Election '24: DeSantis failed to quell doubters with distant second place finish in Iowa

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis campaigned across all 99 Iowa counties to much fanfare, repeatedly touting the feat and holding a rally to celebrate its completion.

Yet in the end he didn’t win a single county. Former President Donald Trump romped to victory in the Iowa Caucuses, relegating DeSantis to a distant second place.

Trump won 98 Iowa counties Monday. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley won the other county, and that was by just one vote.

DeSantis’ much-touted commitment to earning Iowa votes by campaigning relentlessly in the state proved to be no match for Trump’s fervent base of supporters, who delivered him a 30-point win even as he spent much less time than DeSantis in Iowa.

DeSantis’ second place finish was enough for him to declare that his campaign “got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” and he appears set on continuing his presidential bid, holding events in South Carolina Tuesday.

On Monday afternoon, he told NBC News he was all in the race for the White House, whatever happens in Iowa: "We're going on with this. We've been built for the long haul. It's all about the accumulation of delegates."

Getting past Trump, however, appears to be a monumental task, as Iowa showed. DeSantis may have missed his best opportunity to shake up the race by not finishing stronger, said University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle.

"He really needed to close that gap to be able to make the case he was the most viable alternative to Trump and he needed some distance between himself and Haley to make that argument strong and it just didn’t happen,” Hagle said.

High favorability doesn't equal votes

DeSantis did leave frigid Iowa, where the temperature dropped below zero for the coldest Caucus ever, with some modest victories.

The governor outperformed the final polls in the race showing him in third behind Haley. He improved as a campaigner and impressed many GOP voters. Polls show the majority of Iowa Republicans view DeSantis favorably.

Yet many of these voters picked Trump instead, while Haley is winning anti-Trump Republicans — leaving DeSantis caught in the middle and struggling to find a path to primary wins.

“DeSantis’ strategy was to try to pull those Trump supporters over and it didn’t happen and Haley was scooping up the other folks," Hagle said.

New Hampshire (Jan. 23) and South Carolina (Feb. 24) are up next, but DeSantis trails both Trump and Haley in the two states, according to recent polls.

DeSantis supporters believe he can compete with Trump if the race becomes a one-on-one contest. Haley stands in his way, though, and she is moving into more favorable political territory. New Hampshire has a more moderate electorate that could benefit Haley, who was South Carolina's governor from 2011 to 2017.

Meanwhile, Iowa increased the sense of inevitability around Trump’s nomination.

‘It’s probably not DeSantis’ time’

Voters attending one of DeSantis’ last campaign events in Iowa illustrated the candidate’s dilemma.

Among four voters interviewed at the Chrome Horse Saloon, a biker bar in Cedar Rapids where DeSantis drew a crowd of roughly 100 people Sunday to a room with motorcycles hanging from the ceiling, two said they like DeSantis but were strongly leaning toward Trump, while the other two were undecided but leaning toward Haley.

“I like them both,” Cedar Rapids resident Scott Pinter, who works in the construction industry, said of DeSantis and Trump as he waited for the governor to speak. “If it wasn’t for Trump I’d be backing DeSantis.”

Pinter, 58, said he feels Trump and DeSantis are “both true conservatives” but added that he feels “it’s probably not DeSantis’ time.” He listed off everything he likes about Trump, from the strong economy during his presidency to his border policies.

“I don’t care about the mean tweets, that doesn’t mean anything to me,” Pinter said of Trump. “He did a great job.”

Cedar Rapids resident Jamie Bradley, 44, also likes both Trump and DeSantis, but said “Trump is my number one.”

An account manager for an insurance company, Bradley went to a Trump rally in 2016 and saw him again last year. The Cedar Rapids event was her first time seeing DeSantis.

“If Trump wasn’t running I’d vote for DeSantis,” Bradley said, but “I like Trump more.”

Bradley likes that DeSantis hasn’t been sharply critical of Trump. “I haven’t seen him do digs against (Trump) and I think that’s helped him,” she said.

