WAS TRUMP THE FIRST GOP CANDIDATE TO WIN IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE IN 48 YEARS?
Donald Trump made history in the past week for several reasons, starting with a record-breaking win in the Iowa caucuses and then rounding things off with a smashing primary victory in New Hampshire.
Notably, President Trump also earned the highest raw vote total of any primary candidate in New Hampshire history on Tuesday night, as well, according to InteractivePolls.
The president made history yet again on Tuesday evening, however, when he became the first non-incumbent Republican candidate in 48 years to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, resoundingly trouncing billionaire-funded GOP hopeful Nikki Haley.
READ MORE: TRUMP SLAMS HALEY: ‘CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO NIKKI HALEY THAT SHE LOST’
As the Tipp Insights, Trump’s “decisive win” in the Granite State and the Hawkeye State is unprecedented for a Republican candidate since 1976. Therefore, supporters of the America First movement are even more delighted with his victory in both states.
Gerald Ford, the president at the time, won both Iowa and New Hampshire in 1976. As per the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, Ford really emerged victorious in five out of six primaries.
No Republican challenger to the incumbent has since achieved consecutive victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire. In 1980, not even the former president Ronald Reagan achieved such a feat.
READ MORE: Trump Gains Overwhelming Support with 100+ Endorsements Surging from South Carolina
This graph from the Constitution Center gives a picture of the Iowa/New Hampshire combination pattern up until 2008. In 2016, Trump won New Hampshire in the GOP primary as a non-incumbent, but he did not win the Iowa caucuses.
In Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump faced formidable opposition from powerful establishment party figures and large sums of money. In an apparent display of anti-Trump attitude, the governors of each state even went so far as to support the opponents of the 45th president.
Before losing in Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) supported Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), while Governor Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) supported Nikki Haley. DeSantis and Haley lost in the first two crucial battleground primary states, even with the machines endorsing their campaigns.
“I have now beaten the once very popular sitting Governor of Iowa, and the once fairly popular sitting Governor of New Hampshire – and now BOTH are extremely unpopular within their States, and within the Republican Party!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
Trump’s two-pronged victory as a non-sitting president is momentous, and it is perhaps a foreshadowing of the enthusiasm that voters will bring to the ballot box in November 2024 in the upcoming general election.