DeSantis has an Iowa comeback plan. Can it work?

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is about to debate on his home turf, but he is really looking to Iowa to return momentum to his stalled campaign.

Before DeSantis can beat or succeed President Joe Biden, he must imitate him first.

DEMOCRATS SPOOKED AFTER BIDEN SHOCK POLL AND FRET TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMEBACK

As South Carolina was to Biden in 2020, Iowa must be to DeSantis next year. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) needs to be Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the key endorsement who delivers her home state. Former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles will have to reprise the role fear of socialist Bernie Sanders winning the nomination played in the last round of competitive Democratic primaries.

Iowa would then have to propel DeSantis to future victories, much in the same way Biden’s moribund campaign took on new life after South Carolina, beginning a romp toward the nomination and the White House.

This is a longshot, but it could happen for several reasons. Reynold’s endorsement follows a series of head-scratching moves by Trump, including his feud with her and his decision to snub social conservative leaders in the state while leaving room to his right on abortion and Israel.

All this has raised larger questions about whether Trump is personally paying enough attention to Iowa and whether his organization could be out-hustled in the byzantine caucus process. DeSantis is positioning himself to capitalize if Trump falters.

In September, NBC News’ Dasha Burns and Katherine Doyle reported that Trump’s allies were “growing concerned that his lead in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses isn’t built to last,” citing the slow pace with which the former president’s camp was staffing the political operation with experienced hires across the state’s 99 counties.

While there is a sense that Trump World has made progress since then, there is an opening. But there are also challenges for DeSantis.

The first is that Trump’s lead is far more substantial than anything Sanders ever enjoyed at any point during the 2020 campaign. Trump is beating DeSantis by more than 30 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average, even if the most sophisticated of those polls, the one conducted for the Des Moines Register, shows them with similar candidate “footprints” in terms of personal favorability and consideration from likely caucus-goers.

DeSantis is also lagging further behind nationally than Biden ever did in 2019-20. Trump is averaging 57.9% support to the Florida governor’s 13.4%. Biden never had to make up a gap that big. (The DeSantis camp believes its numbers are better than the public polling shows.)

The second problem for DeSantis is Nikki Haley. The former United Nations ambassador has been the main beneficiary of the Republican debates so far. She is just three points behind DeSantis in Iowa and is running second in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, where she served as governor.

Haley almost certainly isn’t as well positioned as DeSantis to inherit Trump’s voters if the former president goes down. But she may be better positioned to go on a run in the early states. And she is also another obstacle to DeSantis winning or posting a strong performance in Iowa.

Then there is the small matter of Iowa not having a great track record of propelling insurgent candidates toward the presidential nomination, at least on the Republican side. (Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama certainly have fond memories of the caucuses.) Iowa has usually had its biggest impact on the GOP race when the caucus-goers have supported the frontrunner, as they did in 1996 and 2000. Iowa also played a big role in Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous decision to sit out the early states in 2008.

Often, Iowa’s poor track record in picking the nominee has been because it has elevated the conservative candidate who had less resources to compete with the establishment frontrunner on something approaching even terms: Pat Buchanan over Phil Gramm in 1996, Mike Huckabee over Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson in 2008, Rick Santorum over Rick Perry in 2012.

Even in 2000, when Steve Forbes finished second behind George W. Bush in Iowa, Alan Keyes cut into Forbes’s momentum with an unexpectedly solid third-place showing.

The one major exception was Ted Cruz in 2016. The Texas senator had the money and organization to compete for the nomination. Still, he was unable to turn an Iowa win into a successful GOP presidential campaign. New Hampshire doesn’t have the same evangelical vote as Iowa and hasn’t gone for a strong social conservative since Buchanan in 1996.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

DeSantis is still wise to go all in on Iowa because it is his best shot to upset Trump. It’s possible that even a strong second-place showing could do the trick based on sky-high expectations for the former president.

But as many other Republicans who have run against Trump have learned, there are no guarantees.