Iowa caucuses 2024 live: Trump wins state as DeSantis projected to win second place | Iowa

The Florida governor has finished a “distant second” to Donald Trump, the Associated Press projects. Nikki Haley is expected to come third.

“There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country,” Vivek Ramaswamy told supporters in Des Moines.

He reflected on his candidacy. “Nobody knew who we were, nobody knew what we were up to, but together, we have created a movement that I think is going to carry our nation to the next level,” he says.

He endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency.

Chris Stein

Ron DeSantis’s watch party is getting underway, with social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats pitching the Florida governor as the right candidate to beat Joe Biden.

“Now we will have a real fight between whether or not we’re going to return to someone who has proven all he knows how to do is lose to Democrats. Him and his candidates, for the last three cycles, that’s all they’ve done. For the rest of the country, tired of losing to these guys, let’s go with the guy who beat them and that is Ron DeSantis,” Vander Plaats said.

Eline Gordts

Nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republicans polled while entering the caucuses on Monday evening by Edison Research said they did not believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.

A majority of the 1,577 caucus-goers the firm questioned said Donald Trump would be fit to return to the presidency even if he were convicted of a crime. And nearly half of the respondents said they considered themselves part of Trump’s MAGA movement.

The results underline Trump’s hold on the Republican party in Iowa.

Here’s more from Reuters on the results:

Following are highlights from the Edison Research poll based on interviews with 1,577 Iowa Republicans. The results will be updated as more interviews are collected.

* 65% said they did not think Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020.
* 64% said they decided who to support in the presidential nomination contest before this month.
* 63% said Trump would still be fit to be president if he were convicted of a crime. 32% said he would be unfit if convicted.
* 59% said they favor a federal law that would ban abortions nationwide.
* 51% of white caucus-goers who considered themselves evangelical or born-again Christians supported Trump, while 29% backed DeSantis.
* 44% of voters said they considered themselves part of the MAGA movement, a reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. 51% said they were not part of that movement.
* Trump led Haley and DeSantis by double digits among men and women alike. But among college graduates Trump was preferred by about 36% of caucus-goers, compared to 30% for Haley and 27% for DeSantis.
* 37% percent of caucus-goers said the economy was the issue that mattered most in deciding who to vote for on Monday, compared to 34% who cited immigration, while the rest cited foreign policy or abortion.
* 14% said the most important quality a Republican presidential nominee should have is the ability to beat Biden, compared to 41% who said shared values mattered most.
Edison Research conducted the poll on behalf of the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations including Reuters.

Chris Stein

Ron DeSantis’s caucus night watch party is taking place at a Sheraton hotel in West Des Moines.

A ballroom packed with supporters, reporters and children is waiting for the Florida governor, but there’s no sign of him yet. Perhaps he’s waiting to find out for sure whether he finished in second or third.

If it’s the latter, many believe it would be a crushing blow to his campaign’s viability. But with a second place finish, he could make the case to supporters that he has a path forward in New Hampshire, the next state to vote in the GOP nomination process.