Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Commentary by Newt Gingrich originally published by RealClearPolicy and RealClearWire
President Donald Trump’s decisive victory in Iowa this week belongs not only to President Trump, but also to the American people.
Despite every media attack, political lawsuit, and old guard establishment effort to destroy Trump and force him out of the election (including blocking his name from ballots), the people of Iowa stood up and said, “no,” he is our candidate.
With more than seven Republican candidates from which to choose, 51 percent of Iowans picked President Trump. With three other candidates, winning outright in a three-way race is a political feat. Trump led the runner-up by nearly 30 percentage points.
As I told Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump is the Republican nominee. Everyone who is upset about that needs to get over it. He is going to win again in New Hampshire this month (although the margin may not be as huge as in Iowa). He’s going to win again in South Carolina next month. The race will be effectively over before Super Tuesday on March 5. And in my view, it’s over now.
The news media doesn’t want to acknowledge this because the networks need to create hype to get attention. The pundits desperately want people to watch them while they go through a charade of make-believe election drama.
The fact is we know who the No. 1 pick will be. The No. 2 pick doesn’t matter – not even for a vice presidential position. Trump’s victory in Iowa is only going to build his momentum.
If you look at the country at large, Trump has 61 percent support among Republicans, according to RealClear Politics. DeSantis and Haley are hovering around 12 percent. Anyone who thinks either of them is somehow going to convert a nearly 50-point deficit is delusional.
There’s a simple explanation for why Trump is attracting so much support. Trump is not just a candidate. Trump is the leader of a nationwide movement of the American people to take power back from the establishment. This is why all the establishment’s attacks aren’t working with Americans. Every time Trump is attacked in court or in the media, he gets stronger. People see a corrupt establishment desperately trying to protect itself – despite the will of the people.
Eight years after its invention, Russian collusion hoax has come back to bite the establishment. The American people now understand that it was a total lie cooked up by the Democrats and the Washington establishment to stop a candidate (and later president) who would take away their power. And this rejection of big government-bureaucratic-central control has been building for decades. Trump has merely been the voice that articulates it clearly.
Iowa used to be a tricky place to campaign in a Republican caucus. It was moderate and comfortable with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt bureaucratic system which has existed and grown for 91 years. This has clearly changed. Republicans now occupy every state-wide elected office in Iowa except one (the state auditor is a Democrat). Republicans also hold all federal offices – and a huge majority of the state legislature.
President Trump just won by a historically large margin in a multi-candidate field, and he’s going to keep winning.
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For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.
