Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. I know it's early. I know it's the day after the Iowa caucuses.

But let's face facts here, folks. Donald Trump is so far out ahead of the rest of the field that no one else has a plausible shot at the nomination that was confirmed last night in the Iowa caucuses when Donald Trump broke 50 percent and none of the other candidates was able to break 22%.

That is an insurmountable lead for Donald Trump in these primaries.

So last night, the Iowa caucuses opened at 7 p.m. local time.

And by 7.30, every major outlet was calling the Iowa caucuses for Donald Trump.

Now, it's pretty controversial.

It's controversial because there were still people who not only hadn't voted, they hadn't even started the speechmaking process, the way the caucuses work on the Republican side as the people show up in these local locations and all of various candidates have their surrogates who come and make speeches and then everybody votes. The reason that all of these outlets were able to make this call so early is because, of course,

the polling data in terms of entrance polling showed Trump so far out ahead that there was no

plausible challenger. Now, a lot of questions as to whether these outlets should have done that,

because after all, literally zero votes had been counted at the point at which all of these

projections were made. And there was a lot of question from the DeSantis camp and from the Haley camp about whether

that affected what was going on inside the actual caucus halls, that there are people who were checking their phones seeing that Fox News, for example, had called the race and simply decided, okay, well, I'm here anyway, I may as well just vote for the guy who won, and may as well vote for Trump. here is what it sounded like when all of these various outlets called the race extremely early.

CNN projects that who won and may as well vote for Trump. Here is what it sounded like when all of these various outlets called the race extremely early.

CNN projects that Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses.

CNN can make this projection based on his overwhelming lead in our entrance poll of Iowa caucus

goers and some initial votes that are coming in, the former president, pulling off a huge early victory in his bid to return to the White House.

I'm going to interrupt myself because NBC News can now project at this hour at 8.33 p.m., 733 central time.

It's 833 in the East Coast, 733 central time, that former president Donald J. Trump

will be the projected winner in the Iowa caucuses for the 2024 presidential election.

So based on the first results in our Fox News voter analysis, the Fox News decision desk can now

project that former president Donald Trump will

win the Iowa caucuses. He will take the lion's share of the state's 40 delegates. This result

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