Iowa Republicans will head to their local caucus sites on Jan. 15, officially kicking off one part of the endless 2024 presidential campaign that matters: voters casting ballots.
The pre-caucus polling in Iowa has long shown former President Donald Trump with a substantial lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. From a distance, the race looks like it's Trump's to lose. And he would have to go out of his way to do so.
But DeSantis backers say the polls lie, and the ground truth is the race is much closer than pollsters have found:
[Bob Vander Plaats said] I don't believe them, and there's a reason I don't believe them — because it does not match up at all to what I'm hearing on the ground. I'm a big fan of [pollster] Ann Selzer, but she's been wrong before. In the 2010 gubernatorial primary, she was off by 21 points the Sunday before the Tuesday governor's primary, and primaries are way easier to poll than caucuses. [Ed.: Terry Branstad defeated Vander Plaats in the primary 50 percent to 41 percent after Selzer found Branstad leading 57 percent to 29 percent.] She was off in the 2016 caucus. She had Trump winning by five. [Sen. Ted] Cruz [R-Tex.] won by four. [Ed.: Cruz won the 2016 caucuses by about 3.3 points.]
Do I think the former president is leading the Iowa caucuses right now? I believe he is. But I believe [Trump's support is] much closer to low 40s [while DeSantis is in the] mid-20s. I don't think he's got a 30-point lead. And I think there's plenty of time to make that up.
That may be a particularly potent brand of hope-ium. Or it may be the actual truth. We will know that soon enough.
But Mr. DeSantis made clear that should anyone other than Donald Trump win Iowa, the former president will call foul:
“If Trump loses, he will say it's stolen no matter what, absolutely,” Mr. DeSantis said, responding to a reporter in New Hampshire who had asked whether Mr. Trump would accept the results of the first contest in the Republican presidential primary on Jan. 15, or of the New Hampshire primary roughly a week later. “He will try to delegitimize the results. He did that against Ted Cruz in 2016.”
Mr. DeSantis added that Mr. Trump had protested “even when ‘The Apprentice' didn't get an Emmy,” referring to the former president's onetime television show.
That's one bit of analysis you can take to the bank. An upset win – and that's exactly what a DeSantis win in Iowa would be – is the sort of outcome that Trump and those in his orbit cannot fathom and will not accept.
But let's be clear: as much as an upset would make for a fascinating race in New Hampshire and beyond, there's no objective measure to indicate, hint, or otherwise raise the possibility that an upset is in the making.
But there's a thing about the final days of a campaign…surprises do happen. All the more reason to watch Iowa closely to see what voters have up their sleeves for 2024.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
