You know, Steve Kornacki of MSNBC is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of election politics. He can stand there and rattle off numbers perfect to the percentage point without even looking at The Big Board. I swear, Kornacki must have every single precinct in the United States stitched into his bed sheets. He falls asleep counting precincts the way normal people count sheep.
But on a night like last night, when MSNBC could have called the race for Trump before the doors even opened at 7 PM, guys like Steve Kornacki have to pull a few rabbits from their hats, simply because there’s just going to be too goddamned empty minutes to fill. So they have to make lemonade out of lemons.
How many times have you heard Kornacki stand by the big board and say something like, Our entry polls show that 56% of GOP Iowa caucus voters identify as Evangelicals. And Trump is killing it with Evangelical voters in all of the polls. Fine. Nice factoid. But not last night, when there was literally nothing else to talk about.
So poor Super Steve had to slice the radish so thin you could see light through it. Our entrance polls show that 56% of GOP caucus voters define themselves as Evangelical. And of that 56%, 71% define themselves as regular church goers, while 21% define themselves as Evangelicals not connected with a specific church. And of that 21%, 88% say that they are loyal Trump voters. This sushi chopping went on all night, simply because there was no suspense in the outcome.
But even with the lack of suspense, there were still things in the raw numbers that a political Chicago street rat like me could draw conclusions from. But that’s all they would be, conclusions. In order to be able to start look for, possibly find, and begin to extrapolate possible trends, you need one simple thing. More. Primaries.
And that is why I want to see Nikki Haley stay in this race as long as possible. because in order to be able to honestly look for trends, you need to be able to look at more results. And forget about DeSantis. A 2nd place finish 30 points behind Trump is not going to impress your deep pockets when they think about their ROI. Nikki Haley has the Koch brother’s political arm, Americans For Prosperity behind her. She can stay in as long as they tell her to stay in.
And I want to see Nikki Haley stay in for every second possible, because I want to see more election results. Because when I look at just the raw numbers from last night in Iowa, there should be bright red lights flashing in the Trump campaign offset by loud claxons. This is not what last night should have looked like for Traitor Tot.
The final results are eerily similar to the final NBC News/Des Moines Register poll released over the weekend. The final numbers were Trump 51%, DeSantis garnered 20%, and Nikki Haley got a 19% share of the vote. read this paragraph again, and I’ll see you in the next paragraph.
Welcome back. Iowa is supposed to be one of the most evangelical, Trump friendly states in the country. They snubbed him in the 2016 caucus, going for Cruz, but voted overwhelmingly for him in the general election, and by an even stronger margin in 2020. So what’s the problem?
51%, 20%, and 19%. That’s the problem. Trump is supposed to be the Vladimir Putin of the MAGA GOP. These are his peeps. Would Vladimir Putin settle for a 51% winning margin? Sh*t! Try more like an 81% vote share. And just for this moment, forget about all of those sub tabs and bright shiny balls for a moment, and look at the raw numbers!
Trump got 51% of the vote in a party that he has monolithically controlled for the last eight years now! After 1980 nobody on the Democratic side sought Jimmy Carter’s sage advice and asked him to take another shellacking by Reagan in 1984. And nobody in the GOP wanted George HW Bush to hang around and take another mauling by Clinton in 1996. Presidential politics is like the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, one and done. But Traitor Tot has had a stranglehold on the national party for eight long years now.
Trump got 51% of the Iowa GOP vote. 2nd grade math. There is always only 100% of anything. Trump got 51%. That means by simple extrapolation that 49% of Iowa GOP caucus voters were willing to vote for somebody, anybody else rather than His Lowness! Sweet Jesus, 7% pf Iowa voters went with the charlatan poltroon Ratty Swami over Trump, and here’s the cherry on top. 20 Iowa caucus voters Actually cast a ballot for Chris freakin’ Christie, and Christie never spent a day in the state!
That’s why I want to see more actual primary vote numbers. It was former RNC Chair Michael Steele who actually wrote the functional epitaph to El Pendejo Presidente’s political career all the way back in 2020. And he wasn’t saying this sh*t as a never Trumper. He was saying this sh*t as a former RNC Chair, who was well paid to make these determinations;
When you’re an incumbent President, your support from the base of your party should never fall below 90%. That’s because is a country as polarized as this one, each side strives to turn out at least 90% of their base, and it’s up to that 10% mushy middle to determine the outcome. If your popularity drops below 90%, you should be looking for what you’re doing wrong. If it drops to 85%, alarm bells should be going off. And if it dips below 80%, you may as well call the coroner.
That’s why I want to see as many competitive primary and caucus results as I can. There is nothing more blatantly partisan, not even the US House, than a party primary or caucus. And if a party can bring out 30% of their registered voters to show up for a primary or caucus, then they’ve blown the doors off. Caucuses and primaries are attended by only the most hard core base of the party. Everybody else will wait until the general election to make their voices known.
And if an amazing 49% of the most rabid, hard core voters in an incredibly Trump friendly state like Iowa want somebody else, anybody else, then I want to know what some of the other rabid GOP base voters, especially in not particularly Trump friendly states like New Hampshire have to say. Don’t touch that dial.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Not to mention I saw a report the turnout was really a small percentage of the republican vote and much less than the last time. Plus, I love how these hypocrites, screaming about vote security, passed around grocery bags and popcorn buckets to stuff handfuls of ballots into. Looked like kids at chuckie cheese. Of course, blatant lies and hypocrisy are their stock and trade, so no surprise there.
Even more interesting is that the GOP were allowing SAME-DAY REGISTRATION for caucus participants. I mean, the same party that freaks out over the idea of “early voting” or “provisional ballots” for the general election and has completely denounced the idea of same-day registration for the general election had no problem allowing some shenanigans for their caucus (another fun fact is that, in order to participate, you don’t even have to be old enough to vote ON the day of the caucus–as long as you’ll be 18 before election day in November, you can participate in the caucus).
110 thousand turned out. trump got 55 or so thousand. 2 million voters in Iowa. Why do we listen to the garbage coming out of Iowa? freezing weather, this vote means nothing about support for trump.
I’ve always found what this “political Chicago street rat” has to say highly worthwhile. Thanks, Murf, for the many hundreds of your posts that I’ve read with pleasure and more understanding than I’ve otherwise have had.