Biden on Trump’s Iowa victory: ‘I don’t think it means anything’
“The president got 50-some-thousand votes," Biden said of Trump's Iowa victory.
Former President Donald Trump pummeled his Republican opponents in Iowa’s caucuses Monday, but President Joe Biden isn’t worried.
"Well, I don't think Iowa means anything,” Biden told reporters Thursday, when asked about the implications of Trump’s victory for his own reelection efforts.
“The president got 50-some-thousand votes, the lowest number of votes anybody who's won got. You know, this idea that he's going to run away, he can think anyway he wants, let him make that judgment,” Biden said.
The former president won less than 57,000 votes on Monday, during a caucus in which turnout was hampered by record-breaking low temperatures, days of blizzard conditions and a generally uncompetitive race in the state.
While other Iowa winners have gotten far less numerical votes than Trump in contests with more competitive fields — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won the 2016 caucuses with 52,000 votes, which accounted for roughly 28 percent of the vote, for example — turnout was very low earlier this week.
According to The Des Moines Register, the 110,000 voters who came out to caucus represented just 15 percent of Iowa’s registered Republicans. Turnout was the lowest it’s been in a GOP presidential primary in 24 years, according to Business Insider.
Trump, however, handily defeated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won just over 21 percent of the vote, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who came in with slightly over 19 percent.
With Trump still crushing his Republican opponents in national polls and Biden dominating a Democratic field that includes Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, the pair appear to be headed for a rematch in November.
Trump, Haley and DeSantis will all appear on the New Hampshire primary ballot on Tuesday. Biden will not be on the ballot in the Granite State next week — although his allies have launched a write-in effort to hand him a win there anyway.