Former President Donald Trump secured a convincing victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, helped by the backing he secured from college-educated voters, a demographic that in the past hasn’t shown great support for him.
Trump won the caucuses, the first official vote of the 2024 presidential nomination process, by garnering more than 50 percent of the votes, with exit polls showing he won support from the majority of college-educated voters who cast a ballot.
In 2016, Trump won 21 percent of voters with a four year college-degree in Iowa when he lost the caucuses to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, analysis by the University of Virginia Center for Politics showed. On Monday, he improved his share of that vote by 16 points, according to entrance polls from CNN, on his way to an easy victory over Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Some polls prior to the vote suggested that Trump was attracting significant support from college-educated voters. The Civiqs survey of 438 likely Republican caucus attendees in Iowa conducted last month suggested that 46 percent of college graduates picked the former president as their first choice along with 39 percent of post-graduates. DeSantis garnered 21 percent of college graduates, while Haley attracted 21 percent, according to the polls.
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Some analysts suggested part of the reason college voters are siding with Trump this time around is the belief that the former president is a favorite to secure the nomination.
“These voters are smart enough to see the writing on the wall that Trump is going to win, and essentially want to get this over with and send him off to battle Biden,” David Kochel, a Republican political strategist in Iowa, told The New York Times recently.
Newsweek contacted the Trump, Haley and DeSantis campaigns for comment via email on Tuesday.
The Trump vote in Iowa was still predominantly made up of voters without college degrees. The CNN exit poll showed that he managed to attract nearly 70 percent of this group to his side, compared to 16 percent who went with DeSantis and 9 percent voting for Haley.
When it comes to college-educated voters, the other candidates may see a silver lining in the way the overall part of this electorate cast its ballot in Iowa. While Trump may have won the majority of the vote from this group, more than 60 percent of college-educated caucusgoers voted for the other candidates.
DeSantis got 26 percent, while Haley won 28 percent, with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy managing to get 8 percent, according to CNN data.
The biotech investor dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination after only managing to secure fourth place in Iowa and instead has thrown his support behind Trump.
The remaining candidates now head to New Hampshire for the first in the nation primary set to take place on January 23. Polls show that Trump holds a lead there as well. An average of polls has the former president with more than 43 percent support, followed by Haley at 29 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.