Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro briefly discussed his main takeaway from the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, saying the results show that former President Donald Trump is “the de facto nominee.”
Trump won the Iowa caucuses, sitting at 51% with around 90% of the vote counted Monday night, according to Decision Desk HQ. DeSantis was sitting in second with 21.3%, and Haley was in third with 19%. Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was in fourth at 7.7%. The race was called with an unusually low percentage of the vote counted, as multiple outlets — including Fox News, CNN, NBC News, and the Associated Press — all called the race for Trump with just 1% of the vote counted.
“Here is the very quick story: Donald Trump wins walking away,” Shapiro said. “All of the pollsters called this thing pretty much as soon as the polls opened and that raises questions itself about procedure, about whether that affects the final vote tally, but bottom line is that they’re doing that based on the entrance polling data. Donald Trump is way out ahead.”
“Donald Trump is so far out ahead that the rest of the field can’t even see him,” Shapiro added. “This is Secretariat against the rest of the field in the 1973 Belmont Stakes.”
The podcast host then delved into what the first-in-the-nation caucuses mean going forward for the rest of the primary.
“It means that, de facto, Trump is the nominee. If no one can challenge him in Iowa, if nobody really has a chance of challenging him based on the momentum going into New Hampshire, if nobody has a challenge for him in South Carolina, then all you can say at this point is that he is preparing for the general election against Joe Biden,” said Shapiro.
Shapiro added that the political landscape is already lined up for a rematch between Trump and Biden in 2024.
“Maybe it was always going to be this way,” he said. “After all, [Trump] has been treated by the Republican electorate as the incumbent president. And he’s been treated that way because that’s how they think of him. Many Republicans think, by the way, that he won the last election, whether rightly or wrongly. So why wouldn’t they treat him that way?”
“There might’ve been a brief moment in time where there were minds that were open to be changed enough to possibly challenge Trump, but that time passed a while ago,” Shapiro added. “It’s pretty obvious at this point that Donald Trump is going to be your Republican nominee in 2024.”
The Daily Wire editor emeritus said he will give a more in-depth analysis of the Iowa Caucuses on “The Ben Shapiro Show” Tuesday morning.
Here is my reaction to tonight’s results. For a full in depth analysis, make sure to tune into tomorrow’s show. pic.twitter.com/VIINbh6RjD
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 16, 2024