Iowa Primary: By the numbers for the GOP candidates

The late Tim Russert, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, was famous for his small whiteboard detailing the numbers needed to win the presidential primaries and elections; and, as the country heads into Monday’s Iowa Caucus, as their “first in the nation status”, the Republican Party begins the process of choosing its presidential nominee, we fondly remember that white board. And, while former President Donald Trump is the foregone winner, in the mind of most of his supporters, nipping at his heels,say some, is former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and Florida Governor Ron De Santis in a bid for that nomination.

In an election that seemingly began in earnest, almost two years ago, the stakes are high for many Americans, those wanting Trump to regain the Oval Office, and those that want Joe Biden to remain. Battle lines have been drawn, and the stalwarts are not shy about which of the two they want to see as president.

Lest those supporters get ahead of themselves, the American democracy has a process, primaries and caucus dominate, after the decades old conventions that used to be the stuff of mid century televised conventions, but which the GOP still uses.

It really is now a numbers game and the various polls require an examination of the numbers, and as many a political wag has noted, issues don’t matter, numbers do, so let’s take a closer look.

In an ABC average Trump “leads national primary polls with 60 percent of the vote . . . His closest rivals are 50 percentage points behind,with DeSantis polling “in a distant second place with 12 percent of the vote,  roughly tied with former Ambassador Nikki Haley.”

Trump then gains a 9 in 10 chance of winning the nomination they noted, with official selection being held at the Republican convention in July, where the delegates elected by contest across the country, and US territories will cast nominee ballots.

The electorate for the GOP has a cross section of populations, moderates, evangelical voters aside, and this is where some issues are significant to gain the needed delegates, as ABC noted 1,215 out of 2,429.

Issues that dominate are immigration, for asylum seekers, cultural issues such as transgender rights, hormone replacement for minor children, LGBT rights, and Critical Race Theory, all of which face mountains of disinformation.

Wedged into the battle for votes are abortion, and the anti woke ideologies that have been called out in Florida by DeSantis, who at one point was seen by some voters as a kinder and gentler version of Trump, but now Haley seems to be making that claim.

For Iowa there are 40 delegates at stake and both she and DeSantis need 22, and 26 to gain delegate majorities. One factor facing both of them is the severe winter weather that has brutalized much of the Midwest and which may keep voters away from the voting booths to avoid exposure to sub zero temps. Yet, Iowans are known to be hearty souls, but with single digit temperatures and sub zero wind chills, how much will that hold?

Using proportionality both the former ambassador and the governor need to get 55 and 65 percent of the vote, say pollsters, admitting that these are high numbers to reach.

In a recent examination by The Hill and citing an interview with DeSantis by CNN by Jake Tapper, he asked in lieu of sagging poll numbers whether his 3rd place standing might force him to drop out.

“CNN’s Jake Tapper asked DeSantis whether he would drop out of the race if he came in third place in Iowa, pointing to a recent NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom that shows the Florida governor trailing former President Trump and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley with 16 percent of support in the state. DeSantis said on “State of the Union” that he predicted he would “do well” in the race in Iowa.”

“And so these are folks who are very motivated. Our voters are very motivated. We have spent a lot of time in Iowa because we’ve gone door to door getting people to commit to caucus to us,” DeSantis said.”

Trump, ignoring the debates in favor of his preferred town halls, ABC pollsters said he needed 53 of the 197 Super Tuesday delegates, needing 27 percent.

Taking the math further, with his commanding lead, in an all state vote, the former president would score 2,120 delegates of a possible 2,287, nearly 97 percent they noted.

It’s no secret that Trump is knee deep in legal battles, taking official documents after he left the White House, paying of porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her silent about their encounter, inflating the values of his properties to score bigger and better loans,  etc.,all of which in another era might be held against him, but now only serve two things: to give him the profile of a martyr, to his many supporters, and free publicity to enhance just that.

With his larger than life personality,  and love of publicity, we get it, but what worries his competitors is will they get it, those numbers needed to remove him from front runner status?

