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President 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.
According to Tipp Insights, Trump’s “decisive win” in the Hawkeye State and the Granite State has not happened for a Republican candidate since 1976, making his win there all the more gratifying for proponents of the America First movement.
In 1976, then-incumbent President Gerald Ford swept Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, Ford won five straight primaries, according to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum.
Since then, no Republican non-incumbent candidate has won doubleheader victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. Even former President Ronald Reagan did not accomplish such a feat in 1980.
Trump was up against big money and big establishment party power players in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The respective governors of each state even moved to endorse the 45th president’s rivals in a show of apparent anti-Trump sentiment.
Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa, endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., before his defeat in Iowa, and Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., put his support behind Nikki Haley. Despite the machines supporting DeSantis and Haley’s bids, both candidates failed in the two first important battleground primary states.
“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.
