Trump swoops into Iowa Fair to scramble DeSantis’ effort to reboot campaign
- Ron DeSantis, who is sinking in the polls, had long planned to attend the Iowa State Fair, a political must for aspiring presidential candidates
- Donald Trump’s late announcement on Tuesday that he was also going to attend the event on the same day as DeSantis amounted to a political gatecrashing
DeSantis, who has had two staff shake-ups in the past three weeks and is sinking in the polls, had long planned to attend the Iowa State Fair, a political must for aspiring presidential candidates in the state that kicks off the Republican nominating contest in January.
Trump’s late announcement on Tuesday that he was also going to attend the event on the same day as DeSantis amounted to a political gatecrashing of an appearance the Florida governor hopes will kick-start his stalled campaign.
DeSantis is making a high-risk bet that he can halt Trump’s march to the Republican presidential nomination by winning Iowa.
Asked about his governing style on Saturday, DeSantis said he cared more about protecting voters than his own fortunes.
“So we’ll do what’s right. We’ll take the consequences and let the chips fall where they may,” he said in an interview with Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds at the fair.
At the start of the interview, Reynolds reproached a group of protesters who were blowing whistles.
Later on, a large crowd cheered Trump as he arrived at the fair. He later made a speech inside a fairground bar, where he boasted about his current lead. “We’re way up in the polls,” Trump said.
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While DeSantis steered clear of attacking Trump, DeSantis barbs were fair game for the former president. He told reporters he did not think he had written off the Florida governor too early.
Asked whether he saw DeSantis as his main rival, Trump responded: “I don’t see him.”
Trump, the Republican frontrunner by a large margin, brought along a delegation of Florida Republicans who endorsed him over DeSantis.
“When the other candidates came here they had like six people,” Trump told supporters in a speech at a restaurant bar at the fairgrounds. “We stopped at three different places and we’ve never been treated so well.”
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Iowa holds the first of the state-by-state Republican nominating contests on January 15. DeSantis hopes that a win in the Midwestern state will give him valuable momentum against Trump before primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Trump’s appearance at the fair could steal the limelight from the governor and dominate the headlines. It is held in the state capital Des Moines and runs from August 10 to August 20. Last year, it attracted more than 1 million visitors.
Trump’s appearance will also complicate efforts for the rest of the Republican field. Apart from Trump and DeSantis, nine other candidates will be attending the fair between August 11 and August 18, but all are languishing in single digits, more than 40 points behind Trump according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely Republican voters.
According to that August 3 poll, Trump also leads DeSantis by 34 points, 47 per cent to 13 per cent.
Most of Trump’s rivals had agreed to be interviewed individually by Reynolds between August 11 and August 18. Trump turned down her invitation, angered by her public neutrality in the primary race and her appearance with DeSantis at several of his Iowa events.
On stage with Reynolds, DeSantis avoided speaking about Trump, instead homing in on Biden’s economic policy.
“On day one, we take all Biden regulations and executive orders and throw them in the trash can,” DeSantis said. “Bidenomics is basically Americans have a lower standard of living so that he can pursue his political, ideological agenda, and that is not acceptable.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
