How can you call an election over before the ballots are even cast?
That’s what many observers, even in the press, were asking on Monday night after the Associated Press called the Republican Party of Iowa’s Jan. 15 Caucus for President Donald Trump a little over a half hour after the caucuses began.
Many accused the AP of breaking its own rules by calling a race while the polls were still open.
The news organization’s frequently asked question section on political races says, “AP will not call the winner of a race before all the polls in a jurisdiction are scheduled to close.”
In a separate article, the AP said the earliest returns and its own surveys of likely voters indicated President Trump had an “insurmountable lead.”
On X, formerly Twitter, Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg News’ senior White House reporter, said some precincts in the Des Moines area “hadn’t even voted yet when the race was called for Trump.”
Even Donald Trump’s former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer in a post on X called the decision to call the race so early “highly irresponsible.”
Most of the ire came from the Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign. In an interview broadcast by NBC, campaign manager James Uthmeier said the early call was “appalling.”
Mr. Uthmeier said the call before many cast their ballots had a chilling effect on voters.
“One guy said, ‘Why do we even bother voting if it’s already over?’” Mr. Uthmeier said about his experience at a local caucus where he saw voters react to the news alert.
“This is a grave concern. This cannot happen in this country. This challenges the very foundation of our democracy to have winners announced before voting,” Mr. Uthmeier said. “That’s something you see in the Middle East, not the United States of America.”
In an appearance on Des Moines CBS affiliate KCCI, Never Back Down Inc. Chairman and CEO Scott Wagner said people began to leave the caucus before voting once they received word the race was already called for President Trump.
In an X post, Christina Pushaw, the DeSantis campaign’s rapid response director, said “the corporate media has a pro-Biden bias and wants [President Joe Biden] to run against the candidate he already beat before.”
Those gathered at the caucus night watch party for businessman Vivek Ramaswamy were bemused by the prompt declaration.
Troy Barkhaus, of Altoona, who participated in a caucus, said it was improper to declare President Trump the winner when less than 3 percent of the vote had been tallied.
“I would say so, yes. We hadn’t even voted by then,” he said, adding the media should report “something like, he’s in the lead” rather than declaring a winner.
Elliot Frey was surprised—“very much so”—by the early call, but accepted it because “that is the media world we live in.”
Alyssa Wallace and her husband, Seth Wallace, who live in downtown Des Moines, were surprised.
“That’s insane to me to call it that early,” Ms. Wallace said. “We didn’t even vote until at least 7:30.”
According to election results reported by the Republican Party of Iowa, with 78.8 percent of the vote reported at 11:30 Eastern Standard Time, President Trump won 50.9 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis secured 21.3 percent. Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley took 19.1 percent.
Mr. Ramaswamy dropped out of the presidential race on Monday night.
John Haughey contributed to this report.
Again WE THE VOTERS unmask the Liberal media and their fake polls, who by attacking Trump and declaring DiSantis irrelevant proves the need for what Yul Brynner, when playing the part of mythical Ukrainian Cossack leader, Taras Bulba, declared to his sons and his Cossack Ukrainian troops,,,”Put you faith in your sword, and your sword in the polls.” These days The Cossacks are putting their swords into the Russians and it is the friendly Poles who embrace the USA and NATO backed Ukrainians as fellow defenders of Freedom, who provide them with arms, intelligence and technology to fight the Russian oppression. When will WE THE PEOPLE wake up and realize this Democrat party has pre-programmed and purchased our main stream polling media, mostly with redistributed Conservative taxpayer money, or their ultimate intention of diverting TRILLIONS in “Slight of Hand” Taxation without Representation called INFLATION that they create in printing and issuing to their worthless dependency voters in social dependency, worthless dollars to now support even illegal law breakers, money hidden within 3000 page bills that nobody reads, to cover their mistakes, which make the dollars we have even MORE worthless.
The accurate Caucus’s in IOWA required that you show up and provide proper ID, which denies the Democrats from delaying the vote count until they determine how many fake mail-in ballots need to be created to steal the election, allowing an early accurate declaration for Trump.
hundreds of millions (billions ) sent to ukraine to perpetuate a war that never
should have been except for biden’s weakness-
but he and zelenskyy are likely splitting the money-
AND ALL on the tax victims back!
ITS the same way, as to why in many LEFITST ran towns and cities, they STILL CAN’T count the hundreds of thousands of vote, in the SAME WEEK, let alone same night, as the vote is, YET RED CITIES CAN…
The lies, cons, deceptions, hypocrisy, and treachery of this treasonous, woke, socialist Democrat Party cabal and their dishonorable supporters know no bounds. The Democrat Party will do or say Anything to dictate control over the U.S. and we the people.
have to give it to the leftist idiots-
the AP ( a totally leftist organization )
calls an easy softball for donald trump and they still moan and groan-
he came into iowa leading everyone in the polls by huge numbers and the remaining foes could not beat him if they all added up in one vote-
how difficult is that -a first grader could have called the vote-
BECAUSE facts don’t matter.. Just their feelings and agenda/