Ron DeSantis could beat Donald Trump to White House after Iowa poll lead

The former US president must beat rival Ron DeSantis in the key state to keep his 2024 presidential campaign alive.

Kari Lake, a Trump loyalist and Republican politician, backs the former president in his new campaign. Picture: Getty Images/The Times

“This is my second book. My first one got full,” said Vickie Froelich, leafing through a photo album. Page after page showed photos, many signed, of Republican politicians, conservative news anchors and members of Donald Trump’s inner circle and family.

“I have Trump’s signature from when he was a candidate in 2016,” she said. “I’ve tried getting another as president, but the secret service won’t let him.”

At a Good Friday prayer breakfast in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Froelich made a beeline for Kari Lake, hoping to get the signature of the Trump loyalist who was defeated in the race for Arizona governor at November’s midterm elections. Like Trump, Lake, 53, has refused to concede defeat and is contesting the election result through the courts.

Lake, like Trump, claims to have been a victim of election fraud. Picture: EPA/The Times

Iowa-born, Lake opened her speech with a promise that “I’m not going to get political” but her words on finding strength through her Christian faith flirted openly with allusions to her election defeat and that of Trump, 76.

“I can think of a lot of truth-tellers who are being dragged down right now in the media. Some very evil stuff is being said,” Lake said, adding a swipe about the “corruption in our elections”.

Iowa will be the first state to pick a Republican candidate for the White House next year. In less than 10 months’ time, Iowans will gather in churches, schools and libraries for the caucus vote that will kick off the Republican primary race.

Froelich said she had considered backing other candidates next year, but her support for Trump had been galvanised by his indictment in New York this week on charges of falsifying business records related to an alleged hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels. The unswerving support for Trump from Lake and others also brought her back to the former president.

Donald Trump in court this week on charges of falsifying business records. Many think his arrest will bolster his presidential campaign. Picture: New York Post/AP/The Times

“They have been trying to get him for ever. It only makes him more popular. If they can do this to a president, they can do this to anybody,” she said.

Trump’s campaign is hammering home that message. Above the highway into Cedar Rapids, he glares down from a billboard that asks: “Who’s next?”

In the Marriot hotel ballroom, many agreed. “I don’t think it’s right,” said Sherri Baldwin, who works with the disabled and who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. She too had considered other candidates but has resolved to back Trump in Iowa. “They can’t stand that so many people like him, that he stands up for what’s right.”

Despite its tiny population and eccentric caucus voting system, which suffered a meltdown during the Democratic primary in 2020, Iowa’s position as the first state to vote next year ensures the ballot is watched across the country. Winning is critical to building momentum in the primary race; defeat can all but wreck a campaign before it has even begun.

Trump visited Iowa last month, days after the man who is expected to be his biggest challenger for the presidential nomination in 2024, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor. Nikki Haley, the UN ambassador under Trump, visited Iowa days after announcing her presidential run in February. The former vice-president Mike Pence, also expected to challenge for the nomination, was here last week.

Trump still looms large over the competition. He won Iowa in 2016 and 2020 but has seen his support in the state erode as the Republican primary race begins to heat up. A poll for the Des Moines Register last month found that his favourability numbers had declined steadily since he left office.

DeSantis, in particular, has seen his poll numbers surge in Iowa in recent weeks. The party’s rising star, he is yet to announce his candidacy but has run a shadow campaign, visiting key battleground states as he stakes out his conservative credentials.

DeSantis, 44, stole a march on Trump by getting to Iowa before him last month and although national polls show the former president with a commanding lead over his rival, the Florida governor is still performing strongly in the states that will dictate the early momentum in the Republican primary.

DeSantis’s trip appeared to pay off when new polls last month showed him leading Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head primary race in Iowa, and tied with him in New Hampshire.

Although Ron DeSantis is polling higher than Trump in Iowa state, Trump’s indictment has stolen all the media attention. Picture: The Bay City Times/AP/The Times

The Iowa poll found that 45 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the Florida governor, while 37 per cent picked Trump.

In New Hampshire, both received 39 per cent. That was before Trump’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, however, which has sucked the oxygen out of the Republican primary race and ensured all national attention is once more trained upon the former president. Even his rivals have been forced to defend him as they court his devoted support base.

Trump has exploited the indictment to rake in millions of dollars in new donations this week. Among the worshippers in Cedar Rapids there was little doubt that the drama would bolster his campaign.

“I don’t like Trump. I voted for him but I wish he would get off the national stage,” Michael, a teacher, said. “His policies, his candidates have lost three of the last four elections. You saw DeSantis getting all this traction – but then you have this indictment.”

Trump could face many more indictments before his next appearance in court on the Stormy Daniels case, in December, with investigations into his role in the January 6 riot in 2021 and the cache of classified documents seized at his Florida home gathering pace. A grand jury in Georgia, where Trump was recorded pressuring state officials to “find” enough votes to swing the result of the 2020 election, is also thought to have recommended indictments.

He has sought to discredit all the investigations as a politically motivated “witch-hunt” designed to bar him from retaking the White House. In Iowa, many sympathised on Friday, declaring the Stormy Daniels case “trivial”.

Froelich said: “I think this was a misdemeanour, what he did, and they upped it to a felony. This is a trumped-up charge. It’s stupid.”

She added: “I like DeSantis. He’s been a wonderful governor and if he were president, I would be happy. But I do prefer Trump. He keeps his promises.”

The Times