Ron DeSantis is in trouble. After years of hype as the politician who would topple former President Donald Trump, the Florida governor came in a distant 2nd place in the Iowa caucuses. Yes, he somewhat surprisingly held off a late charge from Nikki Haley, but he still trailed Trump by nearly 30 percentage points among Republican voters. And the road ahead for him looks even more daunting.
For DeSantis, everything was riding on Iowa. While the state’s voters often opt for candidates who don’t win the eventual GOP nomination — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas beat Trump there in 2016, for example — the caucuses narrow the field and set the tone for the rest of the race. In this case, the takeaway is that Trump is indeed as dominant in the Republican field as poll after poll has suggested, and that he has no real rival. Iowa was DeSantis’ one major opportunity to disrupt the narrative that Trump’s nomination was inevitable, and he didn’t.
The takeaway is that Trump is indeed as dominant in the Republican field as poll after poll has suggested.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. DeSantis invested tremendous resources in the Hawkeye State, and even as his campaign dealt with financial troubles, he specifically prioritized investing in campaign staff and field operations there. He also hustled to secure local endorsements and succeeded in securing some big ones, including evangelical power broker Bob Vander Plaats and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. Super PACs backing his candidacy spent tremendous amounts of cash on ads and door-knocking operations, seeing that strategy as the prime opportunity to derail the Trump train. But in the weeks before the race, one of those PACs, Never Back Down, spiked its ad buy plans after sensing that DeSantis’ candidacy was already a lost cause. Monday’s results vindicated its concerns.
If DeSantis couldn’t pull off a win in Iowa — where he went all in and where voters are uniquely open to non-front-runner candidates — it’s hard to…
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