Did Trump's Iowa win change anything?

Joining Tommy and me to break down what's next in this campaign from the Bulwark. Host of the Next Level podcast, A Man Without a Party, it's Tim Miller.

Nikki Ailey's below that.

Okay, you can get an avocado toast there. Oh my god, all right.

11 points was previously the biggest win in Iowa caucus history. So if the whole fucking state of Iowa was des Moines, Trump still would have won the biggest landslide in the history of the Iowa caucuses. So there's. It's not like there was a demographic group out there. He did poorly with. It's not like that that Iowa, that Iowa, you know, was not as non it is. Iowa is non-representative, but but even in the representative elements of Iowa, uh, he dominated.

So sure, there are ways you could spin it and squint and say, well, uh, you know. He only got 51 or whatever when he was a quasi incumbent. And and was it quite as good as Gore versus Bradley in 99? I? You could spin it all you want. But, like Donald, Trump, won an overwhelming landslide in every demographic group. And like the Republican Party is is almost united, we have one good silver lining that I can get to, but the Republican Party is almost united. Behind a wannabe autocrat.

And that's, that's pretty fucking maddening and disturbing, and.

He, he, really, he just dominated everywhere. There is no spinning this result. The only spin I have, Tim is, or at least piece of context, is yes. Trump won Polk County, but he won it with 6,600 votes. So we're still talking about a tiny group of people, like 110,000 people.

Um, you know, as I assess the carcass of the party that I used to work for, um, uh, and it's this. And one is barely anybody showed up at all. Okay, not just a so a hundred. There were 56, something of this thousand fewer voters in Iowa than in 2016. So, like, this whole notion that Trump brought is bringing in these new low info voters. And you know, people who just like, listen to Joe Rogan. And they were never Republicans before, and now Trump's bringing them in like that.

There is no evidence that that happened. The turnout was down, um, across the board. So I think that could speak to a lack of excitement, it could speak to the fact that it was cold. So I guess we'll learn a little more in New Hampshire.

Uh, but there's not like an influx of of, you know, Red hatted excited, you know, MAGA loyalists that showed up, so that's.

And I think that speaks to potentially a lag in the Biden number when you look at the national election polls. That there are some of these people who are Haley voters who just haven't come to terms with reality yet. Like, love it. And maybe they like, you know, maybe once they do that might tick Biden up a point or two, and so I bet so those are my silver.

I went looking, I went hunting, I went squinting. Uh, so Politico did this analysis. Trump made big gains with older voters. All right, you look at 20 turnouts down fine, but you look at the change from 2016 to 2024, huge consolidation right across the board.

Trump made big gains with older voters over 2016, roughly 30 points better among voters over 45. But he was flat with voters under 30, which may not be a sign of weakness in the older voters. I'm sorry, I.

So it's roughly the same. So, from from voters 45 to, say, 65, he improved by about 30, voters over 65 he also improved by about 30. He did a little bit better with the older voters, but regardless, the younger voters flat 3%.

So the the. The number of young voters turning out for him did not improve, even though he's consolidated the rest of the party. I'm going, I'm, I'm, I'm, hey.

And I got to tell you, the under thirties there were very excited about Mr. Trump and uh, uh, very, uh, enjoying the defeat of the Dissents. And Nikki Haley Uh, and I just, I don't know. I mean, sure, I guess, like on the margins, like Donald Trump's not bringing in excited new young people.

So I guess that's a positive, but I would say on the negative side is that. The young people who are showing up now to Republican events like they are opting in because they like Donald Trump. With the exception of, like a handful of super nerds, you know, who are still like, reading God and Man at Yale. And I love those super nerds. I love them. And I'm just, I'm happy and I like, you know. And I can pick them out of a lineup as soon as I walk into a Republican event. But but, but that's not, that's not what the party is. So, you know, I, that's not that encouraging for me, but I'm happy that it made you happy.

Uh, a lot of, a lot of queens, a lot of Staten Island. Um, you know, uh, a lot of accents, uh, were in the room and, uh. And they had a very different attitude than the types of parties I used to attend, yeah.

Is that just not possible anymore?

Uh, and because what I've heard in the last two cycles is that the national narrative was far more important than anything. These candidates were saying in, like the town hall meeting in Waukee.

