Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies have hammered former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on the campaign trail and the airwaves – and she has fired back – as the two seek to emerge as the strongest alternative to former President Donald Trump.
But at least one Iowa voter wanted to know — why isn’t more of that energy being directed at the front-runner?
“Why haven’t you gone directly after him?” Chris Garcia, a voter who plans to caucus for DeSantis, asked during a town hall here on Wednesday. “In my viewpoint, you’re going pretty soft on him.”
The question sparked an extended back and forth between Garcia and DeSantis, who argued that he has made an effort to explain the differences between himself and the front-runner, but refuses to “smear him personally.”
The exchange highlighted how a potential race for second place, intensifying for months, has left Trump largely unscathed and in a lane of his own – much to the frustration of Republicans like Garcia.
Garcia was not satisfied, telling CNN he intended to support DeSantis, but was urging him to confront Trump more aggressively.
“I don’t know that he’s going to be able to pull this off unless he goes after Trump,” Garcia, a Republican from Woodward, Iowa, said.
While DeSantis and Haley have been gradually sharpening their differences with Trump, they have been investing far more in trying to tear down one another, particularly with their respective outside groups spending millions in TV attack ads.
DeSantis and two super PACS supporting his candidacy, Never Back Down and Fight Right, spent $7.6 million targeting Haley last year in Iowa alone, compared to less than $500,000 aimed at Trump, according to a CNN analysis of AdImpact, a data tracking firm.
For her part, Haley and her leading superPAC spent nearly $10…
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