Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign accused the media of “election interference” on Monday night after several outlets projected that former president Donald Trump had won the Iowa caucuses just 30 minutes after caucusing began, while voting was still ongoing.
“It is absolutely outrageous that the media would participate in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote,” DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo said in a statement. “The media is in the tank for Trump and this is the most egregious example yet.”
The Associated Press, Fox News, NBC, and CNN all declared Trump the winner of the race around 7:30 p.m. CT.
The pro-DeSantis Never Back Down PAC released a statement on Monday night accusing the outlets of violating their own longstanding policies on the timing of race calls. CNN’s policy “strictly prohibits reporting winners or characterizing the outcome of a statewide contest in any state before all the polls are scheduled to close in every precinct in that state,” while ABC News’ policy is to “not project a winner until the last scheduled poll closing time in each state.”
For NBC News, “Projected winner'” means “NBC has made a projection that a candidate will win the race, but the vote count is not complete. This call is made only after all the polls are scheduled to have closed in that race.” And the Associated Press says it “will not call the winner of a race before all the polls in a jurisdiction are scheduled to close.”
On Monday, the AP explained its projection was based on an analysis of early votes and a survey of voters who planned to participate in the caucus.
DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin said at one caucus site in Dubuque where DeSantis was speaking, “people were still waiting to be checked in when the media started making calls.”
“No one had even voted,” Griffin said. “It’s extremely disrespectful to the voters.”
At the site where @RonDeSantis was speaking in Dubuque, people were still waiting to be checked in when the media started making calls. No one had even voted.
It's extremely disrespectful to the voters. https://t.co/9QWNmwJDlj
— Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) January 16, 2024
DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier said he spoke at multiple precincts on Monday evening and while he was “delivering the closing argument for Ron DeSantis and actually flipping voters, people start getting alerts on their phones saying the race is over.”
“One guy said ‘why do we even bother voting, if it’s already over?’ That is absurd,” Uthmeier said. “We still expect a good night.”
A Ron DeSantis surrogate at Sugar Creek Elementary School looked aghast when National Review asked for his reaction to national outlets calling the race for Trump so quickly.
“If that’s the case, that’s just absolutely irresponsible. We hadn’t even voted in either precinct,” he said. “That’s a big screw-up.”
Most caucus-goers interviewed by National Review shortly after the race was called were less surprised.
DeSantis supporter Catalina Boss let out a long sigh, but said she wasn’t surprised Trump had won. And Nikki Haley supporter Doug Stout said earlier this evening that he believes the Iowa GOP will have 95 percent of the votes tabulated by tonight. “So it’s not like that call would last until tomorrow if something horrible happened and they were wrong,” he said, noting that sample precincts can help predict what the overall results will look like.
“It was clear that nobody was going to get more than he did,” he said of Trump.
Still, NR’s Audrey Fahlberg clocked a “somber” mood inside the DeSantis caucus night party after media outlets declared Trump the winner so quickly.
Meanwhile, a New York Times live election forecast projects Trump will win the race with 53 percent of the vote, while former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley will finish second with 20 percent and DeSantis will follow with 18 percent. Vivek Ramaswamy could finish at 7 percent, according to the outlet’s projection, which can change as the caucuses continue.
While the race calls came in what may be record time, a Trump win comes as little surprise.
A Real Clear Politics average of polls pegged Trump at more than 60 percent nationally, and with 52.5 percent support in Iowa specifically, where he held a sizable lead over Haley and DeSantis, who trailed behind at 18.8 percent and 15.7 percent, respectively.
And in the last NBC News/Des Moines Register poll before the caucus, Trump won support from 48 percent of likely caucus-goers, setting a record for that poll.