And, you know, Donald Trump did that, and other people could have done that Donald Trump's way had they tried. I guess we won't really know, but I don't. I think that a lot of that, you know, sort of early state narrative, you know, kind of, uh, nostalgia that we have for that kind of campaigning. I just, I don't know that it ever was really mattered that much. And I think that now, if you look ahead to 2028 in a presidential race, the way people are consuming news and information these days, I people know these candidates so well. Now, right? I mean, you know, you know the types of, uh, supporters they have, you know, you know the social info media influencers that support them. You know, you get to listen to your favorite fucking podcasts about it, right?

Like, the way that people consume information about the presidential primary is just not is very unlike the way that they consume information about other political campaigns. And so I just I think that, like, if you look at the DESantis campaign, they ran a campaign that that, like, might have worked if it was for a state Senate race, or maybe even a Senate race. In a state like Florida where you don't, you know, have an expectation of knowing a lot about the various candidates. Like, that was not going to be the case. When you're running against Donald Trump, who these people, like, have shrines to him and their home, right? Like they've been following him for a decade now.

And to think that, like, if you were going to put one door hanger on somebody's door. Or you're going to run a 32nd ad about how great of a job you did keeping the beaches open during CoVid. I. And then people are going to be like, Okay, I'm for you now. I just think it totally misunderstands how people consume like information about a presidential race now, particularly one where we have somebody like Trump in it. So I like to me, I don't. Yeah, I think that all of that was just a waste, and, like, Ron DeSantis was just.

Totally, you know, Ron DeSantis donors, like, just lit up seven figures on fire. I know what, it was 35 million on TV, but then all of the ground game, like all of that, was for nothing.

I don't know how, it's hard to tell, right? It's an overdetermined situation because you have. Donald Trump is unique figure. Ron DESantis was, I think, shockingly inept. I remember we, you know when, when Dan on the pod, one of the very early pods, when Ron DeSantis was just announcing. And you know, all these conservatives were lining up behind DeSantis. As like the one true hope. And Dan was like, nobody's heard him speak.

No one, no one, ever has heard him give a speech. Let's.

It's fucking terrible.

I just, I just don't know. I don't know whether to learn the lesson or make sure we don't overlearn the lesson. I don't know.

All right, let's talk about New Hampshire. Tomorrow night's ABC GOP debate was canceled due to a lack of interest.

On Tuesday, Nikki Haley said she wouldn't debate unless Donald Trump or Joe Biden would join her. Trump continues to demur. DeSantis is willing to participate. He said. Haley was too afraid to debate him. Desantis then doubled down on this at a CNN town hall where he said this.

I'm the only candidate that actually agreed to come to New Hampshire to debate. And what does that say? We have four candidates for president now Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nikki, Haley and me. I'm the only one who's not running a basement campaign at this point. Tommy, what do you? what do you? What do you think of this argument?

By the end, it was constant accusations of lying. Haley was dropping her stupid like Ron Lies website all the time, like my my. Um, my bellwether on a lot of these things is when Hannah walks through the room to the kitchen to get something before walking back into the bedroom. So she doesn't have to listen to this crap that I consume all day, every day, uh, if she comments on it or not.

And she was just like, This is horrible. So I don't know that that debate being repeated would have benefited anyone.

But, like, what I want to debate a guy? 4. Uh, when I'm actually trying to beat Donald Trump, No.

Nikki Haley's a basement candidate, like, Who is that for? or who finds that plausible? Especially because she says no to this debate? And what does she get?

And said, She gets a CNN town hall, which, you know, I don't who who in New Hampshire is going to be turning on a CNN Town hall to make this decision? I don't know, but.

So it's kind of unclear what his motivations are. Nikki Haley, on the other hand, not debating, like, I'm of two minds of it. On the one hand, it's like, Okay, I'm okay with you, not debating. Ron DESantis and giving him oxygen. When you're trying to make this a mano, a woman, no thing in New Hampshire, that's fine.

Strategically. But like, do you have to do something? what is it, what? what is she doing? Instead? And if the answer is going back to kind of the last question, well, oh, I'm going to do some town halls in Peterborough and I'm just going to say the same talking points I've been saying since October.

Well, it's like, Well, you lost by 32 in the first contest, okay, so you have to do something to change it up. And while her speech, I agree, love it, there was some energy in the room.

I get she didn't make any new news, she didn't, she didn't break any new ground. Um, you know, uh, your old boss Tommy Plouffe was like ranting, um, at the other night, um, and it was let me see about how. Like she leaves Iowa and then doesn't land in New Hampshire and do an event that morning, like, great news, she doesn't do any.

