In the run-up to and aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) campaign, surrogates, and supporters debuted several excuses that were, quite frankly, Trumpy. The Florida governor did not fail when he lost to the former president by 30 points, DeSantis devotees argued, but rather, he was failed by that empty-headed electorate.
In a sophomoric throwback to former President Donald Trump’s post-2020 meltdown, DeSantis’s campaign accused the media of “election interference” for (correctly) projecting that Trump won the caucuses, which he eventually did by a record margin. But perhaps most pernicious was the lie promulgated by Team DeSantis that the polls were wrong and the ensuing media coverage of the race intentionally dishonest.
DeSantis supporters’ primary gripe with the polling seemed to stem from the late-breaking surge of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, but even Selzer was clear that her top-line support wasn’t so clear-cut. Although Selzer found that Haley had 20% support to DeSantis’s 16%, Selzer was clear that her support in the highly evangelical state was much softer in reality.
“There is an underlying weakness here,” Selzer said of the lack of enthusiasm among Iowans nominally supporting Haley. “If turnout is low, it seems to me that a disproportionate share of her supporters might stay at home.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Although Selzer only gave Trump 48%, in line with other polling that gave him a clear majority, Trump won 51% support in the caucus. Haley won 19.1%, almost exactly the 18.8% RealClearPolitics average. DeSantis slightly overperformed, scoring 21.2% as opposed to the 15.7% RealClearPolitics average.
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But recall, according to Team DeSantis, the polls weren’t supposed to be off by a margin of error, as the Selzer poll proved. The polls were supposed to be incorrect by the double digits in multiple directions. Time after time, DeSantis promised he would win Iowa, and, arguably, the entire thesis of his candidacy was that these lying pollsters were missing a broad base of his supporters who would go on to vanquish Trump’s dominance. That didn’t happen.
Even if the New Hampshire polls are understating his support by the 4 points they missed in Iowa, DeSantis will still fail to crack the double digits in the Granite State and lose to Trump and Haley handily. In South Carolina, DeSantis would again lose to Haley by at least 6 points and Trump by nearly 40 points. The fact is that despite nearly $200 million, the entire Republican political elite engaged at the start of 2023, and supposedly the best ground game in the history of the Iowa caucuses, the polling did not fail Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis simply failed.
