DeSantis' disappointment in Iowa: a distant second behind Trump

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may have done just enough during the Iowa caucuses Monday night to argue that he is still in the race to defeat Donald J. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

But his distant second-place finish had all the feels of a disaster given the amount of time and money he invested in the state, and it calls into question his ability to stay in the nominating contest as his campaign cash runs out and faces tough tests. ahead in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Mr. DeSantis, who entered the field as one of the most compelling contenders, barely managed to hold off a late surge from Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina.

Mr. Trump defeated both candidates so convincingly on Monday night that the race was called in his favor by The Associated Press just 31 minutes after the caucuses got underway. The early call — while some Iowans were still in the caucus — gave Mr. DeSantis' team a lifeline to blame the news media for a disappointing performance.

Mr. DeSantis, addressing supporters in a hotel ballroom in West Des Moines, criticized the news media and noted that his opponents had spent a lot of money against him but did his best to turn his second-place finish into a positive result . He vowed to stay in the race.

“We got our ticket punched out of Iowa,” he said to cheers, adding, “I'm not going to make excuses and I guarantee you this: I won't let you down!”

Mr. DeSantis had staked his all on Iowa — a state seemingly built for his candidacy as the most ideologically conservative politician in the race. But while his candidacy looked good on paper, in reality it seemed much less so. From the start, he seemed woefully underprepared for the rigors of retail politics, often appearing clumsy and robotic in his interactions with voters and delivering a flat speech with few memorable lines.

Mr. DeSantis' expensive campaign for electioneering and voter turnout yielded mediocre results, although volunteers knocked on the doors of his supporters in Iowa as many as five times in an effort to get them to caucus locations. The effort – organized by his super PAC, Never Back Down – could go down as one of the most colossal bonfires of cash in American political history.

Mr. DeSantis' much-hyped “ground game” would provide a significant advantage, especially during Monday night's dangerously cold weather. Instead, Mr. Trump, who had invested less than Mr. DeSantis in field operations and relied instead on passionate volunteers, bypassed him.

If they end up this close to Ms. Haley, it is a flashing danger sign for the viability of Mr. DeSantis' campaign. He and his team had a playbook that traditionally resulted in victories for Republican candidates in Iowa, feverishly traveling the state and courting white evangelical voters with far-right positions on abortion and LBGTQ issues. Ms. Haley, on the other hand, only began competing seriously in Iowa in October.

If Mr. DeSantis wants to stay competitive, he may have to raise significant new amounts of money. Without a wave of donations, it is unclear how long he can sustain his campaign financially, and many of the party's biggest donors have long since abandoned him. It is difficult to imagine how a roughly 30-point loss for Mr. Trump would have restored their faith in him.

Mr. DeSantis's inability to meaningfully cut into Mr. Trump's support represents a stunning decline from where he was a year ago. He started 2023 with every conceivable advantage and set his sights on a win at Iowa early on.

He was named the future of the Republican Party by none other than Rupert Murdoch. The New York Post headline after his landslide re-election victory in Florida in 2022 read: “DeFUTURE.” And Fox News had been directing him intravenously to the Republican base for the past two years, with frequent and glowing appearances on the top-rated network.

Mr. DeSantis had a huge fundraising advantage, with the ability to transfer more than $80 million from his Florida campaign account to his super PAC. After his landslide reelection victory in 2022, donors from across the country, most of whom had never met Mr. DeSantis, called people close to him asking how they could meet the governor and finance an expected presidential campaign.

A year ago, polls suggested that Republican voters looking to move past Mr. Trump overwhelmingly favored Mr. DeSantis over all others. Last January, he trailed Trump nationally by just 10 percentage points, a time when Ms. Haley was barely registering in surveys, according to FiveThirtyEight's polling average. Mr. DeSantis now trails the former president by about 50 points in national polls.

Mr. DeSantis also had deep institutional advantages in Iowa. He built a relationship with the popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, that was so strong that Ms. Reynolds eventually broke her neutrality, endorsed him and campaigned for him across the state. He benefited from the powerful network of Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. Just last week, both Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Vander Plaats promised that Mr. DeSantis would prevail there.

Iowa, a conservative Midwestern state, seemed the perfect place for Mr. DeSantis — who as governor transformed Florida into a laboratory for hard-right policies — to shine. Mr DeSantis tried to run to Mr Trump's right, portraying the former president as insufficiently conservative on social issues and criticizing his handling of Covid and immigration.

Ultimately, the Republican base didn't buy it, and the Florida governor's decision to portray herself as the rightmost candidate in the field created an opportunity for Ms. Haley to win over moderate Republicans and independents.

As Ms. Haley rose in the polls, donors desperate to defeat Mr. Trump poured millions into her super PAC, giving her the opportunity to bombard Mr. DeSantis with negative advertising. Mr. Trump and his allies also ran ads against Mr. DeSantis, compounding the effect. The main super PAC supporting Ms. Haley spent $23.7 million on ads attacking Mr. DeSantis in Iowa. In the two weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Haley's campaign spent nearly three to one on television in the state, according to data collected by AdImpact.

Polls across Iowa showed Mr. Trump leading Mr. DeSantis in key demographics of the Republican electorate: older voters, those without college degrees and white evangelicals. That left Mr. DeSantis without a natural constituency to drive to the polls. As of 10 p.m., he was on the verge of losing all 99 Iowa counties, each of which he visited at least once.

Now Mr. DeSantis faces a difficult path.

Next up are the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, neither of which look promising. Voters in New Hampshire tend to be more moderate, and Mr. DeSantis's sharp social conservatism appears to have eroded his standing there. He scores in the single digits, which puts him in third place. Ms. Haley, who has the support of the state's governor and is popular with independent voters, won against Mr. Trump, who still leads in New Hampshire.

Mr. DeSantis has indicated he thinks he has a better chance in South Carolina, but that is an optimistic view. Mr. Trump remains overwhelmingly popular there, and Ms. Haley is the state's former governor.

The DeSantis campaign has done little in Nevada — where the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries are taking place — after Trump allies in the Republican Party changed the rules in a way that was widely seen as helping the former president.

Late Monday night, Mr. DeSantis was scheduled to fly from Iowa to South Carolina, where he will host a rally Tuesday morning. The stop is intended as a jab at Ms. Haley and as a sign to the Trump campaign that he plans to stick with it. He then flies to New Hampshire for another campaign event and a town hall broadcast on CNN, with two more nationally televised debates.

Heading into October, Mr. DeSantis had just $5 million available for the primary race, less than Ms. Haley ($9.1 million) and Mr. Trump ($36 million). In the week before the Iowa caucuses, he spent just $6,842 on ads in rural northwest Iowa, a stronghold of conservative Christians where he had hoped to turn voters away from Trump.

Overall, he was outspent on television in Iowa last week, even by Ryan Binkley, a self-funded businessman and preacher who never qualified for a debate.

Shane Goldmacher reporting contributed.