The American presidential election campaign kicks into high gear today with the Iowa Caucus. The winners are basically predetermined, al three of them.

Americans, having grown up in the system, instinctively understand the difference between a caucus and a primary, the form most states use to choose party delegates to a presidential nominating convention. If you don’t know the difference, you can find the official explanation here.

For the Democratic Party, the winner is a foregone conclusion. President Joe Biden has no serious challengers. But we won’t know for sure for weeks – the Democrats have changed their caucus and primary rules, which means that even though state law requires the caucus to be held today, the results won’t be announced until later.

Whether Biden should even be running, given his age, is a topic for another day.

That Donald Trump will be the Republican winner is a foregone conclusion. The question is only the margin of victory and who will finish second, Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis. Given that Trump could be barred from running if he lose some of the myriad of court cases he faces, second place could be important.

The big winner of the caucuses though will be neither Republican nor Democrat. It will be Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau is Donald Trump’s biggest fan. They are wildly different politically and by all accounts don’t like each other personally, but a Trump victory is key to any hopes Trudeau has of remaining Prime Minister.

Canada’s next federal election is scheduled for 2025, but we will probably have one earlier, most likely this Spring. That’s because Trudeau figures his best chance of winning is by making Donald Trump and election issue.

Most Canadians have little use for Trump and don’t understand the American fascination with someone so obviously unsuited to lead. Trudeau, beset by scandals, is so low in the polls that were an election held today he would lead his party to an historic defeat – unless he can find an issue to turn his fortunes around. He figures Trump is it.

Donald Trump’s name won’t be on any Canadian ballot of course. But Trudeau will try to tie Trump to Canada’s Conservative Party.

He figures that is his best chance of victory. Canadians across the political spectrum dislike Trump, so Trudeau figures if he can convince the public that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is Trump-like, he may just be able to engineer a political resurrection.

Anyone who looks at the two men closely won’t find many commonalities, either in personality or policies, but facts don’t seem to matter much in political discourse these days. (As children of privilege, you could make a much stronger case on how Trudeau and Trump ae very much alike personally, albeit of different generations.)

For Trudeau, Trump’s continued success will allow him to raise the spectre of “Trump-like” politics coming to Canada. He’s hoping he can instill enough fear into the voters to pull off an upset. Fear has worked for his before.

For that to work, Trudeau needs a strong Trump candidacy. He can’t take the risk of Trump not being around when the next Canadian federal election is scheduled in 2025. He needs to send voters to the polls while Donald Trump is still the bogeyman.

Barring a political miracle, when the Iowa Republican caucus results are announced tonight the winner will be Donald Trump. The real winner though will be Justin Trudeau, his political life kept alive by a Trump victory.

Politics is a strange game sometimes.