Donald Trump brings out his 'killer instinct' in the Republican primaries

The courts are already part of Donald Trump's campaign strategy. The former president of the United States has voluntarily attended two hearings this week in Washington and New York in order to present himself as a martyr to the most loyal Republican voters, those participating in the primaries. In Washington, his lawyer argued — with his agreement — that the president should enjoy immunity even if he ordered a special forces commando to assassinate a political rival. Trump, charged with 91 crimes in four different cases, is not yet accused of killing anyone. However, he has a killer—political—instinct. When the Republican Party nomination race for the 2024 presidential election officially begins this Monday in a frigid Iowa, his obsession is to knock out his rivals before any viable alternative is perceived.

Trump is a formidable rival. Like a schoolyard bully, he likes to insult and ridicule his opponents. When he perceived Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a threat, he attacked him mercilessly. Now your darts are headed towards Nikki Haley, which proves its upward trajectory. One of his favorite hobbies is calling his rivals nicknames. —a Wikipedia page compiles them—. For him, DeSantis is DeSanctus or DeSanctimonious, the self-righteous one or the prude. And former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador is “knucklehead Nikki Haley.” The candidate tweeted that some Trump supporters had left her a cage and birdseed at the hotel door. The former president has come to air against her the hoax – previously used against Barack Obama – that she was not born in the United States, which would prevent her from being president.

After the withdrawal of Chris Christie so as not to divide the vote against Trump, the Iowa caucuses (a type of somewhat assembly-based primaries, although the vote is secret and in a ballot box) are less crowded than anticipated. Also staying along the way are the mayor of Miami, Francis Suárez; former Vice President Mike Pence; Senator Tim Scott and Governor Doug Burgum. Aside from DeSantis and Haley, the other candidate with a minimum of traction is millennial Trumpist Vivek Ramaswamy. In any case, Trump's lead in the polls is enormous, both in the country as a whole and in Iowa.

Among Republican voters throughout the United States, Trump has 60.4% voting intention, compared to 12.1% for DeSantis; 11.7% from Haley and 4.3% from Ramaswamy, according to the FiveThirtyEight survey average. In Iowa his advantage is smaller, but solid: 51.3%, compared to Haley's 17.3%; 16.1% for DeSantis and 6.6% for Ramaswamy.

In that rural and conservative state of 3.2 million inhabitants and 146,000 square kilometers in area, the most active Republican voters will meet this Monday from 7:00 p.m. (2:00 a.m. on Tuesday in mainland Spain) to elect the 40 delegates that Iowa contributes to the convention that will designate the Republican Party candidate for president in July.

The 40 delegates are distributed proportionally to the vote of each candidate. Its weight in the total of almost 2,500 in the convention is minimal (1.6%), but Iowa's influence is much greater as it is the first State to speak. It brings momentum to the campaign, additional funding and media coverage. For this reason, the candidates have been traveling there for months and mingling with the inhabitants of this enormous corn barn, at the state fair and at all kinds of political events. Without the Iowa caucuses, it is possible that neither Jimmy Carter nor Barack Obama would have become president.

“Iowa votes first, and nomination campaigns run sequentially, moving from state to state. “This sequential electoral process has important implications for who wins and who loses in the end,” argue political science professors David Redlawsk, Caroline Tolbert and Todd Donovan in their book Why Iowa? (Why Iowa?).

At the same time, caucuses are not infallible. Since George W. Bush won in 2000, no winner in a competitive Republican caucus has reached the nomination. Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2008, 2012 and 2016, respectively, but the nominees ended up being John McCain, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. The latter came second in the 2016 caucuses, with 24% of the votes compared to 28% for Ted Cruz. Trump initially congratulated Cruz, but later said he had “stolen” the election from him and demanded a new vote.

The Democrats also hold caucuses and assemblies this Monday, but they have admitted that their voting is by mail and is open until March, so all the attention is on the Republican side. There are about 750,000 registered Republican voters eligible to vote. In 2016, when the record was broken, there were 187,000 votes. A 20% turnout is usually the norm, but with snow-covered Iowa, expected temperatures of up to 28 degrees below zero, and a no-win outcome, there is a risk that people will stay home.

Trump and other candidates have turned their latest campaign events into virtual ones due to the difficulties of traveling. From the beginning, the former president has spent many fewer days campaigning in the State than his main rivals. If DeSantis has visited all 99 counties in the State, Ramaswamy has visited them all twice. The candidate tracker Des Moines Register this week listed 25 Trump public rallies in the state since March, compared to more than 125 for DeSantis, 79 for Nikki Haley and more than 300 for Ramaswamy.

Iowa is a state with a very majority white and conservative population in which evangelical Christians have decisive weight. Despite Trump's amorality, the evangelical vote was already key to bringing him to the White House eight years ago. Kristin Kobes du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne. How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation, He explained it in his book as “the culmination of evangelicalism's adoption of a combative masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones a ruthless display of power.” He drew a parallel between Trump and actor John Wayne, “an icon of American masculinity for generations of conservatives” and, over time, “of Christian masculinity,” with his “rudeness and braggadocio.”

This time, Trump doubles down. He has spread a video (God made Trump) in which, with the voice of a famous deceased announcer recreated with artificial intelligence, he is presented as a true Messiah sent directly by God to save the United States. The video, with biblical-sounding language, has offended evangelical pastors in Iowa.

Trump is campaigning as if he were a sitting president. He has not participated in the candidate debates. This week, while Haley and DeSantis were at each other's throats on CNN, he counter-programmed with a gentle interview on Fox News in which he tried to soften his message by disavowing his own words. If he returns to the White House, he said, he will not be a dictator nor will
he dedicate his presidency to revenge — although not for lack of desire, but for lack of time, he explained. 4.6 million viewers watched it, compared to 2.6 million for the debate.

Such a clear victory among his own is what Trump is looking for before doubts arise about whether he will ultimately be able to win the presidential elections, where moderates and independents tip the balance and Haley would seem like a candidate with fewer contraindications. The calendar of the primaries, however, will prevent him from closing the debate soon. After Iowa comes the New Hampshire primary, on January 23, where Haley has great support, but only elects 22 delegates. In February, a trickle of caucuses (Nevada) and primaries (Virgin Islands, South Carolina and Michigan) will leave everything open so that the nomination can be decided in March.

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