Where does DeSantis go from here?
- Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a GOP presidential candidate, came in second place in the Iowa caucuses.
- He finished behind Trump and roughly even with former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.
The first contest in the fight for the 2024 presidential Republican nomination has officially come to a close in Iowa, with former President Donald Trump dominating the field. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida finished in a distant second place, leaving his path to the nomination unclear.
By night's end on Monday, DeSantis tallied just 21% of the vote in Iowa, which amounted to eight of the state's 40 delegates. Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina finished in third place with 19% of the vote. Both fell far short of Trump's 51%.
Trump committed limited resources to his win. Haley essentially tied DeSantis despite a strategy far more suited to New Hampshire and South Carolina. DeSantis, however, made Iowa a centerpiece of his effort.
Though the estimated margin of victory had shifted in recent weeks, Trump had long been the clear favorite to win the state.
Eyes in Iowa had long been on which candidate would place second: DeSantis, once considered a formidable competitor to Trump, or Haley, Trump's former UN ambassador who's repeatedly declined to say whether she'd accept an offer to be his vice-presidential running mate.
Nevertheless, despite running a nearly textbook-perfect campaign for the Iowa caucuses and visiting each of the state's 99 counties, DeSantis won zero of them.
After DeSantis' poor showing in Iowa, the Florida governor faces an important question: Where exactly are the 1,215 delegates he needs to win the nomination going to come from? If he couldn't win even one-quarter of the available delegates in Iowa, where he campaigned for months, how would he start winning majorities elsewhere?
New Hampshire is the first GOP primary, taking place on January 23. As of the most recent poll of the state from Emerson College, Haley was 21 percentage points ahead of DeSantis, who finished in the poll behind even former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who's no longer a candidate.
DeSantis' campaign said it's traveling straight to South Carolina — Haley's home state — post-Iowa to get a head start on the fifth primary before returning to New Hampshire to participate in a televised town hall.
But with DeSantis' dismal finish on Monday, what's increasingly looking like a third-place finish in New Hampshire, and no obvious advantage in South Carolina against one of the state's former governors and a popular former president, momentum is not on his side.
It may be best for DeSantis to hang up his raised boots for the campaign season and focus on finishing his final few years in the governor's mansion.