I wonder could we be in a world in which
Trump wins? Iowa, Nikki Haley wins New Hampshire
. And then what? Yeah, look, I
think it's within the realm of possibility that Haley could
win. Um New Hampshire, you know, even
in years where, um you, you've had a
fairly, you know, clear Republican nominee. Um
Iowa, New Hampshire often split. Uh Mitt Romney
came very close to winning Iowa and then won,
uh won New Hampshire. Trump himself lost Iowa and
then won New Hampshire uh in 2016. Um In
terms of like, you know, actual competitive race
, you have to go back to 1976 with Gerald
Ford to find a AAA Republican uh winning both Iowa
and New Hampshire. Although the Iowa caucus at that
time was in sort of AAA proto format. It
was basically a straw poll of sample precincts across the
state. It wasn't the kind of event we we
see today. Um So, you know, and
, and New Hampshire does have a way of kind
of pumping the brakes on this process. But the
flip side of it is that if Trump wins New
Hampshire, um I, I think he's, I
mean, he's in great shape, I think regardless
of what happens in New Hampshire, but he's really
in great shape if he can win. Um Both
Iowa and New Hampshire. So big bags. The
first two, it's kind of over. I'm sensing
from you. VK Ramaswami is out. You can
maybe move those votes into Donald Trump's column. Be
curious to see the impact there. But I've got
to admit I'm kind of chuckling at what we're hearing
from. Uh, both Nikki Haley and Rhonda Santa
Kyle. We, we heard the speeches last night
, Rhonda Santa says he got his ticket punched in
Iowa. They were playing a CDC and dancing around
last night like they won the thing. He was
a distant second in third place. Nikki Haley says
this is now a two person race and she's not
talking about Rhonda Santa. Do they both need a
reality check? Uh I think particularly for DeSantis,
you know, he's in trouble although, you know
, he, I think it's possible that if he
had finished, you know, several points behind Nikki
Haley that he may have dropped, he may have
dropped out. And I guess you could say,
well, maybe that would have helped Haley, although
I think some of his support would have gone to
, you know, would have gone to, to
, to Trump too. Um, and, and
, and, and look, I think we,
you know, there's been a sort of deceptive feeling
about this race in part because Trump skipped the debates
. And so, you know, the most recent
debate, it was just Haley and DeSantis and,
you know, if you're just, if you weren't
really following you tuned in, you say, oh
, here's the two front runners for president on the
Republican side. But actually, you've got basically just
one front runner and he sort of showed it in
Iowa by finishing, you know, basically 30 points
ahead of his nearest competition. Um I guess you
could say, hey, maybe he could have done
better, but, but, you know, he
did basically what the polls suggested the final poll averages
for 5, 38 R politics had Trump at like
52.5. He got 51. I mean, that
seems pretty much on the nose as far as I
can tell. And, um, you know,
Haley had a little bit of late momentum in polls
but the Santas ended up finishing ahead of her.
So again, I think, you know, you
could spit it any way you want, but,
you know, this, this is not a Donald
Trump race versus 50% Donald Trump race versus all the
other candidates and he finished well ahead. Uh,
and particularly as you get later in the process,
you get a lot of winner, take all or
winner, take most, uh, uh, contests
for, for delegates. And, you know,
Trump could be, you know, winning way more
than his share of delegates even if his vote share
. Does fall significantly below 50 in some of these
contests. Kyle, we saw it again, Donald
Trump winning despite being outspent by his rivals and despite
not even visiting the state very many times, the
captain of earned media, free media. This is
something that we've never really seen before. At least
to this extent, will it continue to work or
is the Trump campaign going to have to start investing
more? Look, I think, I think it
all depends on whether Haley, not only wins New
Hampshire, but frankly win South Carolina too. I
really think that in order for this to turn into
like an actual competitive horse race in which there's a
, you know, in which the, the door
is really cracked open for one of these other candidates
. You know, Trump doesn't, you know,
losing New Hampshire isn't enough. I don't think,
I think Trump needs to lose New Hampshire and maybe
South Carolina too. Um heading into heading into Super
Tuesday to really give, um, you know,
his, his leading rival, particularly Nikki Haley a
shot. So, you know, I mean,
look, it was, it was also, you
know, we have these polls that the race is
going on for months and months, but you don't
have any actual voting until Iowa. So Iowa does
have to sort of confirm what the polls have been
telling us. And I think Iowa did a pretty
good job of, of doing that and that Trump
looked like a big front runner and he performed like
a big front runner in Iowa. What did low
turnout mean in the race last night? There were
a lot of narratives going into this that it might
benefit Rhonda Santa who had a strong ground game or
it might help Donald Trump because his supporters were more
passionate. We saw something come in 110,000 as opposed
to the high of more than 180,000 last night.
This is a story of passion Kyle. How do
you see it? Um There was some polling that
indicated that maybe Haley might have benefited that um you
know, turnout had been higher. You know,
the, the finer final uh poll from the,
the respected Iowa pollster, Ann Selzer was talking about
how Haley was, Haley was in second place,
but her support was not particularly enthusiastic. And so
maybe if turnout had been higher, you know,
Haley might have done a little bit better. Although
again, you know, we're talking about basically a
30 point gap between her and, and uh and
Trump, you know, I guess maybe she could
have finished ahead of the Santa given the difference was
only a couple of points between, between the um
the, the, the, the two of them
. You know, it is, I do think
it's a little interesting that, you know, Trump
, um I think has been a sort of galvanizing
force on the Republican side, but you know,
when we haven't necessarily seen great Republican turnout lately,
uh, and even like in the 2022 midterms,
you know, some of the states, it was
, you know, it was a good Republican turnout
on paper but not necessarily good performance. I wouldn't
necessarily equate a primary and a caucus with the general
election or anything like that. But it is just
something to kind of keep, you know, pay
attention to, uh, throughout the primary season.
You know what the turnout looks like. Now,
it may also just be that because Trump is like
a quasi incumbent, there just might not be as
much interest because people may just think that Trump is
going to win anyway. Yeah, I don't know
. I'm having trouble with the, the path here
for anybody not named Donald Trump at this point,
Kyle, even if Nikki Haley blows it out of
New Hampshire wins the state. She also has to
win her own state and it doesn't look like she
can, could this just be a one hit wonder
? Yeah, the, the, uh, new
Hampshire electorate is much more suited for Haley's coalition,
you know, more moderate, less religious Republicans.
A lot of independents will probably cross over and participate
in the New Hampshire caucus. That's, that can
happen in other states. But there's not, there's
not the kind of tradition of it happening. Um
, like there is in, in, in New
Hampshire and this is why I say, you know
, winning. New Hampshire is not enough for Haley
. I mean, again, it's sort of,
I'm sure it'll be, if she does it,
it'd be a great headline. Um, but,
you know, there's a month between New Hampshire and
South Carolina, you've also got Nevada in the middle
of that, which is a very convoluted process in
which the, the, the, the, the
contest that actually awards delegates to caucus. Haley's not
even on the ballot there, Santa is, and
so is Trump? Um Haley is running in a
, in a, in a state run primary that's
not going to award any delegates doesn't really mean anything
. So you got this whole month between New Hampshire
and South Carolina. You know, maybe if,
if Haley wins New Hampshire, that sets her up
to do better in South Carolina, which is,
which is much more like Iowa, you know,
more religious, more conservative state. Not again,
not necessarily uh uh suited for what Haley's coalition looks 00:07:24.130 --> like.