If it’s still to be a contest, it’s up to Nikki Haley in NH.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a caucus night party at the Marriott Hotel in West Des Moines, Iowa, Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Prior to Monday night and going back to 1972, the largest margin of victory in the Iowa Caucuses belonged to Democratic Senator Tom Harkin. He took 76 percent of the vote on caucus night 1992, along with all 49 of Iowa’s convention delegates. The eventual winner of the 1992 election, Bill Clinton, finished Iowa with less than three percent of the vote.

It should be noted that Tom Harkin’s Iowa Caucuses candidacy was an aberration, He was a very popular senator from Iowa at the time of his presidential bid. Following the Iowa Caucuses, he managed only six more delegates before dropping out of the race in mid-March.

In contested Republican races in Iowa, the largest margin of victory was that of Bob Dole in 1988. Dole beat Pat Robertson by 12 percentage points before eventually losing the nomination to George H.W. Bush.

All of this to say that Donald Trump’s 30-point victory over Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who essentially tied for second place is, as Trump himself would say, “yuuuuge.”

Vivek Ramaswamy accepted reality and suspended his campaign Monday night. DeSantis and Haley pledged to press on.

DeSantis’s Buckeye State 99-county all-in strategy did not deliver the results that his campaign promised. As the Trump tsunami rolled over him, he did his best to put a good spin on it.

They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us. They spent almost $50 million attacking us. No one’s face that much…all the way…just through Iowa. You helped us get a ticket punched out of the Hawkeye State. We have a lot of work to do.”

That last sentence is a true statement. Given that he is in mid single digits going into next week’s New Hampshire Primary, it’s hard to see how the DeSantis campaign lasts much longer.

Third place finisher Nikki Haley said this Monday night.

I can safely say tonight, Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race. Thank you, Iowa. We’re going to continue on. We’re going to make you proud. And we’re off to New Hampshire.”

Though she finished third in Iowa, her claim of a two-person race isn’t entirely wrong. Haley still has a plausible case. According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Trump stands at 45 percent, Haley has 31, Chris Christie has 11 and Ramaswamy and DeSantis are essentially tied at six.

With Christie having dropped out and with the likelihood of most of his support shifting to Nikki Haley, Haley is poised to make a contest out of it in New Hampshire before moving on to her home state of South Carolina six weeks from now. She’ll need a strong showing in New Hampshire for the momentum it might provide. Because favorite daughter status notwithstanding, she currently trails Donald Trump in South Carolina by 30 points.

So, if the race for the Republican nomination is to be a race at all, it comes down to New Hampshire and the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary, where we will be next week.