Aided by Fox news, Trump seems unbeatable in another round of debates with President Biden, so some poll watchers and handlers are thinking of a mano mano battle in November.

What startled many political watchers was former New Jersey  Gov. Chris Christie dropping out of the race on Wednesday, making some wonder if Haley can capture those votes for him. 

A closer look: Christie had about 11.5 percent of poll numbers in New Hampshire according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling index and Haley “is polling 11 percentage points behind” Trump, so her team is probably chomping at the bit to get those votes.

She seems to have put her blunder about the causes of the Civil War behind her, though Christie had some ribald Jersey humor in his criticism of her ignorance, which she later tried to backtrack, and that seems to have worked. But the folks at the Hill have deemed this a fight between two moderates, now minus one. DeSantis seems to hang in there, but having lost the support of Trump, a long time ago, and with his aggressive stance, will siphon off delegate votes from the MAGA crowds is a central question.

The New York TImes columnist Nate Cohn says not, but notes thee is precedence for potential winds citing, “there's a lot of precedence for surging candidates to keep gaining, especially over a contest’s final days. With Mr. Trump at just 42 percent of the vote, there’s no reason to think her path is closed off.”

What remains at stake are not only Christie’s supporters, but the “never Trump” crowd, the moderates, the independents, suburban Republican college educated mothers, and those that might take a back seat in Iowa, even though Trump does hold substantial leads.

As expected Trump did win the Iowa Caucus with the support of rural, white, non college educated people, many of whom identified as Evangelicals, with 51 percent of the vote, along with 21 percent for De Santis, and 19 for Haley.

Voter turnout out was lighter than for previous caucuses, with 110,000 voters, of the nearly 752,000 registered Republicans, which many are attributing to the severe winter weather and deep snowfalls, as well as some voter apathy, but in the end Trump won 20 delegates, 8 for De Santis, and 7 for Haley.

Updated Jan. 19, 2024 at 9:40 a.m. CST

Can De Santis recover from the migrant transport?

 For many months Florida Gov. Ron De Santis has been seen as a viable candidate for the 2024 presidential race against incumbent Joe Biden, and for the Republican party this meant that they could capitalize on the issues that former President Donald Trump championed: anti masks, the Covid pandemic, that he called, “the Chinese Flu,” but most of all his anti immigrant stance that he kept front and center of his initial campaign statements.

Those that supported those positions, but recoiled at the ill will towards his personality, found a new hero in De Santis, the “un Trump”, as he played the GOP playbook better than Trump, with statements and actions geared towards his base: the masking debate in public schools, the suspicions that Covid was not real, and his anti LGBTQ stance, especially when it came to public school textbooks and the push against Critical Race Theory, even though it is only taught in law and other graduate schools; but, the truth didn’t matter, because these,and other controversial positions are the bread and butter of the GOP.

He seemed like a sure winner ready to battle Trump for the nomination, until his recent transports of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers, who had been granted permission to stay in the US, pending  legal processing, to Martha's Vineyard the elite Democratic vacation spot home to the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Valerie Jarrett, and former President Barack Obama and his family, plus many others.

The pie in the face event pushed the issue of legal, and illegal migration, front and center to the Biden administration, and then Texas Governor Greg Abbott went even further by sending buses full of migrants to the home of Vice President Kamala Harris, which was duly covered by FOX TV even thought there was no notice to Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

A sticking point in the story is that the migrants were in Texas, not Florida, and took a circuitous route to South Carolina, and then to the Vineyard.

In both instances, local governments and authorities, especially those on the vacation island scrambled to feed, clothe, and house these refugees and migrants, many of who came with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, as they escaped from the economic, and political perils of living in Venezuela, many earning less than the US equivalent of $20.00, per month, plus gang violence fueling fears, and the willingness to undertake a tortuous journey, much of it on foot to reach the American border.