So it's like, like, where is the fucking urgency? Or like, you don't have to debate around the Santas if you don't want. But I get, I give me some. This is it like, it's all over in six days, right? So I give me something. Punch Trump in the mouth, either rhetorically or physically, or I don't, you know, I don't know what exactly it is, but. But she has to do something to change things up because she's not winning New Hampshire right now.

Um, I think that Christie obviously gives her a boost, but but I, you know, Trump is still in the high forties and and she's got to win.

It was tons of events for the North country, or in southern New Hampshire and the Boston Media markets, and in the coast. So he do in New Hampshire. I don't, you know, I don't remember.

I don't know.

It doesn't make any sense. So. A poll by American research groups show that. Haley and Trump are both at 40, which was a rise from 37 for Trump and 33 for Haley. As the race consolidated. The Kristy bump, as you said, though, a new poll out this morning from Suffolk and the Boston Globe had Trump at 50 and Haley at 36. Ron's still cruising in the, uh, the cinky diggies, uh.

Haley has spent $26 million on ads, Haley plus her packs, and to Trump's 12 million, she's doing this electability argument. Uh, Tim, it does seem like she's sharpened her rhetoric a bit. She's been, she's, I'm not, I'm not a vote.

I'm not a Nikki Haley vote, I'm just saying, like, let's, let's. She had, she went, she made the age argument. She called them both nearly 80. Trump does not like to be referred to as being nearly 80. Tommy hates.

I just she spent the ad thing is what drives me crazy, she spent 26 million on ads. And like, not to provide no meaningful contrast to Donald Trump, like, look, I'm not expecting. I'm not asking Nikki Haley to go full bulwark Trump derangement syndrome and start crying about the state of the democracy. Even though that's, I mean, I would love that, um, I might go up and volunteer for her if she did that.

I don't think that would help her. In the end, you could look at Chris Christie's number, but you do have to offer a contrast with Donald Trump that is meaningful. That tries to get people to change, or you have to change the electorate, or you have to bring new people into the electorate. Like my colleague Sarah Longwell's focus group, like, I was just watching focus groups of these people in New Hampshire, which are the undeclared and they don't even like her. And it's like she's got to either motivate those people to turn out to vote undeclared types. That would have been for Christie and change the makeup of the electorate. Or she's got to win over some of the soft Trump voters, some of the DESantis voters, by offering a legitimate contrast with them. She's doing neither of those things.

She's doing nothing, she's betting on the demographic change, right?

She's making her ads that, uh, these are both candidates of the past. They're both focused on grievance, which is her way of saying Trump is focused on grievance. Cause, whatever. But, uh? And then she makes a little electability argument, which is a strong argument, right? That, like, between Trump and Trump and Biden, is a toss up. But I went in a landslide, right? That is an argument.

Okay, they don't. Most of them aren't even sure they want her over Biden. So, like, electability isn't that strong of an argument for them, most of them are kind of toss up voters in a Haley Biden thing, all right.

And then the other group of people, the Republicans, as we saw from the entrance polls in Iowa, they think Trump won, okay, they think Trump is still the president. So you can't make an electability argument against somebody that, uh, you know, has diluted the entire voting base into thinking that he is an invincible winner. That was that was robbed by the deep state.

So, uh, you know again, if we had a time machine, if we went back to the end of the midterms and and in 2022? And if her and DeSantis had actually run a campaign and spent those $50 million, they've spent on TV, a hundred million and running on TV. Reminding people that Donald Trump's a loser and that he lost in 2020 and that he cost them the 2022 midterms. And that they are both winners. Because Ron won in Florida, and because whatever she polls show that people like her, then, okay, then, yeah, sure, I think that would have been a good argument in December of 2022, but it's January of 2024..

Ron DESantis was a terrible candidate and she still lost to him, she needed to beat him to get the momentum going into New Hampshire. And it is also true that in order to beat Trump in New Hampshire, she's going to need undeclared voters and Democrats to cross over and vote for. And this is what gets us to the broader point about why this is also frustrating is like, undeclared voters and Democrats aren't a path to winning the Republican nomination, right?

So even if that does happen, even if the Galey does win, because there's a surge of undeclared, it's in New Hampshire and it's like, Then what great. Congrats, South Carolina.

So you're Nikki Haley, what is the story you're telling yourself about? How winning New Hampshire creates a path to winning the nomination? Cause there's a story they are telling, that story at the.

