Trump may be in for a far more competitive primary than he and his followers would have you believe. Just this week DeSantis pulled in a huge haul of endorsements from Iowa’s state legislature ahead of his trip there this weekend.
Philip Klein says it’s way too early to count him out:
DeSantis's huge haul of Iowa endorsements reinforces my view that it is insanely premature to write him off before we see what his campaign has in store, and whether it works https://t.co/ftGbEYnWBx
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) May 12, 2023
Ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s trip to Iowa this weekend, 37 state legislators have come out to endorse him — representing over a third of the combined number of Republican lawmakers in the state’s house and senate.
This reinforces my argument from the other day, which is that it is insanely premature to write off DeSantis before he has announced anything, before we learn what his team has been planning, and before we have any idea of how he is resonating as a declared candidate.
Obvious caveats apply. Endorsements do not necessarily translate into victories, and a victory in Iowa would not necessarily translate into being nominated. In fact, not since 2000 has the Republican winner of the Iowa caucus in a contested cycle actually gone on to be the eventual nominee. In 2016, you may recall, Senator Ted Cruz won, and Trump claimed the election was stolen and demanded a revote, or else the results be nullified.
Regardless of how it turns out this year, the huge show of support is not what you’d expect to see for a candidate whose campaign is flailing, which is how much of the political press corps is treating DeSantis.
I won’t bother listing all 37 endorsements like Klein did in his article, but if you want to see them you can go check them out.
But this slew of endorsements is an interesting turn of events, but not surprising. After all, DeSantis hasn’t even gotten started yet. We haven’t gotten to see what he and his campaign can do.
I’ve made no beans for the last couple of years that I’d love to see DeSantis in the White House and so I’m definitely pulling for him.
I’d be pulling for Trump more enthusiastically too, but he’s a hard candidate to pull for when he acts like a Democrat. And for those of you who send me emails complaining about my posts about Trump, let me remind you. I didn’t leave Trump. He left me.