Former President Donald Trump was upbeat Monday night after a resounding win in the Iowa caucuses.
Trump received 51 percent of the vote, or 56,260 votes, according to The New York Times, meaning Trump received more votes than the combined total of second-place finisher Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who received 23,240 votes, or 21.2 percent of the vote, and third-place finisher former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who received 21,085 votes, which amounted to 19.1 percent of the total.
Trump’s victory also smashed a caucus record for contested races, according The Associated Press.
Trump’s roughly 30-point victory margin far exceeded that of former Republican Sen. Bob Dole’s 13-pint win in the 1988 caucuses.
“I feel great,” Trump told Fox News in an interview Monday night, shortly after he was declared the winner less than an hour after the caucusing began. “I am greatly honored by such an early call.”
“It really is an honor that, minutes after, they’ve announced I’ve won — against very credible competition — great competition, actually,” Trump said.
“It is a tremendous thing and a tremendous feeling,” Trump said.
“I feel really invigorated and strong for our country,” he said. “We want to Make America Great Again — the greatest slogan ever — and the fact is, that’s what we did.”
Looking ahead, Trump said, “We have to get our country back.”
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“Our country has gone through so many bad things over the last three years and it is continuing to go through bad things,” he said, noting the world has also suffered, pointing to the terrorist massacre in Israel Oct. 7.
Trump said that he successfully built the strength of the military, made the nation energy independent, and achieved “the best economy ever.”
“We’re going to quickly do it all again,” he said. “We are going to fix our border and we are going to do it and do it quickly.”
Trump also issued a call for unity.
“I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together,” Trump told supporters after his win was announced, according to Fox News.
“We want to come together, whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat or liberal or conservative. It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world and straighten out the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we’re witnessing,” he said.
But Trump had no kind words for President Joe Biden.
“I don’t want to be overly rough on the president, but I have to say that he is the worst president that we’ve had in the history of our country, is destroying our country,” Trump said.
