How Trump Became Unstoppable in Iowa

INDIANOLA, Iowa—As he stood on the brink of a seemingly unstoppable march to another Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways he had been betrayed. “Do you think this is fun? Actually?” the former president mused. “It’s not fun,” he said, “but we’re getting our point across.”

The hundreds of devoted supporters who had braved subzero temperatures Sunday to cram into a second-floor auditorium at the Simpson College student union, half an hour south of Des Moines, hung on Trump’s every word as he riffed for nearly two hours. The crowd was dotted with white caps bearing the words “TRUMP CAUCUS CAPTAIN” in embroidered gold letters, and the former president wore one himself—a totem of the ruthlessly professional organization that Trump’s campaign has built, a far cry from the slapdash operation that failed to deliver him Iowa in early 2016. “These caucuses,” Trump said gleefully, “are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, creeps—and other quite nice people.”