With five-and-a-half weeks to go before the Jan. 15 caucuses and DeSantis trailing former President Donald Trump by an average of almost 30 percentage points in the Hawkeye State, the 45-year-old is going all-out to pull off a shocker.
“I think what you’re going to see in Iowa is the hard work that we’ve already put in come to fruition,” campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo told The Post following Wednesday night’s fourth Republican primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
“The reality is, we have endorsements from 42 state legislators, we have now visited all 99 counties,” he added. “That stuff is the stuff that’s going to pay off, it’s going to yield the votes.”
Romeo added that DeSantis has no further plans to “shake it up” after a year in which the governor changed campaign managers and trimmed the number of staff and insisted that the campaign doesn’t find the polling gap between DeSantis and his biggest rival “concerning.”
Ron DeSantis and wife Casey DeSantis greet debate moderators after the fourth Republican presidential primary debate at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. AFP via Getty ImagesAs of Friday afternoon, the RealClearPolitics average showed Trump getting 47.3% support in Iowa compared to DeSantis’ 18.7%. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was close behind at 15.7%, while biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie garnered 5% and 3.7%, respectively.
With surveys showing DeSantis lagging far behind in the key early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, Iowa looms larger and larger for the Florida governor’s White House chances.
“Maybe it doesn’t show up on a poll this far out, but as we get closer and closer, that’s the stuff that’s going to matter, that’s what’s going to make a difference,” Romeo said. “What matters is the support that we’ve been able to garner from grassroots activists and supporters and legislators and Kim Reynolds and Bob Vander Plaats, because that’s the formula you need to win an Iowa caucus, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing.”
DeSantis returned to Iowa on Thursday for back-to-back weekend events in his latest bid to win over voters. AP
Ron DeSantis speaks to the media after a meet-and-greet, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. APVander Plaats, CEO of the FAMiLY Leader evangelical organization, told The Post that poll numbers are “one element of data” to consider, but he believes Iowans will “break late” for the governor.
Trump is “the former president and he has a built-in base of support. So you do have to recognize that,” said Vander Plaats, whose influence has led some to dub him the “Iowa Caucus Kingmaker.”
However, Vander Plaats added, he believes DeSantis’ ground game and endorsements “will bring people to the caucuses” and he should continue “capitalizing on that organization” in the way Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) did against Trump in 2016.
The DeSantis campaign has long argued that defeating Trump in Iowa would lock in a two-man race for the Republican nomination. Other experts have suggested that even a close loss might be enough for the governor to consolidate the non-Trump wing of the party behind him heading into New Hampshire and South Carolina.
DeSantis hit the ground running in Iowa following Wednesday’s debate, holding a meet-and-greet on Thursday and participating in a “Mamas for DeSantis” event with Reynolds in Des Moines on Friday.
On Saturday, the governor will speak alongside Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) in Sioux Center.
