Iowa caucuses Monday set stage for NH primary

The Iowa caucuses on Monday gave us our first concrete look at how voters feel about the race for the White House, with Republicans overwhelmingly backing former President Donald Trump as the party's nominee in the first contest of the primary season.

But down the ballot, after an all-out sprint to the finish line through the frozen tundra of Iowa, the caucuses gave the race a shake-up. Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out and endorsed Trump, while Ron DeSantis was NBC News' projected second-place finisher, just editing out Nikki Haley.

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No presidential hopeful had more on the line than DeSantis, the Florida governor who spent months pouring resources into Iowa.

"We've got our ticket punched out of Iowa," he said at his campaign's watch party.

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NBC10 Boston’s Cory Smith and Sue O’Connell, along with Matt Prichard who is battling the frigid cold in the Hawkeye State, bring you a primetime edition of their show with special coverage of Monday's caucuses. After months of campaigning, polls and speculation, this is the first real test for candidates on the ballot. Follow NBC10 Boston on... Instagram: instagram.com/nbc10boston TikTok: tiktok.com/@nbc10boston Facebook: facebook.com/NBC10Boston X: twitter.com/NBC10Boston

He'll soon head to New Hampshire, for the country's first-in-the-nation presidential primary, being held next Tuesday.

That's where Haley has focused much of her campaign, and she positioned her finish in Monday's caucuses as momentum she'll take into the contest in the Granite State.

(Take a closer look the presidential hopefuls' campaign stops in New Hampshire with our 2024 campaign tracker.)

While the candidates knew how to campaign, some things, like the weather, remained out of their control, and the freezing temperatures were believed to have kept turnout low.