Former President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Monday after winning the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the Republican presidential race, but also called for unity from “everybody.”
Trump won the Hawkeye State just as caucus night was getting started, besting his GOP primary competitors, as predicted by pollsters for months leading up to Monday night. The former president thanked supporters at a caucus watch party in West Des Moines, Iowa, declaring that the primary would soon be over once he wins both the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.
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“I really think this is the time now for everybody in our country to come together. We want to come together, whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative,” Trump told supporters, taking a civil tone. “It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world, straighten up the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we’re witnessing.”
“I want to make that a very big part of our message,” he continued. “We’re going to come together, it’s going to happen.”
Trump’s landslide victory was far from a surprise. The former president had dominated polls for nearly a year, with his candidacy beginning to skyrocket after his first set of four criminal indictments.
Monday night marks Trump’s first Iowa caucus victory. He came in second in Iowa in 2016 behind Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) before delivering a domineering finish in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, which helped establish Trump as the party’s frontrunner.
With an over 50% showing in the 2024 caucus, Trump delivered knockout punches against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, his two leading primary competitors. His campaign surrogates noticed, and were quick to point out as much to reporters in the room.
“This is the Republican Party coalescing around Donald Trump as our presumptive nominee,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said. “You’ve got Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley stumbling out of here having spent tens of millions of dollars per delegate. That’s not really a sustainable path to the nomination.”
Gaetz urged all of the candidates challenging Trump to back out of the race, arguing that “it’s time to work together to take on the Democrats, to go battle in the swing states.”
“We don’t need tens of millions of dollars spent to continue this contest that Donald Trump has clearly won,” the Florida congressman said. “Look at how much money Haley and DeSantis spent here and they couldn’t put together a durable coalition of any size or kind.”
David Lage, a Spring Hill caucus captain for the Trump campaign, noted to the Washington Examiner that turnout at his precinct exceeded expectations. As did Mandy Ryan, the Trump campaign’s Grimes caucus captain.
“We thought it’d be a few hours,” Ryan said of how long she expected it’d take for Trump to win the evening. “It was fast.”
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Trump used his Monday evening victory speech to poke needle both of his leading competitors.
“I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together,” Trump joked. “We’re all having a good time together. I think they both actually did very well. I think they both did very well.”
