Haley vs DeSantis, the desperate race for second place in the Iowa caucuses

Candidate Ron DeSantis’ campaign bus was scheduled to travel about 500 kilometers on Saturday through inhospitable Iowa in mid-January. The Florida governor’s agenda included four events with the voters of the Republican primaries, which begin on Monday in Iowa ahead of the presidential elections in November.

These are the famous Iowa caucuses, and, while there is little doubt who will win — former president Donald Trump is leading in the polls by more than 30 points — it is less certain who will come in second place: De Santis or former U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley. And there has been another last-minute surprise. The state has been hit by icy snowstorms, with wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Monday’s caucuses are set to be the coldest in the state’s history. What’s more, it’s not clear how the adverse weather may affect the primary vote, in which some 120,000 citizens participated in 2020.

DeSantis’ efforts to travel the state in the midst of the ice snowstorm — which on Friday led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the U.S. and left journalists trapped in hotels in the capital, Des Moines — may set another record: it’s unlikely a candidate has ever worked so hard to win second place. For his campaign in Iowa — a sparsely populated (3.2 million inhabitants) and overwhelmingly white (87%) state — DeSantis has visited every single of its 99 counties. He’s spoken about his goals in pizza restaurants, high schools and even the living rooms of private homes. Despite this work, at this stage, the governor only has one goal in mind: beating Haley, his most direct rival.

The former governor of South Carolina, who was Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., has been gaining on DeSantis in the polls for months. The Florida governor — who, back in late 2022, mistook his road to the White House for a sunny highway cleared of obstacles — has been steadily falling in voter intention surveys. His campaign has been floundering, with voters turned off by his lack of charisma in face-to-face events, and while he still has donors, they are getting increasingly impatient.

DeSantis needs a good result in Iowa more than any of the other candidates: in addition to Trump and Haley, he is up against the antiwoke magnate Vivek Ramaswamy; former Arkansas Governor Asha Hutchinson and an unknown church pastor called Ryan Binkley. If DeSantis’ ultra-conservative message and image as an heir to Trump, but without the former president’s legal troubles, cannot convince voters even in Iowa — a state that has voted Republican since 2016 — his presidential ambitions could be dashed. The next election date in the primary race is in New Hampshire, a state with more moderate or, directly, undecided voters, where DeSantis’ prospects are even worse.

Campaign rallies suspended

Both candidates suspended their campaign events on Friday in light of the snowstorm, although Haley — who opted to hold the rallies on Zoom — has led a less frantic campaign than DeSantis: she only scheduled two events on Saturday. As for the Trump, the former president, true to form, has avoided the difficulties of campaigning in the snow and spent nearly all of last week in court. Trump — who is facing 91 criminal charges in four criminal cases, including his efforts to subvert the 2020 election — has used these court hearings to present himself as a martyr.

“I’ll get to see you on Sunday and Monday and maybe Saturday night late. It’s going to be a little bit of a trek, nobody knows how exactly we’re going to get there, but we’re going to figure it out. And we wouldn’t miss it for anything,” the former president said in a video posted on X. In the recording, Trump says he believes the adverse weather conditions could be a “good thing because people are more committed than anybody else.”

Meanwhile, after months campaigning in Iowa, Haley and DeSantis are clinging on to the state’s record of throwing up surprises (beyond extreme weather). Iowa was the springboard for Barack Obama’s successful presidential race in 2008. In 2012, it caused a stir when it voted for Rick Santorum, with the outsider winning over Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz. And in 2016, the state voted for Cruz over Trump. But in both the case of Cruz and Santorum, Iowa’s pick did not end up winning the Republican nomination.

If DeSantis were to come in third after having invested so much energy on the ground, it would not be unreasonable to expect him to make a timely withdrawal. If Haley came in third place, however, she could still hold on to New Hampshire — where polls indicate the recent withdrawal of candidate Chris Christie will boost her chances — and to South Carolina, her home state that will vote at the end of February. That’s also what the Iowa caucuses are about: ruling out candidates so that the anti-Trump vote is not divided. That’s the only possible way an alternative candidate — be it DeSantis or Haley — will be able to defeat Trump, who is hoping to score a landslide win in the Iowa caucuses, and cement his path to winning the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition