WELLMAN

The negative three-degree temperature Monday night did not dissuade Republican caucus goers in Wellman from showing up at the Parkside Activities Center to express their presidential preference. When the doors closed at 7 p.m., folks were still coming in, eventually filling every seat in the banquet room.

“I didn’t expect there was going to be this many people here,” Caucus Chair Jack Seward remarked before getting the proceedings underway.

Three minutes were allotted a single speaker on behalf of each of the seven candidates on the ballot, but speakers only stood up for three of them: Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and, after a pause long enough for the chair to believe there would be none, Donald Trump.

“We need someone that can serve for eight years and win. Someone that our grandchildren and your grandchildren can look up to as a role model. Someone who is fighting for our issues, not theirs,” the speaker on behalf of Ron DeSantis said.

“Our America First movement cannot end with Donald Trump. Don’t fall for their tricks. Vivek is the last chance to make sure America First outlives Trump. I know it may feel very uncomfortable for you to switch your vote for Trump to Vivek tonight, but I’m asking you to do it for your country,” the speaker on behalf of Vivek Ramaswamy said.

Each speaker earned applause, but when the third speaker ended his three minutes on behalf of Donald Trump with, “God’s grace is on Donald Trump!” the whoop-filled applause was more spirited, foreshadowing the vote results to come.

Attendees wrote the name of their preferred candidate on paper ballots, which were then folded and tucked into a manilla envelope for collection. Seward then read out the name on each ballot and placed them into piles for each candidate, a process that took 12 minutes to get through all 131 ballots. The ballots were then counted under observation by the three speakers and a volunteer to observe those for Nikki Haley.

The winner was clear before the final numbers were tallied: 89 votes for Trump (68%), 17 for DeSantis (13%), 17 for Ramaswamy (13%), and 8 for Haley (6%).

The results for Wellman, which had the highest precinct turnout in Washington County, did not exactly mirror those for the state overall, although Trump did win the state with 51% of the overall vote. Runners-up statewide were DeSantis at 21%, Haley at 19%, and Ramaswamy at 8%.

Republican caucus goers in Lone Tree (64%), Kalona (60%), Hills (56%), and Riverside (49%) all gave Trump the majority of votes over other candidates.

Trump’s margin of victory in Iowa broke the record set by Bob Dole in 1988, thus giving him a historic win. DeSantis and Haley will continue to campaign, and Ramaswamy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump following the caucus outcome.

While the Iowa Caucus is not a good predictor of who will become the party’s presidential nominee, it does help narrow the field.

More than 110,000 Iowans participated in the 2024 Republican caucuses, somewhat short of the record 187,000 caucus goers who turned out in 2016. Weather may have been a factor.