumptive Republican presidential candidate has ever won such a convincing victory in the state that is first in the primary election season.  

 

An old truism about who succeeds in reaching the goal and becoming his party's presidential candidate is that he must do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that are in first place. If you don't show your front feet there, you have no chance. That shows history with a few exceptions.  

 

This year's primary election season is odd in many ways. Never before in modern times has a former president run again. Normally, the presidential candidates are relatively unknown to the general public when the primaries begin. You can hardly say that about Donald Trump. And on the Democratic side, Joe Biden is running for incumbent president, which means that their race is more or less decided in advance, even if there are some long shots to challengers. 

 

Biden has also pushed for the Democrats' first primary election to be in South Carolina because that's where he did really well four years ago. Since New Hampshire refused to comply with Biden's wishes, he is not even running in the primary there next week. Which may give contenders Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson their 15 minutes in the spotlight but hardly threaten Biden's nomination.  

 

As soon as it became clear that tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswami was coming in fourth in Iowa, he dropped out. 

 

Ron DeSantis saved his continued candidacy by taking second place by a very narrow margin. Right before Nikki Haley.

Trump won the nomination election with over 50 percent of the vote. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP  

 
Now the republican primay election circus moves on to New Hampshire where voters will cast their ballots next Tuesday.  

 

The only chance to give the continued fight some excitement is if Nikki Haley approaches Trump and makes a really good choice. The opinion polls show that she is clearly on the rise and is expected to win 30 percent of the votes against Trump, which is around 40 percent.  

 

Maybe she can even do it a little better. 

 

Just before the Iowa caucuses, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie dropped out of the presidential race. Before that, Christie was pretty much in New Hampshire.  

 

He is the only one of the Republican candidates who has been openly critical of Trump. Now it is speculated that those who had intended to vote for Christie will instead cast their vote for Haley who is the one of those still fighting for the nomination who most resembles a traditional conservative Republican. The way the party looked before Trump took over.  

 

If Haley succeeds in pressuring Trump in New Hampshire, it is possible to at least maintain a sense of tension. Because at number three on the primary election calendar comes her home state of South Carolina where she is still very popular since her time as governor. 

 

If she beats Trump there, it could at least in theory be a match between her and Trump.  

 

Many evaluators more or less count Ron DeSantis out.  

 

A year ago, he was seen as the obvious heir to Trump. A politician with almost the same views but without all the drama and chaos that came with the Trump presidency. But he has been unable to match Trump. DeSanti's star has been in constant decline for a long time. It is difficult to see how he will be able to reverse the trend. 

 

When Trump ran for office in 2016, he was at the same time challenged by a large starting field of Republicans. This time, the ex-president has more or less decided the contest before it even started.  

 

Now, in practice, it is only between Trump and Haley. In reality, she probably has no chance either. 

 

Even after Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states hold primaries at the same time, Trump may have decided the battle.