DeSantis, Haley want a 1-on-1 race with Trump. First, they're trying to take out each other

“Phony.” “Tricky.” “Too lame to lead.”

These claims from negative Iowa campaign ads aren’t attacks on front-runner Donald Trump.

They're name-calling between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley as they brawl on the airwaves over who will become the prime challenger to the former president for the Republican presidential nomination.

With less than a month before the Iowa Caucuses, Trump maintains a dominant lead in polling, while DeSantis and Haley jockey for second place in Iowa and other early voting states.

A recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Trump with 51% support among likely Republican caucusgoers, more than 30 percentage points ahead of DeSantis, at 19%, and Haley, at 16%.

David Kochel, a Republican strategist who opposes Trump but is not supporting another candidate, said both candidates need the field to narrow as quickly as possible to a one-on-one race with Trump.

It’s the equivalent of Trump already making it to the Super Bowl, while Haley and DeSantis are still trying to secure a spot, he said.

“They’re going to focus on each other because they’re both trying to get to the finals,” he said. “Trump’s already in the finals. He’s got a bye into the finals, and they’ve got to play the game in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina.”

Making it a ‘2 person race’: DeSantis bets on Iowa, while Haley looks to New Hampshire

DeSantis and Haley have the same goal: They need to impress in the early GOP contests — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — to knock out other challengers.

DeSantis is betting on an old-school Iowa campaign to propel him forward.

He completed the “full Grassley,” visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties over the course of more than 130 campaign stops. Supporters with his super PAC, Never Back Down, have said they've knocked on 755,000 doors in Iowa by mid-December, with plans to contact every targeted voter at least five times.

DeSantis’ intense focus on Iowa helped earn him the endorsement of Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.

DeSantis told reporters he anticipates a strong finish in the Iowa Caucuses will winnow the field, allowing him to take on Trump directly in the next primary states.

“I'm the only one that could possibly defeat Donald Trump in a primary, in a one-on-one, because I have the ability to win voters who are very conservative, conservative, somewhat conservative, in a way that the other candidates just simply cannot,” DeSantis said. “I think Iowa’s going to be able to show that very clearly, given the ideological demographics of the caucus.

“It should be very clear on the night of Jan. 15 that this is a two-person race between Donald Trump and myself."

Although Haley has seen her poll numbers rise to challenge DeSantis for second place, she’s been a less frequent visitor to Iowa. She’s made a stronger showing in New Hampshire, winning the endorsement of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

At a November town hall in Ankeny, Haley walked the crowd through her early state strategy, citing her strength in New Hampshire and her home-field advantage in South Carolina, where she served as governor.

"We’re going to see three to four people fight for Iowa," she said. "A couple people are going to drop, then we’re going to go into New Hampshire and then we’re going to fight for Granite Staters. Then more people are going to drop, and then I go head to head with Trump in my home state of South Carolina. And we take it."

Sununu told reporters he believes the GOP primary will become a two-person race between Trump and Haley.

“There’s going to be no choice but for those other candidates to say, 'Hey, we ran a good race … but we’re all gonna get behind Nikki Haley now,'” Sununu said, according to NBC News.

Kochel said the expectations are higher for DeSantis in Iowa because he’s focused his campaign more heavily on the state.

“I think the pressure is on him to perform in Iowa unless he starts to grow his support in New Hampshire and South Carolina,” he said.

Attack ads paint Haley as too liberal, DeSantis as a liar

As DeSantis and Haley try to bolster their support in early states, their campaigns and super PACs have dumped money into negative advertising. Many of these ads have focused on each other, rather than the former president.

DeSantis’ campaign and super PACs supporting his candidacy such as Never Back Down and Fight Right have unleashed a slew of ads against Haley.

Federal Election Commission data provided by American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC, shows Never Back Down spent more than $4 million on ads attacking Haley from July 1 to Nov. 6. That’s 10 times the amount the PAC spent going after Trump in the same time frame.

One recent ad from Fight Right shows a cracked stone bust of Hillary Clinton hovering beside videos of Nikki Haley. The ad includes clips of Haley talking about how a speech from Clinton inspired her to enter politics — but the clips do not include Haley’s repeated statements that she does not agree with Clinton’s political ideology.