It goes, I win New Hampshire and I have a glorious victory and I get to bask in the lights of all the cameras. And people around the world will get to see me and I will feel very great about myself. And then immediately, when I give that speech, that Donald Trump's armor of invisibility and winning, this will be punctured. People will take another look at this race and people will start to say, Wow, maybe Donald Trump is not invincible, after all, and the whole dynamic will change. And then there'll be a month to South Carolina and Donald Trump will be going to court and people will say, Well, man, did you know that? Donald Trump's been indicted four times and has 91 felony counts, and he's not a winner anymore?

Maybe I should reconsider Nikki Haley and then we'll get to South Carolina. And, uh, like, that's what they're telling themselves I which I, which is a preposterous fantasy, or maybe they're hoping for. You know, the hamburger from heaven.

Um, that, uh, as Donald Trump, that is the end of Tim's code for death. Yeah, or maybe, oh. The other thing is, maybe it's like, well, uh, if I win, that allows me to stay in long enough to accrue some delegates. And you know, if Donald Trump goes to jail and Jack Smith saves us, then this summer in Milwaukee, I'll have some delegates to Horse Trade West. I like, Uh, I, but I think all of that is very secondary.

I think the main thing is just this. This kind of fanciful theory of the case that if Donald Trump is defeated, then that will somehow change if.

Um, so Tommy, uh. The Santa's team is now saying they're hoping for a Haley loss in New Hampshire. So that he has a narrow chance of staying in the race through South Carolina. I guess that involves Haley dropping out. Uh, if she does and she gets out, does it matter for?

I mean, there is nothing worse than continuing a campaign once you know it is over.

The time between New Hampshire and South Carolina is long, like a month, a month is forever. In a, in a. In a death March campaign like his, every hour is painful, you know, um, I had an old boss I used to work for.

That was like he signed up for Bootcamp, and he was like, I didn't, didn't realize how long Bootcamp could be. Until I was, I had to experience it one second at a time, and that's kind of like how it is on a losing campaign. It's just every second is painful. So I don't know exactly know why they would want to stay around for a month.

Uh, JVL at the polar, he talked to the about, uh, he wrote about it. How they've achieved catastrophic success, which is like they're doing so, they're doing well enough that they have to stay in. Um, and so, uh, you know, I don't. I don't know if he's necessarily rooting for Nikki, but um, I, you know, I. He has, no, he has no rationale. I mean, you know, all of the great and good supporters of him on the internet, Clay Travis, Tommy Lahren, you know, all your favorites? Um, they're all telling him to get out.

Even even his, even his troll posters have have abandoned him and his donors will too soon.

All right, let's talk about what this could mean. Uh, for Biden, for a lot of Americans, not, not our dear listeners, uh, but for a lot of other people. It hasn't actually sunk in that. A Trump Biden rematch is on the horizon. An AP poll from mid December found that just 20 of respondents were paying attention to politics. And according to recent reporting, internal polling from the Biden camp showed that around 75 of the campaign's targeted undecided voters do not believe Trump will be Biden's opponent in November. So, uh, you know, boy, we got a surprise for them.

All right, they're not going to like it, but some of your.

People have frustrations that exist right now. Trump's weaknesses are more perspective, the danger he poses to democracy, the pro, the possibility he might be convicted of federal crimes, the damage his policies might do. Does Trump's emergence as the nominee?

Biden has 15 points underwater, but he's been in the shit, actually running the country. So the hope is that the return of Trump will wake up. Democrats, in particular, bring back folks who may be drifted away for Biden for whatever policy reason. Maybe it's Gaza, maybe it's something else, uh, and and Steady the ship. I know. I think Sarah Longwell, your cohost over there at the The Bulwark, thinks that we might be at the nadir of the Biden polling era.

Is that a fair characterization? Yeah, yeah, she's um.

Isn't that it doesn't actually matter? If the Trump approval rating continues to get lower, right? Like that, that would be my optimist case. I always compare it to the McCrone Le Pen race in France.

Like, McCrone's popularity was just as Biden's, even worse. We we. Tommy knows about this on his other highly rated podcast pod, Save the World. Um, it discusses the Uruguay, the upcoming Uruguay elections, um, but the McCrone is that all about?

