Are tonight’s Iowa caucuses the nail in the coffin for the Republican establishment?

If the polls are right and former President Donald Trump wins big, it will stamp the end of the conservative movement that had defined the GOP since President Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.

Leading conservatives such as the Republican governors of Iowa and New Hampshire are ignored by today’s Trump voters. Nor does it seem to matter to them that Iowa’s top evangelical leader is also endorsing a Trump opponent.

And it makes no difference that movement conservatives of the last 40 years, from Chris Christie to Bill Barr, Liz Cheney and Mike Pence, are shouting that Trump is sinking the party fast in terms of election wins and state party organizing.

Christie, the former New Jersey governor, made it clear in December that the party’s decline under Trump is a slow-motion disaster.

“If Trump is our nominee,” said Christie, who dropped out of the GOP race last week, “we will not only lose the presidency again, but we will lose both houses of Congress, and we will lose races up and down the ticket. And this isn’t speculation.”

The wreckage is everywhere.

Look at the damage done to Americans for Prosperity, arguably the most potent of conservative, grassroots organizations. Backed by conservative billionaire Charles Koch, the group is putting its money and might behind Nikki Haley’s bid for the GOP nomination.

Endorsing........

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