He showed notable weaknesses in suburban and urban areas. In more than 36 suburban precincts, Trump received less than a quarter of the vote, despite his landslide victory in a similar number of rural precincts with more than 90% of the vote. . These patterns behind Trump's overwhelming overall performance reflect trends that have plagued the Republican Party over his past few election cycles.
So while the data shows how Trump has consolidated a majority of Republican support, it also reveals his relative vulnerability among suburban and highly educated voters. Fuel his 2020 losses.
Compared to 2016, Trump has improved almost everywhere.
With a smaller Republican field and his semi-incumbency status, Trump improved on his previous Iowa caucus performance across the state.
A former president who once ran against evangelical voters in Iowa and lost to the senator. ted cruz In the state — he gained the most ground where he was weakest eight years ago, according to a POLITICO analysis of precinct results from both elections. Eight years ago, dozens of districts gave Trump less than 10% of the convention vote. This year he received 35% of the vote in the district.
Some of Trump's weakest spots last time were traditional Republican strongholds that favored Senator Cruz. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) And in 2016, there was even Ben Carson against then-rebel Trump.
Trump finished fourth in Sioux County, which has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1940, with just 11% of the 2016 vote. But on Monday, he won the county decisively with 45% of the vote. This is an improvement of 34 percentage points.
He also continued to make gains in areas that were already his strongholds. Fremont County, in the southwestern corner of Iowa along the Nebraska-Missouri border, was the county where Trump performed best in 2016, winning 42% of the vote. This year he won 68% of the vote there.
The challenge for other Republican candidates and critics seeking alternatives to Trump is clear. Trump has had no trouble entrenching his own base and even expanding his support within the Republican Party. The party that was once divided around him has become largely unified.
There is a clear pattern to what Trump did well and what he did badly.
Trump's performance in Iowa helped solidify his front-runner status. But the fact that nearly half of convention attendees voted for another candidate suggests Republicans want an alternative to Trump.
This geographic concentration of votes clearly shows the types of voters who are still most wary of Trump: those in the suburbs and in areas with more college graduates. Losses among these groups cost Trump dearly in 2020 and have continued to plague Republicans ever since.
Johnson County was the only county that Trump did not win outright. It is home to the University of Iowa and is the only county in Iowa where a majority of adults have a bachelor's degree. Results reported Monday night showed Haley ahead of him by just one vote. Trump also struggled in Ames, home to Iowa State University, winning just 27% of the vote in the city's 22 precincts.
The roughly 200 districts Trump lost were mostly suburban and urban. Haley performed best in suburban districts and districts with large numbers of college-educated voters, but won at least one district in only 15 counties. DeSantis' district wins were more widespread across the state, with the Florida governor winning districts in 28 counties.
Trump also performed poorly in areas where he fell short of President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. This is where Republican and independent voters, who can participate in the Republican National Convention by joining their party on the day of the convention, tend to be more moderate than red. division. Of the six counties in Iowa that Biden won in 2020 – all mostly urban or suburban – Trump won 50% of the vote Monday in only one of them, Black Hawk County, home to Waterloo.
Presidential election poll reveals President Trump's weaknesses
Monday night's position poll provides a closer look at non-Trump voters.
Trump's overall increase in vote share (about 27 percentage points from 2016 to 2024) was skewed across the electorate, with the slowest Republicans matching the profile of swing voters who have shifted away from the Republican Party in recent years.
When we arrived Monday night, an admissions poll of caucus attendees showed a yawning gap by education level as suggested by precinct results. Two in three Republican Caucus attendees without a college degree, or 67%, voted for Trump on Monday. That was a big gain compared to 2016, when he won 28% of voters.
But Trump won only 37% of caucus attendees with a college degree. This is up from 21% in 2016, but is much lower.
This reflects dynamics among the wider national electorate. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, Biden led Trump by 27 percentage points among voters with a bachelor's degree, but Trump led by 15 percentage points among voters without a degree.
This college admissions poll also showed that President Trump gained much larger gains among older convention attendees, up 32 points among those aged 65 and older and 29 points among those aged 45 to 64.
But Trump won by just 3 percentage points, essentially tied with the youngest caucus attendees under 30.
This belies much of the public polling from the general election, which shows Trump making significant gains with young voters in his race against Biden. While this response may have stemmed from dissatisfaction with Biden, Iowa did not see a surge in young voters' interest in Trump when it actually came time to vote.