Just under three years after leaving office, former President Donald Trump has taken the first step in his potential return to the White House with a resounding win in the Iowa caucuses, NBC News swiftly projected Monday evening. As predicted in poll after poll leading up to the caucuses, Trump left his nearest rivals in the dust with his speedy victory, besting former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and obliterating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
This time around, there’s no question about who Trump is or what he wants.
Despite its legendary status in America’s political culture, the Iowa caucuses have a less than stellar track record when it comes to picking presidential nominees. But since the emergence of the modern presidential primary system, there’s never been a race like this year’s. Trump didn’t just win in Iowa; he won massively, likely shattering the record for margin of victory. It is a landslide that serves as an endorsement of the constant drumbeat for vengeance that Trump has made the centerpiece of his campaign.
During Trump’s first presidential run in 2016, by the time he reached Iowa it was clear that he would be a major player, but it wasn’t obvious that the nomination would eventually be his. He came in second, losing out to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas by just over 3 points. (Trump later accused Cruz of winning via “fraud,” beginning a pattern that would continue through the 2020 election and to the present day.) Back then, there were still plenty of questions about what Trump would actually hope to achieve if he were to win the nomination, let alone the presidency, and plenty of doubt that he even wanted the job to begin with.
This time around, there’s no question about who Trump is or what he wants, having made transparent his plans for revenge against those he felt have wronged him in his 2020 loss and the string of criminal prosecutions he now faces. He is, as The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman has accurately described him, “among the most disciplined undisciplined political figures in modern U.S. history.” For months now, he has hammered that point home, barring a brief head fake during a Fox News town hall last week when he claimed: “I’m not going to have time for retribution. We’re going to make this country so successful again. I’m not going to have time for retribution.”
This wasn’t an acknowledgment from Trump that a president seeking revenge is bad for a country or even that it was a political liability for him. Instead, it was an attempt to provide himself something resembling deniability, as he often does when confronted outright with his own words. Tellingly, he went on to suggest once again that any actions he would take as president against the likes of President Joe Biden would merely be in response to the supposed evils rained down upon him by Democrats and a “weaponized” law enforcement apparatus.
And that signal among the noise has been received loud and clear by his supporters. He proudly shared a word cloud graphic that showed most voters associate his campaign with terms like “revenge,” “dictatorship” and “power.” An NBC News/Des Moines Register poll last month found that 42% of likely Republican caucusgoers were more likely to support Trump for his egregiously racist and Nazi-evoking comments about immigrants’ “poisoning the blood” of America. The final NBC News poll ahead of the caucuses showed that a conviction in one of his criminal cases would make 19% of likely caucusgoers more likely to support him. And when Iowa Republicans assembled on Monday, they made good on their declarations of unwavering support for the man who would be king.
There’s a case to be made that too much is made of Iowa, that its first-in-the-nation status overinflates its importance compared to the influence its voters actually have. The bitter cold and blizzardlike conditions this weekend, paired with Trump’s dominance in the polls, tamped down participation even further than normal. But as a measure of where Trump stands within the Republican Party, the results out of Iowa are for once truly reflective of the country writ large. And it is more than ready to see Trump back in the White House, ready to mete out his wrath on anyone who stood in his way.