Why Biden thinks he wants Trump to win the GOP nomination

News headlines reporting Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucus on January 15 give the impression of a much larger victory than should sensibly be drawn from this first expression of American electoral opinion in 2024.

Iowa grabs attention because it’s the first of the 2024 election primaries, but the historical record also shows that it has only predicted the eventual winner on six out of 13 occasions since it took on this role in 1972. The last successful GOP candidate who won the Iowa caucus was George W Bush in 2000.

This is partly because Iowa, with just over 3 million inhabitants represents less than 1% of the wider US population. Its voters are also much older, more rural, whiter (90%), more evangelical and less college-educated than the US at large. Although formerly a swing state Iowa has been solidly Republican since 2016.

Those turning out to vote for Trump were also a smaller, self-selecting subset of even that tiny population. Those supporting Trump were 51% of those registered Republicans who turned out to vote on one of the coldest nights of the year amounted to just 110,298 people.

Similarly, Trump’s margin of victory needs context. His 51% share of the vote and margin of victory over the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, of 30%, are – as much of the press note – “unprecedented.” But so is the fact of a former president standing in the primary and caucus process. This has not happened since Herbert Hoover ran, and lost, in 1940.

Still styling himself “President Trump” and turning up with his Secret Servicedetail in full view makes Trump unlike any of the other candidates. Similarly, his reputation, name recognition and constant presence in the news headlines over the past year have all contributed to