As expected, Trump took the lions share of the delegates in Iowa. It actually would have been news if that had NOT happened. But what I think Iowa showed, at least for Iowa itself, is that the claims of merit and qualification based employment (and POTUS is a job) made by those on the right, aren't necessarily genuine.
Trump has some good qualities but overall he is a manager. His success and failure is largely dependent upon who he assigns to his team. We saw in his first term that, well, it's not a strong suit for him as a political office holder. His instincts may be good in the private sector where "your fired" can keep many people in line, but in DC, well, that didn't do much for him.
Then we have the unkept promises that keep on giving: The wall and not prosecuting Clinton. I won't go on about his failures as I did that back in 2021:
https://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-trump-presidency-rise.html
https://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-trump-presidency-nepotism.html
https://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-trump-presidency-schumer-prophesy.html
In contrast we have DeSantis. DeSantis won by a narrow margin just like Trump did. DeSantis ran Florida like an absolute champ. He had gone along with the lockdowns and then re-evaluated and changed course. This one act impressed me because it is RARE for a person, much less a politician to admit error and change course into media head winds. He was called all kinds of names, including "Death Santis" and even Trump went after him.
Yes, rather than use DeSantis as a model to get rid of Fauci and Birx, he demonized him along with Dems. DeSantis was mostly right once he changed course and largely on the back of that, turned Florida into the premiere "Freedom state". He went from a Governor that barely won his election, to an epic re-election bid.
So here you had a model of winning that Republicans could use. Trump policies, which are very popular with the base AND with a large percent of independents, without the known baggage (see above links).
Next we have Ramaswamy who came out of nowhere and whether you think he's fake or not, is the most articulate candidate since Obama and intellectually leaves Obama in the dust. And, unfortunate I have to say it, he being non-white would completely nuke racism arguments that would inevitably come from the left. You can't make plantation, slavery and Hitler arguments against a Hindu.
So you have two candidates that either have far more successful governing experience and probably has a team ready to go on day one. And you have a candidate that is...was the brightest one in the field, Democrat OR Republican.
Neither of them come even close to Trump.
Tell me again how you vote for Trump AND believe in merit.
Sure, the deep state nonsense that has targeted trump is total anarcho-tyrany. I get that. A DeSantis-Ramaswamy presidency can tackle that (they cannot pardon Trump for state level prosecutions). Yes, we can walk (elect a younger less damaged president) and chew gum (be against the deep state) at the same time. But that's beyond the scope of this post.
Ultimately I understand what is driving Trump's numbers and it has little to do with qualifications.
