Another poll undercuts DeSantis’s claims that his underperforming campaign has momentum
By Marc Caputo
When Donald Trump’s super PAC began a new $1 million ad campaign attacking Ron DeSantis in Iowa, the Florida governor’s presidential campaign was quick to declare it good news.
“Team Trump is now being forced to publicly admit that Ron DeSantis is climbing in Iowa,” the campaign told The New York Times late Friday.
On Monday, that talking point took a major hit with the release of the widely respected Iowa Poll, which showed DeSantis losing 3 percentage points in two months.
That put DeSantis at an anemic 16%, tied with Nikki Haley, who jumped 10 points. Trump, meanwhile, gained a marginal 1 point and has 43% support overall, little threatened by either.
Beyond undercutting the DeSantis narrative that he’s “climbing” or that the primary is “a two-man race,” the poll also highlights the alternate universe constructed by a chronically underperforming candidate — starting with his glitch-filled launch on Twitter, which his campaign claimed was a positive sign he “broke the Internet.” By that point, DeSantis was already falling in polls.
“First it was ‘wait until we launch, he’ll do better.’ Then it was ‘wait until the first debate.’ Then it was ‘wait until Oct. 31,’” said a top campaign fundraiser who spoke on condition of anonymity to vent frustrations without repercussions. “Do we have polling that isn’t as bad as the Iowa Poll? Yes. Do we believe our polling? Yes. Does it matter? No. It’s another p.r. disaster of not meeting expectations.”
Still, the DeSantis campaign isn’t completely wrong about the view of his candidacy in the eyes of Trump or his MAGA Inc. super PAC, which has spent $21.5 million attacking the governor, according to campaign finance reports. That’s on top of $282,000 from a pro-Haley super PAC targeting DeSantis, who has been the target of more negative independent expenditures — $21.8 million — than any other presidential candidate this cycle, including President Joe Biden, according to independent campaign finance analyst Rob Pyers.
“The Trump camp isn’t scared of DeSantis,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who is also close to MAGA Inc.’s pollster and strategic consultant Tony Fabrizio.
“The Trump camp is responding to the media hype over Ron DeSantis and they’re putting the final nails in DeSantis’s coffin. Nikki Haley is definitely a threat – but to Ron DeSantis,” Stone said. “When Trump wins Iowa, he’s going to be the nominee. And the fact is Ron DeSantis’s disloyalty to Trump needs to be repaid.”
An official with MAGA Inc. would not comment on the record for this story but also indicated how personal the race is for the team behind Trump, whose endorsement and support enabled DeSantis to rocket from relative obscurity as a three-term congressman and win the primary for governor in 2018.
“DeSantis has a history of treating people badly, and Karma’s a bitch,” the official said, echoing comments made to The Daily Caller when the super PAC announced its newest ad attacking DeSantis.
Trump’s and DeSantis’s camps both believe that DeSantis still could rise – especially if the governor turns in a stellar debate performance in Miami on Nov. 8. In the previous two debates, Haley has outshone DeSantis, whose team has insisted he’s won despite Haley rising in polls more than DeSantis. Trump has skipped the debates entirely and paid no measurable price in the primary.
Because Trump leads by wide margins in all four early states of the primary, first-in-the-nation Iowa has emerged as the most important contest of the primary. As first reported by The Messenger in May, DeSantis’s campaign identified Iowa as the place he had to win or make a Trump victory seem pyrrhic. That would stop the former president from gaining irresistible momentum by then carrying New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. No presidential candidate has won all early primary states and not won his party’s nomination.
So if Trump can bury DeSantis in Iowa, the former president’s campaign – and even those who don’t support him – believes the race will be functionally over.
DeSantis has spent more time in Iowa than any other candidate and is 19 short of completing what’s called the “full Grassley,” in homage to home state Sen. Chuck Grassley’s feat of visiting each of the 99 counties. But DeSantis has lost momentum in terms of campaign contributions and poll numbers while Trump – who has visited 12 times this campaign cycle – has kept his lead.
According to Trump’s campaign, he has collected 41,000 signed pledges from Iowans committing to show up at the Jan. 15 caucus for Trump. That’s double what DeSantis has, according to those briefed by DeSantis’s Never Back Down super PAC – which has shouldered the organizing and advertising responsibilities for the governor’s cash-strapped campaign. About 200,000 are expected to caucus.
The two men have touted scores of grassroots, religious and legislative endorsers. Haley, who has lacked the money or name ID of either candidate, doesn’t have the same campaign presence in Iowa.
“Trump has a good ground operation. He didn’t have that in 2016,” said Steve Scheffler, a veteran of Iowa Republican presidential campaigns and president of Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. “DeSantis has a lot of field people on the ground. And that’s what you need to win. I don’t think anything is cooked in the books yet. I’ve seen stranger things.”
But no one has seen a Republican candidate who is polling as well as Trump lose Iowa – or the party’s nomination:
In 2016, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the crowded GOP caucus after beginning his rise in October of the previous year, Real Clear Politics polling averages showed. However, Trump was more disorganized then and was only polling at 21% (not more than 40% as he is now), and Cruz only trailed him by 11 points in the October before the caucus (DeSantis trails Trump by 27 points in the Iowa Poll). Cruz ultimately won the caucus with just 27% of the vote to Trump’s 24%. And Trump still became the GOP nominee anyway. Cruz’s 2016 campaign team is advising DeSantis.
In the contested and crowded 2012 Republican Iowa caucus, Rick Santorum skyrocketed late and barely beat Mitt Romney. But Romney never received more than 25% support in polls, according to Real Clear Politics polling averages of that race. And Romney ultimately won the party’s nomination anyway.
In the contested and crowded 2008 Republican Iowa caucus, Mike Huckabee began his rise in October and won with 30% of the vote against John McCain, who collapsed after reaching a high of about 30% in the polls, according to Real Clear Politics. McCain ultimately won the party’s nomination anyway.
In 2000, George W. Bush was polling between 43-49% and handily won the caucus against Steve Forbes and McCain, who didn’t compete in Iowa at the time. Bush won the caucus, his party’s nomination and the presidency.
Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair, who has been a top surrogate of DeSantis’s in the state, said the electorate in Iowa hasn’t fully tuned into the race and that, once voters do, DeSantis’s more numerous legislative and law enforcement endorsers are going to turn out the vote for him.
“It’s going to mean a whole lot in terms of getting boots on the ground,” she said.
In Iowa’s Dallas County, GOP Chair Kelley Koch said it’s true that most voters haven’t made up their minds. But she said the four criminal indictments of Trump at the hands of Democratic or Democrat-appointed prosecutors have just kept Trump’s support high among Republicans because they feel it’s all politically motivated. And the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel reminded Republicans of Trump’s pro-Israel record as well as Haley’s foreign policy chops when she was his U.N. ambassador.
“Trump is basically an incumbent,” she said. “Trump is just hard to beat.”
“Public polling in October hasn’t historically been indicative of who will win the Iowa Caucus and it won’t be this time either,” the DeSantis campaign said in a written statement. “We are seeing Ron DeSantis continue to build momentum in the Hawkeye State, and Team Trump is, too – which is exactly why they are once again using the entirety of their media buy in Iowa attacking the governor with false negative ads. Ron DeSantis has the former president on defense in Iowa because he is out-working him, out-organizing him, and has a message to revive this nation that continues to resonate with the Iowa electorate.”
