It's the Brian Larra Show on WNYC.

Good morning everyone.

What a night on television for tuning in to see who won.

You could choose the Emmy Awards on Fox,

the NFL playoff game on ABC or the Iowa caucuses on all the news channels.

But ho-hum, there was little suspense in any of them as it turned out right if you bet on the favorites

succession and the bear Donald Trump the Tampa Bay Buccaneers you knew you were

coming out ahead by pretty early in the evening.

In fact, if we learned anything from the Iowa Caucasus,

maybe we learned that contrary to what we like to snarkily think,

opinion polls and weather forecasts are both used. like the

snarkily think, opinion polls and weather forecasts are both usually right.

Like the polls predicted, Donald Trump won by 30 points.

Like the weather service predicted, temperatures and wind chills were dangerously below zero.

So turnout was lower than in 2016, but it was still about the same as in 2008 and 2012,

which were also years with serious competition in the Republican presidential field.

That was interesting.

The basic numbers were that Trump got about 51% of the vote to 21% for Desantis and 19% for Nicki Haley.

Vavak Ramaswami was in single digits and one of the headlines from Iowa,

don't know if you've seen this, is that

Ramaswami has now suspended his campaign. But despite Trump's record

margin of victory for an Iowa caucus night, the Washington Post reminds us that 51% still means nearly half

...