Another Fight Right ad ends with a simple warning to viewers: “You can’t trust Tricky Nikki.”

Haley typically refrains from mentioning DeSantis on the campaign trail. But at a town hall in Altoona on Sunday night, she addressed the attacks.

"Let me tell you, I am seeing the ads that you are seeing on TV," she told the crowd. "Ron DeSantis has not put one truthful ad up there about me. He has spent millions of dollars against me."

"And while he’s lying about me, I’m going to tell you the truth about him because he doesn’t want to hear it," Haley added, attacking DeSantis' record on energy and spending policy.

SFA Fund, a super PAC supporting Haley, has run its own ads in response, accusing DeSantis of “lying” about Haley and “throwing mud” because of her rise in the polls.

“DeSantis is lying about Nikki because he’s losing,” a Haley campaign spokesperson said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. “Ultimately, this is a two-person race between Nikki and Donald Trump, and we hope to see him on the debate stage.”

More: Few Republican women make it to Caucus Day. As Nikki Haley closes in, gendered attacks rise.

One SFA Fund ad that began airing in Iowa in December shows DeSantis mimicking Trump’s phrases and hand gestures.

“What a phony,” the ad’s narrator says at the end of the 30-second spot. “Ron DeSantis: Too lame to lead. Too weak to win.”

The DeSantis campaign provided data showing SFA Fund spent $4.9 million against DeSantis between mid-October and early December. During that period, Haley’s team ran even more negative ads against DeSantis than Trump’s team ran against him.

The DeSantis campaign said there’s been over $10 million in negative ad spending against DeSantis since April.

Candidates portray attacks against them as sign of strength, but Iowans say they’re tired of the negativity

Negative attention is still attention. Both Haley and DeSantis have brushed off the attacks from each other, arguing it’s a sign of their campaign’s own strength.

When asked about Haley’s rise in polls, DeSantis often points to Trump's and Haley’s negative ad buys against him as proof that he’s the bigger threat in the race.

“I would just watch where the money goes,” DeSantis said in Marshalltown on Nov. 17. “Who are they attacking? That shows you who the threat is.”

And when DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy began the fourth Republican presidential debate with immediate criticism of Haley, she quipped: “I love all of the attention, fellas. Thank you for that.”

When Ramaswamy and DeSantis attacked Haley for receiving corporate donations, she responded, “they're just jealous and wish that they were supporting them.”

Donald Morfitt, a 65-year-old retired Missile Defense Agency worker from Spirit Lake, saw Haley speak earlier this month and said he’s planning to caucus for her. He attributes the attacks between the candidates to Haley’s rise in the polls.

“I think they’re talking to who’s across the stage from them,” he said, referring to the debate. “But I believe that some of that friction may be the fact that she is doing well and improving in the polls and would have a good chance to win.”

Other Iowa caucusgoers say they’re fed up with all the negative ads between Haley and DeSantis.

Linda Herington, a Republican from Waukee, saw Haley speak there recently. The retiree, who is in her 70s, said she’s “80% sure” she’ll support Haley, but is also considering DeSantis.

“I’m not overly crazy about it,” she said of the candidates’ attacks on each other. “I would rather (they) not be attacking but just really talking about how they would do and focusing on their policy.”

Herington says she doesn’t want DeSantis and Haley to spend their time attacking Trump either.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “There again, he will do that. He’s going to go after them, name call them, talk about their appearance — don’t like it. I don’t like it. We should be above that.”

Michelle Gescheidler, a 58-year-old real estate appraiser, also saw Haley speak in Waukee.  Gescheidler, who is registered as an independent but leans Republican, said she’s decided to support Haley. She hopes to avoid a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Gescheidler said she disagrees with the ads the DeSantis and Haley camps are airing against each other.

“I think that they should be touting what they can bring to the table so that we know what they are going to do, not what they think is bad about other people,” she said. “We can figure that out.”

She doesn’t really want to see the candidates spend their time attacking Trump, either, but said that makes more sense than going after each other.

“I just think if they’re going to place and do comparisons and say this is not the guy for you, why are you wasting your time on each other? … If you’re going to draw your comparison, I would rather them draw it between them and Trump than other candidates.”

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

Katie Akin is a politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Why DeSantis and Haley attack each other more than they attack Trump