The Iowa fundraiser on Saturday will be the first time that DeSantis will share the stage with other 2024 Republican challengers, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott and former Vice President Pence. It’s unclear if former President Trump will attend.
It’s not the first time DeSantis is heading to Iowa, though his travel to West Des Moines today will mark the first time that he’s campaigning in the early presidential primary state as a declared White House candidate.
It also comes as the Florida governor shakes himself off from a glitchy campaign launch on Twitter Spaces. As our Julia Manchester reported last week, some of DeSantis’s rivals used his rocky launch on Twitter to point to their own smooth campaign launches.
But other Republicans say the rocky start isn’t a reflection of the governor or his campaign, but rather Twitter as a platform. And they add that it’s still a long ways away from the start of 2024.
“The handwringing and bed-wetting from a few folks out there is not rational,” GOP strategist Jason Cabel Roe told Julia. “I don’t think that there is anyone in the professional political class that doesn’t understand that a new platform within the Twitter platform having a technical difficulty is not, per se, Ron DeSantis or his campaign’s fault. It’s Twitter’s fault.”
Meanwhile, Pence is also using Iowa to craft his case for a potential White House bid next week when he sits down for a CNN town hall in the early presidential primary state with the network’s Dana Bash. Pence has not yet officially declared his candidacy, but his involvement in the CNN town hall suggests a decision is coming soon.
With the burgeoning field of 2024 Republican presidential candidates, including most recently DeSantis and Scott, the primary is looking to be crowded, which could position Trump to win the GOP nomination again heading into next year.
As our Brett Samuels reports this week, while a larger primary field stands to benefit Trump, some Republicans believe it’s too early for the former president to declare victory as others suggest it’ll matter more who drops out – and when.
“I think it is healthy for the party and the campaigns to have a very competitive primary,” Alex Conant, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) 2016 presidential campaign, told Brett. “But if you’re going to beat Trump, the field needs to winnow faster than it did in 2016. I don’t think it matters how many candidates run, I think it matters when candidates drop out.”
