After millions of dollars spent and hundreds of visits by candidates to kitchens, taverns, BBQ joints and Sunday schools across Iowa, the Republican Party’s remaining contenders for their party’s presidential nomination have abruptly decamped from the frozen, snowed-in state following the 15 January candidate selection caucus. Now the entire circus — candidates, staff, volunteers, vast media contingents and miscellaneous political groupies — is headed to New Hampshire for round two.

That small New England state has become Ground Zero for the next step in the US presidential selection process. By this point, the only candidates left are former president Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley. The media contingents and staffers for the three candidates will only grow larger as the campaign begins offering clearer storylines.

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and 2024 Republican presidential candidate. DeSantis finished second in the Iowa Republican caucuses on Monday, defying expectations of a weaker showing. (Photo: Sam Wolfe / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump garnered just over 50% of the support from caucusgoers while DeSantis came in second place with slightly over 20% and Haley was just below that level. As Chris Wallace (the former Fox News commentator now ensconced in CNN and son of the redoubtable CBS journalist Mike Wallace) put it, the adage has been that after Iowa, there are only three tickets out of town and on to the next stop. This time around, Trump got a first-class ticket while DeSantis and Haley are back in steerage. 

Still, one must remember that in this contest the voters were all Republicans. From that perspective, a slight majority for the former president — and one who tried to run as an incumbent who had unfairly been cheated out of his inheritance — represents a less than overwhelming victory. 

In pure electoral and demographic terms, Iowa is something of a minor planet. Its small population — in comparison to the nation as a whole — is significantly older and whiter, and comprises rural and small-town dwellers more than the rest of the country. It is a state that in recent years has become increasingly reliably Republican in voting terms. Moreover, the method it has for picking its delegates to the Republicans’ national nominating convention is arcane and confusing even to participants. 

People who are registered as Republicans (or who changed their registration to that party before casting a vote) gather in person in their respective precincts in venues such as school halls and community centres. They argue a bit and then cast their ballot choices. The resulting data are compiled by the Republican state committee and the apportionment of delegates to their national convention is confirmed, based on how the votes came out. 

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, speaks during a caucus night watch party in West Des Moines, Iowa, US, on Monday, 15 January 2024. (Photo: Rachel Mummey / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This time, in the end, out of Iowa’s delegates, Trump gained 20, DeSantis nine, Haley eight, and Vivek Ramaswamy three. The latter candidate has now taken himself out of the contest, but those three delegates will remain pledged to him, regardless. Given the blizzard conditions that prevailed in Iowa, it may have been a miracle that 30% of those eligible to vote showed up on Monday evening.

Relatively meaningless

The Iowa delegate count, by itself, is relatively meaningless. To win the nomination, a candidate must receive the majority of their party’s delegates and for Republicans, in their delegate total, there are nearly 2,500 delegates to be gained, so a candidate needs 1,215 delegates to win the nomination. 

For Democrats, there are around 3,900 delegates, and 1,969 are needed to win, but there is little doubt incumbent President Joe Biden will be the nominee. In the Republican contest, however, despite the meagre delegate haul, it is the momentum coming out of Iowa and going forward to New Hampshire and the rest of the states coming along later that now matters — and Trump can stake a claim to that momentum.

New Hampshire is similarly a small-population state, also whiter than the rest of the nation as well as having no big cities packed with voters. While it has traditionally been a Republican state, its closeness to the Boston metropolitan area has meant it has been gaining an influx of suburban-style, younger, better-educated voters than before, making it slightly more comparable to the rest of the US. 

Polling data in New Hampshire suggests Trump now leads Haley by 39% to 32%, but that can still change in the next week and the margins of error in polling may make the race tighter — or the gap between the two even wider. New Hampshire may yet offer another surprise as that state has an open primary where independent voters may vote in either party’s primary. Much will depend on how motivated to vote the partisans for either of the three remaining candidates really are, come 23 January.

What the Granite State does have in common with Iowa is that New Hampshire is an early test of a candidate’s viability for this marathon. The late Theodore H White, the veteran reporter who had written a whole shelf of books, starting with the 1960 election, entitled The Making of a President, almost always began his odyssey to suss out who would be the eventual winner by listening hard to voters in New Hampshire’s small towns and modest cities. He followed how the eventual winning candidate found their footing, was tested, and eventually triumphed by connecting to the nation’s soul and the temper of the times. 

In 2024, if White were still alive, he would almost certainly have spent much effort pondering the dynamics, the meaning and the power of the appeal (even the nearly beyond reason and quasi-religious connection) Trump has created with so many of his followers. 

White would have been fascinated by the ways experienced politicians like DeSantis and Haley (let alone those who have already dropped by the wayside, such as Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie and Rick Scott) have been unable, so far, to construct a winning combination of probity, ease and appeal to more than just a small share of Republican voters. 

Looking forward to the general election, White would have been engrossed in trying to understand how Biden had appealed to voters nearly four years ago but now those same characteristics seem to be deficits or flaws in his appeal. The economy is on an upswing, millions of jobs are being created, inflation is largely under control and workers at the bottom of the pile are earning more than inflation is taking away from their earnings. 

And yet, the popular perception remains that Trump is the more capable economic manager and that his hand on the foreign policy tiller is firmer. Thus, despite his mercurial temperament and strange fixations, he is better suited for leading the US in a complex troubled foreign policy environment. 

Age, stamina and health

It will be fascinating to watch how DeSantis and Haley try to break free from the shadow of Trump, even as they hope to gain support from some of his less diehard supporters. Once the nomination process is concluded, then the Republican candidate will square off against the incumbent president. Despite the wishes of a majority of the nation, that contest seems almost certainly to be a rematch between the former president and the current one. In that campaign, questions of age, stamina and health will loom ever larger and it’s likely the opinions of doctors will become a fixture of television news.

Taiwan

Of course, this is not the only election in 2024. Already a consequential one has occurred in East Asia. The Republic of China or Taiwan has just had its general election, and Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won Taiwan’s presidential election with 40.05% of the votes.

Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party candidate, Hou Yu-ih, garnered 33.49% of the votes, with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je receiving 26.45%. More than 14 million people took part, meaning that voter turnout came in at just over 71%. In the island’s parliamentary races, the DPP did less well, and holds 51 seats to the KMT’s 52, with 10 seats held by other, smaller parties.

Lai’s win immediately received strong criticism from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) across the Taiwan Strait. The PRC had been hoping to see Taiwan’s ruling party ousted, but, instead, the DPP gained an unprecedented third term in power. Lai is taking over from President Tsai Ing-wen and Lai has pledged to continue Tsai’s foreign policy, resisting China’s plans to annex Taiwan.

Beijing has similarly been critical of the praise Lai and his party received from a number of Western nations — even if they do not share formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Taiwan’s roster of diplomatic relations, meanwhile, has continued to shrink. The Pacific island nation of Nauru announced it was switching to Beijing, just as Taiwan’s electoral results were announced. 

Despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan since 1979, the US State Department congratulated the Taiwanese people “for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process”, even as Biden reiterated the US does not support Taiwanese independence. In response, China’s foreign ministry said the statement “seriously violated US promises that it would only maintain cultural, economic and other non-official ties with Taiwan”.

Given the tensions between the US and China, and the ongoing question of continuing to supply modern weaponry to Taiwan (an issue now tangled up in the US Congress along with aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine and harsher US border measures), Taiwan’s resistance to China’s assertion that the island is an integral part of China may make the foreign policy debates embedded in the US election more complex than ever. 

Lots to see, still, in the months ahead in the US and so many other elections around the globe. DM