Building upon past reports that the Iowa caucuses are more likely to break the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis than make it, a new report says the rumor mill is churning out a foreboding forecast for the Florida governor.
Obituaries for the DeSantis campaign are not new. In December, The New York Times reported that the campaign was faltering and in disarray, a claim the DeSantis camp rejected.
New life has been breathed into them with a piece that appeared Saturday in The Hill from Republican consultant Douglas MacKinnon, who as The Hill notes “was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.”
“I have heard from two people very familiar with the DeSantis campaign — a major donor and a high-level political operative — that if the Florida governor loses the Iowa caucuses to former President Donald Trump as expected on the night of Jan. 15, he will either drop out of the race that night or make his announcement the next morning,” MacKinnon wrote.
“More than that, both believe DeSantis will then — very begrudgingly — endorse Trump for president,” he wrote.
(Note: The DeSantis campaign “vigorously denies” the rumors, according to an editor’s not in the MacKinnon post, declaring that DeSantis is in the race for the long haul.)
Voicing the question of “will it make sense for the Florida governor to go on to New Hampshire eight days later” if he loses badly in Iowa, MacKinnon notes that if the kind of Trump win polls indicate could be possible takes place, “more endorsements will flood toward Trump and more donors will run from DeSantis.”
“Come the night of Jan. 15, we will see whether DeSantis folds his hand and walks away from the table or goes all in with his dwindling stack of chips should ego rule reason. I suspect reason will win that contest,” he wrote.
The RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls shows Trump far ahead at 51.3 DeSantis second at 18.6 percent and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley third at 16.1 percent.
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MacKinnon observed that “Basic math is still basic math, most especially in presidential primaries.”
“DeSantis will have to evaluate not only the size of his losses, but also his money on hand, bills owed and the greatly disappointed financial backers who will be clamoring for him to exit the race,” he wrote.
MacKinnon said the dynamics of the race have changed.
“From the outset, DeSantis decided — or was more likely pushed by overeager supporters — to challenge the ‘cult of personality’ figure of Trump, most especially after his almost 20-point landslide victory for reelection in 2022,” he wrote.
“But now, just over a week from the Iowa caucuses, DeSantis is realizing that he is not only taking on a ‘cult of personality,’ but one infused with increasing folk hero status because of the Democratic ‘lawfare’ being waged against [Trump],” he wrote.
“I have long believed that the time for DeSantis was 2028. That also may now be a bridge too far,” he wrote.
Writing on the conservative website Discern Report, commentator and podcast host JD Rucker wrote that predictions and reality do not always align.
“Iowa is a strange creature with a caucus system that has drawn criticism in recent elections. Trump led the polls going into the 2016 caucuses but Senator Ted Cruz beat him,” he wrote.
He also noted that “rumors like these are always questionable.”
