OPINION:
In case you weren’t already aware, the fix is in. Before the first ballot has been cast, the media have already written their headlines for the Iowa caucuses: “Trump underperforms in Iowa.”
According to the Real Clear Politics polling average, former President Donald Trump leads the field with over 52%, ahead of his closest rival by a whopping 36 points. FiveThirtyEight has a similar polling average, putting him at just over 51%, with a lead of 34 points.
That’s a substantial margin, with plenty of room for underperformance. But let’s look at things from a broader historical perspective.
Since 1976, the biggest “landslide” in the Iowa Republican caucuses (excluding elections with a Republican incumbent) came in 1988, when Sen. Bob Dole amassed 37% of the vote and won by 12 points over televangelist Pat Robertson. In many contested elections of that period, Iowa has been decided by 3 points or less, reflecting the intense independence of Iowa caucusgoers.
Iowans pride themselves on making up their own minds, and they take their responsibility as the first state on the election calendar very seriously. They do not just go with the flow and rubber-stamp the national mood.
Mr. Trump is poised to win Iowa, and the victory may be a historic landslide. Even if he severely underperforms his polling lead, he’s still likely to outpace Dole’s record-setting margin. In this case, underperforming should count only if Mr. Trump comes below Dole’s historic 12-point margin ahead of the next closest finisher.
But that’s not the standard to which the media will hold him.
If real journalism still exists in any measurable way in this country, once Mr. Trump emerges victorious from Iowa on Monday night, the truthful headlines should read: “Trump pulls out victory in Iowa despite every imaginable barrier, including unprecedented persecution by government weaponized by his chief opponent.”
Think about it. Mr. Trump has been subjected to a barrage of politically motivated prosecutions over the past year, including several led by prosecutors who actively campaigned on finding a way to “get Trump” by hook or by crook.
The sheer volume of trumped-up charges was designed to overwhelm the flimsiness of the charges themselves in the minds of voters, dooming Trump’s run before it even got started. By all rights, he should be a dead duck. Instead, he’s pulled off a political miracle by managing to increase his standing in both primary and general election polling every time his enemies have launched a fresh assault against him.
That is the real story. But it’s not the story you’ll read in the papers or hear from the pundits. So, let’s do the analysis the mainstream media should be doing but won’t.
How did Mr. Trump manage to pull off the most extraordinary result in modern presidential primary history?
In large measure, it’s because voters see through the facade of the Democrats’ weaponization of government. Iowans in particular, with their steely-eyed realism about the political process, are well aware that the political left is going after Mr. Trump so zealously not because he is weak, but because they are, and because he still poses the greatest threat to their retention of power. It’s obvious that the prosecutions of Mr. Trump are, in fact, political persecutions that constitute an outright abuse of power.
Also, Democratic politicians and strategists are well aware that President Biden’s approval rating — which stands at just 39% — is firmly in Jimmy Carter territory. They’re terrified that Mr. Biden’s fecklessness may usher in a generation of Republican political dominance the way Mr. Carter’s did.
Voters are disillusioned with “Bidenomics,” which has delivered them rising prices, declining real wages, and a lethargic pseudo-recovery as the pandemic has wound down. They’re also increasingly alarmed by Mr. Biden’s inept approach to foreign policy, which has our country facing the real prospect of war on almost every continent, from South America and Europe to the Middle East and China.
This is all while he has intentionally thrust open the southern border to all comers, fueling a national surge in crime and fentanyl overdoses year after year.
Things are so bad for Mr. Biden that even base constituencies in the Democratic Party — including Black, Hispanic and young voters — disapprove of him in record numbers, and polling shows he’s losing to Mr. Trump in most swing states as reflected in mainstream media outlets, of all places. Talk about underperforming.
But Mr. Trump also has another advantage that is propelling his campaign — he’s the only candidate with a genuine, forward-looking policy vision and record that addresses the concerns at the forefront of voters’ minds. Usually, a presidential challenger doesn’t have a record as president to present to voters in contrast to the incumbent. Mr. Trump’s America First policy vision offers proven solutions to our problems at home and the crises around the world.
That’s why Donald Trump is poised to win Iowa “bigly,” setting him up to run the GOP primary table and enter the general election in a position of immense political strength. Remember that when you read the headlines on Tuesday morning.
• Mark Serrano is the founder and president of ProActive Strategies and was a senior adviser to the 2020 Trump campaign.
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