The Trump campaign has concluded that Ron DeSantis is no longer competitive. They plan to bury him at this time.
In an effort to kill the Florida governor’s campaign and send a message to the other campaigns, the former president and his team are stepping up their efforts in Iowa.
As part of his “Team Trump Caucus Commitment” organising event in Iowa this Wednesday, Trump will meet with campaign workers at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Maquoketa and give a speech at the Grand River Conference Centre in Dubuque, adding to his seven previous trips to the state this year. According to his campaign, Trump will return to Iowa three more times in the first part of October and once more in the closing days of the month. Former Republican National Committee (RNC) political data team member Alex Meyer is joining the Trump campaign as a senior adviser with a particular focus on the crucial swing states of Iowa and Missouri.
It’s a huge commitment of time from a candidate who has otherwise been rather low-key this summer. A pro-DeSantis PAC is heavily advertising throughout the state, and the Trump administration is supplementing this with an air campaign. AdImpact reports that MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, will spend over $700,000 on advertisements in Iowa this week. The Trump campaign has bragged of 27,500 signed caucus pledge cards and 1,500 local volunteers in Iowa, and Trump’s Iowa staff is focusing on teaching and training Trump supporters on the caucus process.
According to Alex Latcham, the early states director for the Trump campaign, “no candidate has ever won Iowa [GOP caucus] by more than 12 points and even the most conservative polls have us at double that margin.” But I try to remind the squad, the staff, and everyone that we do not take this for granted on a regular basis.
Trump’s frenzy of effort in the state comes as his opponents traverse the state in a futile attempt to alter the course of a race that is becoming less and less close by the day. At this moment, Trump is far and away the frontrunner nationwide, and in Iowa, he is leading DeSantis by almost 30 points in state surveys. However, those who are familiar with the state’s caucuses think Trump would be prudent to try to accelerate his pace now because such a lead may be exaggerated.
After Labour Day, when classes have begun, the race has historically begun to coalesce, and factors such as trajectory and momentum have become more significant. Former Iowa Republican operative Nicole Schlinger said it was when insurgent candidates like Huckabee, Santorum, etc., began to get significant support.
For his part, DeSantis is putting a lot of his political stock in Iowa. He’s been more active than Trump in Iowa, a state with only 40 delegates but enormous potential for momentum at the start of the long primary season on January 15, 2024. The popular governor, Kim Reynolds, who Trump has repeatedly rebuked, has endorsed him, and he has visited 58 of the state’s 99 counties during his campaign. According to DeSantis’s campaign, they have received 13,000 pledges of support from caucus-goers in writing.
According to AdImpact, the political action committee (PAC) that is effectively driving the campaign for Florida’s governor has spent $15.6 million on commercials in the state through November, which is more than three times as much as the $2.9 million spent by the MAGA Inc. PAC in support of Trump.
On Saturday, DeSantis will make six appearances around the state of Iowa. That’s more engagements in one day than Trump has scheduled in the Hawkeye State in the next seven weeks, according to a recent email blast from a spokesperson for DeSantis, Andrew Romeo. “It’s no surprise that Trump’s ‘allies are growing concerned that his lead in Iowa’s first in the nation caucuses isn’t built to last,'” the article reads. While Donald Trump keeps giving Iowans the finger, Ron DeSantis is working hard to win the state.
DeSantis’ team is showing confidence in Iowa, despite the fact that they have said they would be happy with a solid second-place performance. He has worked with Reynolds on multiple occasions, and he is among the frontrunners to win the support of prominent evangelical Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader. (Vander Plaats has complimented DeSantis and criticised Trump, but he wouldn’t say last week who he plans to endorse.)
DeSantis spent the weekend travelling around the state, stopping by a religious gathering at the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ and an event in the home town of U.S. Senator Joni Ernst.
Steve Deace, a conservative talk radio personality and 2016 Ted Cruz campaign aide who has endorsed DeSantis, said he was optimistic about DeSantis’ chances because he thought Trump was still playing catch up.
Deace recently stated of Trump in an interview, “I think he can generate buzz pretty quickly.” This is assuming, of course, that Trump is prepared to campaign as a populist and not a me-ist. When that night of January 15 arrives, it will be cold and miserable. Can he still identify the activists who will come no matter what, and get others to join them? Many of them support DeSantis, while others are likely waiting to see what Bob Vander Plaats and Kim Reynolds decide to do.
DeSantis and his team have begun to doubt the former president’s operation in Iowa, but they have been careful not to anger Trump’s followers. Last week on Fox News, DeSantis expressed doubt about the widening poll gap between him and Trump and criticised Trump’s campaign effort in Iowa.
Trump’s opponents continue to point to his record on transgender and LGBTQ rights as a potential weakness among the religious voters who inhabit Iowa.
Trump is portrayed as a “transgender trailblazer” in one voter mailing, with the text reading, “celebrated gay marriage victory at Mar-a-Lago party with Log Cabin Republicans.” This was shared with AWN by a Republican from Iowa. A second supporter of Trump appears to be making a sarcastic statement when they thank him “for standing with LGBTQ+ Americans to fight against the close-minded Republicans who won’t accept change.” A third informs the Iowans that twenty years ago, Trump let a transgender woman compete in his Miss Universe Pageant. (Trump has made several offensive comments about transgender persons during the campaign.)
It’s unclear where the mailers came from. The messaging is similar to that used by the DeSantis camp to criticise the president, with the goal of painting Florida’s governor as a leader in the culture battle on questions of gender ideology. When asked if they had anything to do with the flyers, representatives for DeSantis and Never Back Down declined to comment.
While the DeSantis camp has made an effort to win over evangelical Christians, they’ve run into the dilemma that those voters appear to support Trump. Despite not being as radical as some of his opponents on topics like abortion, the ex-president has maintained a consistent level of support within that group.
If politicians “don’t speak about [abortion] correctly, they’re not going to win,” Trump told two major social conservative groups on Friday night, he warned, “they’re not going to win.” While speaking with Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump called DeSantis’ signature of a ban on abortions after six weeks in Florida a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake.” The religious right Family Research Council held a straw poll on Saturday, and Trump received 64% of the vote, with DeSantis coming in second with 27%.
Polls show President Trump with a nearly 40-point lead in Iowa, but, as he constantly reminds us, we must keep our foot on the gas. We don’t play prevent defence, and the President’s busy schedule in Iowa this week shows he’s serious about winning over voters there, according to Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.
Republicans and evangelicals in Iowa are in the majority when it comes to their belief that abortion should be prohibited in most situations, but some conservatives in the state fear Trump’s recent comments could cost him some caucus attendees.
Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, said he will be thinking a lot about candidates’ stances on abortion and gender before he caucuses in January. In May, he and fifty other pastors visited with Trump, but afterward, he felt the ex-president was “a little arrogant” for telling a local reporter that he had the evangelical vote tied up.
As the Iowa caucus draws near, the question highlighted by Demastus’s summary is whether or not the other candidates will be able to overcome Trump’s magnetic attraction. Will he provide his approval for that?
“He needs to show Iowans he loves them by his presence, not just by his words,” said Doug Gross, a Republican consultant in Iowa who previously worked for Gov. Terry Branstad. His presence is essential. He really must be here. Time is of the essence.