DES MOINES, Iowa — Eight months since he announced his 2024 Republican presidential campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is poised to discover whether placing all of his chips on Iowa will pay off.

DeSantis, once the most popular Republican primary candidate whose name is not former President Donald Trump, is under pressure during Monday night’s caucuses to outperform expectations against the onetime commander in chief and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley as she experiences a rise in the polls. 

Despite polls demonstrating Trump’s dominance in Iowa, DeSantis supporters, many of whom he convinced to back his candidacy as he crisscrossed the state and its 99 counties, emphasize how public opinion research has not been predictive, particularly regarding Republicans, during recent election cycles. Haley averages a 2.5-point edge on DeSantis in Iowa, though Trump has a 35-point advantage on her.

Marie Andersen, 76, for instance, confessed after a DeSantis event in Council Bluffs that her aunt used to tell pollsters “the opposite of how she felt just to be ornery.”

“You never know when you might change someone’s mind,” the DeSantis precinct caucus captain told the Washington Examiner, adding she persuaded people to support Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in 2016. “You don’t know what they’re going to hear when they go there. I really think that this whole caucus situation leaves it all up in the air.”

“I want him to be our next president because what he says is what I believe,” the local retired healthcare recruiter said, referring to DeSantis’s resume as a veteran, congressman, and governor. “It’s time we have someone in the White House who is respectful of people and, whether he agrees with them or not, he’s not disrespectful. We have not had that for a while.”

After a DeSantis event in Cumming, Sean Lynch, 61, alluded to the governor’s “track record of actually doing what he says he’s going to do.”

“The results matter,” the Norwalk retired officer said. “Politicians talk. They all talk. They’re all going to do something. ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.’ You have to look at what people really do.”

DeSantis has underscored that impression as he sought to differentiate himself from Haley amid their race for second place in the Republican Party’s opening nominating contest. Peter Finn, 63, for example, approved of most of Haley’s tenure as South Carolina governor, but not of her time as U.N. ambassador, a sentiment DeSantis amplified during the debate last week in Iowa. 

“I didn’t think that she served us particularly well there,” said the Council Bluffs construction small business owner, who was deciding between Trump and DeSantis. “Somehow, I have the sense that she would be more for the party and the party’s donors and business as usual as a politician. Maybe that’s not fair, but that’s the perception that I have of her. I think that she’s in with a crowd that’s happy with the status quo, and I don’t think the status quo is going to work anymore.”

Haley’s campaign disagreed. Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, a Haley supporter, with whom the Washington Examiner spoke after the debate, contended that DeSantis coming out “guns blazing and attacking” Haley indicated “he’s circling the drain.” DeSantis has additionally criticized Haley for not citing slavery when she was asked what started the Civil War and for saying New Hampshire voters will “correct” the Iowa caucuses’ outcome.

“This was kind of his last effort to try to get some momentum going,” Hurd said. “Because she has such momentum, everybody’s going over everything she’s doing with a fine-tooth comb. None of those things caused her to lose voters, and all of them were attempts by her opponents to try to capitalize on attacks on her. That’s to be expected in any kind of campaign, and that also shows how this has come down to two people, a man and a woman, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.”

Simultaneously, DeSantis has increased his criticism of Trump while balancing it with his appeals to the former president’s supporters.

For former Trump supporter Sandy Hoffman, who is now backing DeSantis because of his policy positions on education and abortion, and because she had positive interactions with Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, the onetime president’s legal problems were part of her decision-making process.

“I think a lot are, have seen through with the Trump thing,” Hoffman, 72, said in Waukee. “Last time, I was a Trump voter, and it’s like, I like what he did, but I cannot stand the arrogance with him. He’s way too cocky.”

“I don’t know why, and I don’t know how this would happen, but something is going to transpire with all this on-toward stuff with Trump,” the West Des Moines property manager continued. “I have a feeling he’s going to be off. I could be wrong. … But I just have a feeling that something is going to, it never quits. It’s nonstop. It’s every day to do with him.”

Regardless, David Polyansky, DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, repeated how the governor was “going everywhere” at a “breakneck,” “relentless pace” before the caucuses.

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“At the end of this caucus, we will have left it all on the field, not just with organization, but we’ve got a guy that’s hit every one of these 99 counties and many of them multiple times, over, at this point, 245 events all across the state, public events,” he said.

“There won’t be a person that caucuses on Monday night that will not either have met him or have had the chance to meet him, ask a question of him, and take a picture and shake his hand. That’s just a huge advantage when it’s cold. So we’re hopeful that that pays off dividends, and we’re confident it will,” he continued.