Clearly branded as a political stunt, these actions are beginning to hurt the perfect pitch of De Santis, and his efforts to be a presidential candidate. And, while the moral outrage from many liberal circles has been countered by the applause of his supporters, his image is being tattered by those who think that he has gone too far..

There is life outside of talking points, and a pending lawsuit by some of the migrants that they were duped with false information, by a shadowy women named “Perla” who lured the migrants with the promise of jobs, and housing and a mostly false brochure outlining benefits in Massachusetts (written in Florida) is angering many, especially independent voters who might be the linchpin in De SaIntis efforts, even as he tag teams with Abbott, in an enterprise that shows hubris to some, and cockiness to others.

Ready technology, much of it pocket sized, has sent the images of the displaced far beyond the intentions of Abbott and De Santis.

A bit of bragging never hurt: “All the people in D.C. and New York were beating their chest when Trump was president, saying they were so proud to be sanctuary jurisdictions, De Santis told a group in the Florida Panhandle, and “The minute even a small fraction of what those border towns day with every day are brought to their front door, they all go berserk.”

There is a grain of truth in his statement, but using part of a $12 million war chest of taxpayer money might not go down as well as he expects, despite questions about what exactly a sitting governor might be charged with, the lawsuit notwithstanding.

What remains unclear is that only $615,000 was used, but this was a claim by his Democratic rival Charlie Crist, and yet from others that the amount may be interest of the $5.8 billion dollars given to Florida as part of the American Rescue Plan.

Recent reports have said that $1.6 million dollars was given to a contractor, possibly the private air carrier, or others, but some reports have indicated that the $615.00 was given to the carrier, as partial payment, and there is the amount of $950.00, which came from a public records, with some speculation that this was another payment to the same carrier, but questions remain if these are shell companies, to hide the true identities of the recipients.

It is known that Vetrol was a political donor to the Republican Party.

The New York Times reported that some in Latin America “have accused Mr. De Santis and Mr. Abbott of being largely out of touch with the crisis on the ground in Venezuela,” and even hypocrisy toward their criticisms of the Maduro government.

The Biden administration has struggled, internally, as we have learned, with how to handle the increase in immigration at the border and the mess that was inherited from Trump whose detention of migrant children, and whose videotaped tears, filled nightly news segments; with some saying that internal dissension has contributed to a fractured response to the burgeniung numbers at the Southern border.

When arriving Haitians, escaping violent gangs, were seen being whipped by Texas border guards, all viewers were appalled. Coupled with the welcome of the  Afghanistan refugees, and its comparatively smooth entry, after the US withdrawal, accusations of racism abounded, making many observers question what would be a consistent, even moral response from the Administration.

Chiming in was President Andreas Manuel Lopez Labrador of Mexico who criticized Abbott's authorization of the Texas National Guard to detain migrants, and he noted, “Since there are elections in November, then they’re looking for sensationalism, for scandal,” and that such actions were “immoral.”

For Venezuela the “shattering of the economic, social and democratic crisis” has been branded the worst by economists, resulting in 6.8 million Venezuelans, “more than a fifth of the population have left the country . . .” noted the Times.⁹

Equally troubling is that the United States has struggled with immigration for decades, especially a large influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans after World War I, and after World War II it created an asylum process for those fearing prosecution of race, religion and nationality; and, problematic are those that have filed false claims, knowing that the process can take years.

Title 8 from the Biden administration has drilled down on those that are filing false statements and can deport them, is not as well known as the fears of job loss by Americans, and the racial bias that underlies many of these self same fears.

Legality, including actions by the San Antonio Sheriff Javier Salazar bring moral outrage, but even then we have to return to actionable offenses.

There are also appeals to the US Department of Justice, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has “encouraged Garland to investigate where the false hopes, and inducements “would support charges of kidnapping under relevant state laws,” and could lead also to charges of racketeering, reported The Hill, and, he has been joined in this by Massachusetts Attorney General Rachel Rollins.

This will be an ongoing struggle and one that might garner headlines, while even more migrants arrive in even more Democratic strongholds.

Updated Sept. 25th at 1:48 CDT