Yet while DeSantis’ relatively mild approach to criticizing Trump throughout much of the campaign – he sharpened his attacks toward the end – has helped him remain popular with many Trump fans, it also has made it harder to convince people to pick him over Trump.

“Turns out ignoring the frontrunner and his countless vulnerabilities is not, in fact, a winning strategy,” Brendan Buck, who worked as a senior aide for Republican U.S. House speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner, posted on X after the caucus results were final.

Even as DeSantis struggles to make inroads with the MAGA faithful, he also is having a hard time fending off Haley and winning over voters seeking a Trump alternative.

‘We need a change’

Janet and John Albert drove from neighboring Marion to attend DeSantis’ Cedar Rapids event Sunday.

The couple had attended events hosted by Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race after finishing fourth in Iowa, the week before. They were undecided, but leaning toward supporting Haley as they waited to hear DeSantis speak.

Janet Albert voted for Trump in the past but said, “I just feel like we need a change that pulls us together more.”

“I just am afraid of what would happen if Trump became president again,” she added. “I just feel like he’s got so many enemies … I just don’t see it being a good situation.”

Janet Albert said she was “pretty impressed” by Haley. John Albert also liked Haley, saying “she seems to speak from the heart.”

“I wouldn’t call us … hard core Republicans … (or) over the top Republicans…. I wouldn’t consider myself a fanatic Republican,” said John Albert, who retired recently after selling a dry-cleaning business.

While DeSantis has run a hard right campaign aimed at winning over Trump supporters, Haley has attracted more moderate and center-right voters.

Albert said he’s “comfortable” with much of DeSantis’ record, but said the governor was “a little aggressive with Disney” after the company opposed his bill limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. He also criticized DeSantis’ debate performances.

Overall, Albert viewed DeSantis as a “solid candidate” who has done “a great job in Florida.”

A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll released Saturday found that 58% of likely Republican caucusgoers viewed DeSantis favorably. But even more – 69% - viewed Trump favorably.

Looking for 'one-on-one contrast'

DeSantis’ campaign strategy has been squarely aimed at conservatives, but he is struggling to put a dent in Trump’s base of support.

The campaign strategy assumed that Trump critics would back DeSantis in a one-on-one contest, but so far that matchup hasn’t materialized.

The field of candidates has narrowed to three, after Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson dropped out this week. As long as both DeSantis and Haley stay in the race, the Trump opposition will remain fragmented.

“We get this to a one-on-one contrast I think this is a different race at that point,” said Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official who helped found the Never Back Down super PAC supporting DeSantis, as he waited for DeSantis to take the stage Monday at his caucus night party.

Defeating Haley in South Carolina would be a big blow, and DeSantis is focusing on that state over New Hampshire, where his conservative profile is less appealing. A New Hampshire survey released this week by American Research Group had DeSantis with just 4% support, well behind Trump and Haley.

“We’ll see how South Carolina goes in Nikki Haley’s home state and if she’s out by that point before Super Tuesday then we get our one-on-one," Cuccinelli said.

DeSantis allies attending the caucus night event argued that his second place showing proves he’s Trump’s strongest competitor.

“It puts him squarely in the position as the alternative to Donald Trump,” said Jose Oliva, who was Florida House speaker in 2018-20.

But if Haley upsets Trump in New Hampshire – polls show her within striking distance – DeSantis will have a tougher time claiming he’s the best Trump slayer. If Trump wins the next two states he may have too much momentum to stop him, even if the field narrows, Hagle said.

DeSantis invested heavily in Iowa and the state may have been his best opportunity to change the trajectory of the race. After spending so much there, he could have a tougher time competing in other states. His team is vowing to fight on, though.

“I think that there’s still a lot of race to go and we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves over one state and one caucus,” Oliva said. “We should now turn our focus to the next states … and continue to make the case for an alternative because there’s still a large part of the electorate looking for an alternative.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Can DeSantis compete with Trump? Iowa result didn't help his case