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In Iowa in America’s mid-west, the winter is biting hard. Blizzard conditions with heavy wind and snow, accompanied by temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius rendered roads and footpaths invisible, and were no doubt a reason voter turn-out at this week’s Iowa primary was low.
Nonetheless, those Republicans who did brave the weather to cast a vote for the person they want to be the next president were in no doubt about who they wanted to put (back) in the White House. As predicted, Donald Trump won comfortably with over 50% of the vote; then there was daylight, and then there was Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley in that order.
But while the result may have been a foregone conclusion, write Emma Shortis and Liam Byrne, is it still significant: “The vote shows that the majority of Republican participants in Iowa were willing to publicly declare their support for a candidate who has incited an insurrection and been charged with 91 separate felonies, threatened violent retribution against his political opponents and promised to act as a dictator on ‘day one’ of a potential second term in
office”.
So now, attention turns to New Hampshire which votes on Tuesday – and while Trump is again expected to win, Haley is tipped to poll better than DeSantis in this more liberal state.
How did two relatively small, and largely white, US states come to hold such significance in the US presidential race? As Ava Kalinauskas and Samuel Garrett explain, the answer takes us back to 1976, when Democrat and presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter ran a grassroots campaign in the two states that led to early and unexpected success, demonstrating the momentum early wins can bring.
While Iowa has at best a patchy record of predicting future presidents, almost every major party nominee since 1972 has won either Iowa or New Hampshire – the notable exceptions being Bill Clinton in 1992 and Joe Biden in 2020.
So now, we wait and see what New Hampshire brings, as the year fires up and leads towards November and what feels like an inevitable contest between Trump and Biden, again.
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Amanda Dunn
Politics + Society Editor
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Ava Kalinauskas, University of Sydney; Samuel Garrett, University of Sydney
Iowa and New Hampshire have long cemented their status as the first-in-the-nation deciders in presidential nominating contests. This outsized influence has increasingly come under scrutiny.
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Emma Shortis, RMIT University; Liam Byrne, The University of Melbourne
The result confirms the vast majority of Republican voters are still infatuated with the former president, despite his legal troubles and how little campaigning he’s done thus far.
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Weekend long reads
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Ian Tyrrell, UNSW Sydney
The Undertow tells how the cultural divisions in American society could allow events like the Capitol storming to happen – and how, despite this, Trump is the Republican frontrunner for president.
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Alistair Sisson, Macquarie University
Australia’s housing crisis shows no sign of abating, but planning reforms to increase supply is only part of the solution.
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Georgia Phillips, University of Adelaide
A deep philosophical exploration of the subjective nature of historical knowledge and memory runs through Anne Michaels smart and poignant new novel.
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Ned Curthoys, The University of Western Australia
Politica is set in an unnamed town where past is ever present, and the present is barely tolerable in the absence of a hopeful future.
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Elizabeth Leane, University of Tasmania
Five recent novels about the Antarctic make for cool reading on a hot summer day.
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Our most-read article this week
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Mark Goldsworthy, CSIRO
While running it briefly and intermittently at a very low temperature may feel thrifty, it will not be the most energy efficient choice. Here’s what to do instead.
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In case you missed this week's big stories
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Paul Taucher, Murdoch University; Dean Aszkielowicz, Murdoch University
The International Court of Justice has heard arguments from each side of an extraordinary genocide case. What was said, and what happens now?
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Natasha Lindstaedt, University of Essex
The Houthis have taken over much of northern Yemen, since they stormed the capital, Sanaa in 2014.
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Nicholas Reece, The University of Melbourne
In 2024, more than 40% of the world’s population is eligible to vote in an election. The scale is unprecedented, but not all elections are made equal. What will it mean for democracy?
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Kai-Ping Huang, National Taiwan University
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has retained government, but it wasn’t a straightforward race. The campaign revealed much about Taiwan’s changing politics.
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John Quiggin, The University of Queensland
The World Economic Forum was once about spreading wealth. But in the past three years, the wealth of the world’s top five billionaires has more than doubled while 60% of humanity has grown poorer.
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Toby Walsh, UNSW Sydney
The Australian government has finally released a response to last year’s public consultation on the safe and responsible use of AI. Here’s what it entails.
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Milad Haghani, UNSW Sydney
Australian road deaths have risen to levels not seen in nearly a decade. If the current trend continues, meeting the ‘Vision Zero’ target by 2050 appears impossible.
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Jonathan Ritchie, Deakin University; Brad Underhill, Deakin University
The deadly violence in Port Moresby has several triggers – but deeper answers can be found in the city’s history.
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David Tuffley, Griffith University
In what is colourfully termed a ‘brute force’ attack, hackers use bots to test millions of username and password combinations on different websites – until they find a match.
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Andrea Waling, La Trobe University
A new campaign encourages young Australians to get tested for STIs more frequently and to take other measures to improve their sexual health.
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Saskia Roberts, Australian National University
Poor Things accurately depicts girls’ early sexual feelings and shows us some more positive ways of understanding girlhood sexual desire.
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Shane Clifton, University of Sydney; Jemma Clifton, UNSW Sydney
In The Dreamer, Chapelle laughs at disability, bisexuality and gay men. But his jokes continue to come back to one target: the transgender community.
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