The Wrongologist

The Daily Escape:

Old Stone Church, West Boylston, MA – January 2024 photo by Demi Pita

As Wrongo said in his last post, there was an 80^th birthday celebration for him over the MLK weekend. It was a very gratifying experience spending time with friends and family from many parts of the country. Here are a few quick comments on the Iowa Caucuses and what’s coming.

First, turnout was low. From Dan Pfeiffer:

“In 2016, Republicans set a turnout record with 186,000 caucus participants — up from 119,000 in 2008. Last night, the Iowa Republican Party estimated about 100,000 Iowans — a big drop from just four years ago.”

Many will attribute this shortfall to the frigid weather. But weather alone doesn’t explain why turnout was cut by 46% since 2016.

Second, Nikki Haley finished third with about 20% of the vote, but a significant percentage of her voters said that they wouldn’t vote for Trump in the general election. From Simon Rosenberg:

“In the NBC News/Des Moines Register poll released this past weekend more Haley voters – 20% of Iowa’s GOP vote – said they would support Biden in the general election than Trump.”

Here’s MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki with the details:

More from Rosenberg:

“Let’s review the math here. If 43% of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden over Trump, that’s about 8% of the GOP electorate, or 3-4% of the national vote.”

This is consistent with general polling that suggests that between a third and 40% of Republicans are anti-MAGA. That may be something the Biden campaign can exploit in November if it’s representative of the feelings of GOP voters across the nation.

The breathless media reaction to the Trump win is laughable. From political twitterer Mueller, She Wrote:

Think about it: 56,000 Iowans voted for Trump. That’s 0.000168% of the population of the country, so the media shouldn’t be making it seem as if this was a victory for the ages. As John Fugelsang put it: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“People, can we stop negatively harping on how only 14% of Iowa GOP showed up to vote? And not dwell on how this means only 7% of Iowa GOP voted for Trump? Let’s TRY to be positive & just remind the media how this means 93% of registered Iowa Republicans didn’t vote for Trump.”

Despite all of these thoughts, Trump will easily win the GOP nomination. If either Haley or DeSantis were a better candidate, it may have made Iowa look a little more respectable, but Trump’s opposition was always sure to lose.

So, take your minds off of the media hype around the Iowa caucuses. Remember that going forward, should “Not Biden” get 49% of any Democratic primary vote, the media will go completely ape-shit over it.

Finally, it may be that Republicans are less enthusiastic this time around. Trump doesn’t ever say anything new, and Republicans have lost almost every significant election since 2016, and no one likes always being on the losing team. The 91 counts against him are also a factor. Nikki Haley’s message that Trump simply had too much baggage seems to be resonating.

Instead of thinking about alternatives to Trump, think about how you can help take back Democratic control of the House of Representatives.