Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Makes Bid for Republican Presidential Nomination
Throughout a significant portion of 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been actively campaigning in Iowa, making stops at coffee shops, sports bars, and barns. His aim is to convince voters that he should be the Republican party's standard bearer, rather than former President Donald Trump.
At the heart of DeSantis' campaign in Iowa, the first state to vote in the Republican presidential nominating contest, is a tour of all 99 counties. This tour, known as the "full Grassley," is named after Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who has been conducting all-county tours for over 40 years. Previous winners of the Iowa caucuses, such as former Senator Rick Santorum in 2012 and Senator Ted Cruz in 2016, also made similar efforts during their presidential bids.
DeSantis is scheduled to complete his own Iowa tour on December 2nd, with a final event at the "Thunderdome" wedding venue in Newton, as revealed by CBS News.
However, the unprecedented nature of Trump's campaign and his popularity among the GOP electorate may render Iowa's political tradition of rewarding intense attention from contenders irrelevant in this election cycle.
Trump has been the consistent frontrunner in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination against a now dwindling field of challengers, most of whom have largely avoided taking him on directly. The race is playing out as Trump also faces criminal charges in multiple cases, in part due to his failed effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
DeSantis has been the only active candidate to commit to holding at least one event in every county so far, and he's made 130 stops in Iowa overall. A majority of those events, 92, were hosted by the super PAC backing him, Never Back Down, who frequently had the governor on their bus as he trekked from county to county.
On the ground in Iowa vs. Trump "hurdle"
But DeSantis is not the only one to focus intensely on Iowa in the closing weeks before the Jan. 15 caucus.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy announced earlier this month that he rented an apartment in the state and says he will hold over 200 events until the caucus. Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has done over 60 events in the state — and is now polling closely with DeSantis in Iowa and leads him in New Hampshire
By comparison, Trump has held just 17 events in the state since March.
Traditionally, the people of Iowa have shown a strong interest in engaging with the candidates. The ability to gather grassroots support is crucial in order to build the necessary organization to secure a victory on caucus night.
Steve Scheffler, a National Committeeman for the Iowa Republican Party, has been involved in four presidential campaigns in Iowa leading up to the caucuses. In comparison to previous election cycles, he noted that most candidates this time around did not establish a presence early enough.
"Winning the caucus requires a lot of hard work," Scheffler explained. "You have to identify a group of people who will attend the caucus, then you have to engage with them and persuade them to support you. After that, you need to add them to your database and have a plan to ensure they show up on caucus night. These things don't happen overnight."
He also mentioned that Trump's popularity poses a challenge for his opponents, as "many Iowa caucus-goers are aware of his accomplishments. They know he has kept his promises."
The DeSantis campaign has called its 99-county tour "an organizational effort," and said it allows them more flexibility to target areas with bigger media markets, along with certain rural counties where DeSantis' support is stronger. At his stops, Never Back Down volunteers are often spotted asking attendees to sign "commitment to caucus" cards. The group says 30,000 of these cards, which are not legally binding but signal support for a candidate, have been collected.
DeSantis' campaign said the state will be the "primary focus" in the closing weeks before the caucus, but believed that completing the "full Grassley" gives them more flexibility to campaign in New Hampshire, where DeSantis has fallen behind Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in recent polls.
"The Iowa caucus is littered with campaigns that lost because they thought they could win through the air alone, relying solely on paid television advertising," DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo said. "The reality is you need a strong mixture of paid media, candidate presence, and ground game to win an Iowa Caucus, and no one is executing in all three areas better than us as we hit the closing stretch."
"Cruz was only at 10% at this point of the race in 2016," Romeo said. "That's a good reminder of how Iowa traditionally breaks late, which is exactly when you will begin to see the dividends of the historic ground organization we have built in the state."
Power of Iowa endorsements
Romeo added that several notable DeSantis endorsers — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and 41 state legislators — have a network they can tap into to turn people out to caucus.
Trump's Relationship with Iowa Politicians
Iowa represents fraught territory for Trump given that he lost the caucus in 2016. But he has a large advantage in caucus polling to date, despite only making 13 visits to the state since he launched his third White House bid.
Both before and after Reynolds' endorsement of DeSantis, Trump has criticized her this year. And in a somewhat surprising move, he also recently called out Iowa's two U.S. senators, who haven't taken a public side in the race.
Regarding Grassley and Sen. Joni Ernst, Trump claimed at a rally in Fort Dodge earlier this month that "I got 'em elected, remember that."
Ernst won re-election in 2020, and Grassley in 2022, in what is now a reliably red state. Trump even praised Grassley roughly a year ago while the senator was running for re-election, calling him a legend at an Iowa rally before the 2022 midterms.
The 90-year-old Grassley has spent decades in Iowa politics, and according to his congressional website, is the longest serving senator in the state's history. He was in office long before Trump had any kind of political influence on the GOP. Ernst was elected in 2014, before Trump won the White House.
"Iowa Voters Eager to Engage with Candidates"
John Pentecost, an undecided voter in Iowa, expressed his desire to see candidates up close and personal. Pentecost recently attended an event held by DeSantis, one of the candidates he is considering. He believes that engaging with voters in person is crucial for winning in Iowa, a strategy that was initiated by Grassley and is now being followed by other candidates. When asked about his decision-making process, Pentecost revealed that attending more events will help him make up his mind.