And and Trump when you see him while Tommy was suffering through Nikki. And, uh, Desantis is low rated debate. Um, I'm. I watched Trump on Fox and like, I know, you know, the listeners know that he is a total lunatic that has lost his mind and and has dictatorial aspirations. But like he can, kind of, he's still a reality TV host, right? He can still kind of fake it. And if you're only half paying attention and you kind of think that each other, that is the part that worries me the most, that I think. That if. The theory of the case for Biden rests on the fact that people change their views of the economy because the economy is getting better. Fingers crossed, and that people come to terms with Trump's lunacy. I think those are rational things, but I don't know that that necessarily that everyone's going to have a rational reaction.

We know that if we, if it's assuming it's Biden, Trump, these are two candidates that come to the table with new weaknesses. And we're betting on the fact that Biden's weaknesses are surmountable and Trump's aren't. And I do think like that is just an uncertainty, right? Our job is to make the Biden weaknesses surmountable. Our job is to make sure that Trump, seeming less crazy and more energetic does not make Biden's age, uh, an insurmountable problem.

And on the other hand, our job is to make sure that Trump's efforts to seem normal does not allow for voters. The fact that he did an insurrection overturn Roe v. Wade would be far worse than he was in the first term. And in the first term, he caused incalculable damage to the country. That that does not fade enough for people to get over it and view them both as sort of unfit.

We believe that, but I think we've been so knocked around by the way in which Donald Trump defies gravity. That maybe we're not seeing that like that actually is. And we see it in the polling, right? There are plenty of voters, including Republicans, who say being convicted makes you unfit, Being convicted makes you unacceptable. But I think we've been so kind of bullied by reality that we're not, we're not.

And if 30 of them, even if it's not 30, like, let's say that that's double the reality, and it's 15. Right of people who, if Donald Trump is on trial and he's convicted, or he looks to be convicted, they would, they would not vote for him. I mean, that's a death knell, right? So I do think for Trump, um, I do think that that is, you know, maybe some optimism. Oh, you can, you can. I can see a little light in the cloud.

Based on that, uh, from his lips to God's ears. A lot of conversation about the legal jeopardy Trump is in and what a threat it poses to his, uh, political, uh viability. Why is he spending so much time in court when he doesn't have to? It's so strange. He went to the jury selection for his second defamation trial time.

He could be spending in New Hampshire.

That includes political opponents, it includes a disabled journalist, it includes a gold star. Families. Remember that cause your con fight in the heads.

Yeah, playing the hits in 2016, so I guess I'm not surprised he's in court. I don't think that makes it smart or savvy. Um, I don't know how, what people will think of it.

I mean, I think Trump also intuitively knows that we live in a misogynistic country where victims are often blamed. And he's going to try to bludgeon her in the court of public opinion as part of a political strategy. So that's, I assume, what?

And so for him, some of the court thing is like his own animus against Jean Carroll. Or against the guy that was saying that he wasn't as rich as he was. But some of it, I do think, is this show that he's putting on like, I am the outsider, I'm the businessman, I'm taking on all these people that you hate. And so I think that is like the logical side of it for him.

Um, and and that is obviously working in the Republican Party to tremendous effect. I think it's probably, it's probably unlikely to work in the general election, but I'm not ready to be absolutely a hundred.

Yeah, the judge seemed not to have ever heard of it and wondered if she said, God save America. Um, we got to fix the fucking judiciary, you got to find this person.

Like, we know that Marco Rubio would rather have Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis be president. We all know that, right? The fact that none of these people had the cojones to actually try to challenge him is so maddening and it's so enraging. And I get to know that I will never forgive any of them for it.

And I did Nikki Haley, who I don't really like, as you could tell from this podcast, but would obviously be better than Donald Trump. The fact that her endorsers are just Chris Sununu and Larry Hogan, two kind of Tim Miller squishy, moderate Northeastern Republic, that's all she has. Like, none of these other people have have at least tried to try to beat Donald Trump, like, just pisses me off.

And I and it really, it really sucks.

And Mike Lee's out there, going well. It's a binary choice, it's like, it's not a binary choice. Yet. You could, you could have been an Asa Hutchinson supporter up until two days ago.

I find that pathetic, but I assume that's why these are all kind of rolling out.

He's got to, and I'm like, or what? or what? Somebody's going to primary him, Matt Gaetz is going to primary him.

Like, is that that's what he's worried about? I mean, Marco Rubio's finding his six-year Senate terms. He gets to do whatever he wants.

And yeah, is there, they're going to be back.

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