Analysis by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump is enjoying a robust lead over the Republican field of presidential primary candidates this year as the nation turns its eyes to the great state of Iowa, just days away from the anticipated caucuses.
For former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the odds of winning Iowa look pretty bleak. Both candidates are trailing far behind President Trump, who has emerged from the campaign trail in 2023 as the dominant candidate heading into 2024 in every battleground state and among Republican voters nationwide.
A CBS News poll shows President Trump with a 36-point lead in Iowa over DeSantis, who scored 22 percent of support. Haley garnered third place with 13 percent.
With just a little over one week to go until the caucuses on Jan. 15, it seems unlikely – if not impossible – that Haley or DeSantis could make up enough lost ground to even catch Trump’s coattails.
Never Back Down, DeSantis’s super PAC, reportedly stopped spending money on ads in Iowa and New Hampshire (via The Hill), claiming that they were instead going to pivot away from big ads to a “ground game” approach in battleground states.
Despite the PAC’s insistence that their lack of spending in such pivotal states in the GOP primary is based on political strategy, it likely signals that the campaign is nearing a make-or-break moment. If DeSantis loses Iowa, his odds of running a successful campaign for the 2024 nomination will look even worse than they already are.
As for Haley, in a distant third place, there is no conceivable or legitimate scenario where she could get within striking distance of the 45th president. The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ polling revealed that Iowa caucus-goers preferred Trump by 51.6 percent, with DeSantis and Haley neck-and-neck with 18 and 17.1 percent.
Haley is also reportedly the top spender in the Iowa caucus battle. NBC News revealed that her super PAC, SFA Fund Inc., has dropped $25 million in advertising, with $3 million of that being funneled into ads over the past few weeks.
However, the multi-million ad campaign seems to have done very little to help Haley’s chances of winning in Iowa. She is still in third place, even if the points between her and DeSantis are razor-thin.
With only days to go until the caucuses, it seems as if Iowa voters have already decided who they want as the Republican presidential nominee: President Donald Trump is clearly the man to beat.