In Final Campaign Stretch, Ron DeSantis Bets Everything on Iowa

Cedar Rapids, Iowa — One day after completing his tour of all 99 Iowa counties, Ron DeSantis returned to the eastern part of the state to make inroads with the key voting bloc he hopes will help carry him to a surprise victory on January 15: Evangelicals.

It’s in these intimate and typically reporter-free church environments that DeSantis, who is Catholic, often speaks about faith as a prerequisite for leadership. “You should trust in God, not think that you are God,” DeSantis told a small congregation at Liberty Baptist Church in eastern Iowa on Sunday. “You have to be mindful of lessons from the Bible of people like King Saul, whose ego and lack of humility ultimately caused his destruction.”

This scripture reference is a not-so-subtle swipe at the front-runner, former president Donald Trump, who expects a blowout victory in Iowa next month despite his light campaign schedule here — an outcome that looks more and more likely with every passing day.

At this stage in the race, DeSantis is hoping that a robust ground game will carry him to an improbable upset in the Iowa caucuses, even as Trump boasts a double-digit lead here and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who leads DeSantis in New Hampshire, is within striking distance of catching the Florida governor’s second-place standing in Hawkeye State polls.

Part of that ground game includes occasional church visits. Earlier on Sunday morning, DeSantis delivered remarks during two services down the road at Calvary Community Church, where at one point during his first speech he posed for a photo as the pastor gave him a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Jesus freak,” inviting laughter from the audience.

From the start, the press has relentlessly cast candidate DeSantis as aloof and introverted. Unfortunately for the Florida governor, there’s a grain of truth to this criticism, even if it is overblown. Seen up close on the campaign trail on Sunday, he appeared fidgety next to his wife, Casey, a more natural campaigner who charms every voter she meets.

It’s at the podium that DeSantis is better able to showcase his strengths as a disciplined, family-oriented, whip-smart executive who won reelection during the last cycle in Florida by a whopping 19 points.

“As a leader, I will always be somebody that you can be proud of in how I conduct myself,” DeSantis told a crowd one day earlier in Newton. “And if I’m president, I promise I just don’t care what they throw at me out there, what they say about me. I don’t care about the arrows. I will stand for you and I will not let you down.”

But the Florida governor faces a tough road ahead, especially as donors eager for a non-Trump alternative continue to drift toward Haley. On Saturday, the same day he completed his monthslong all-county tour, news broke that Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, abruptly dismissed several high-profile employees, including the group’s interim CEO. The firings somewhat undercut DeSantis’s campaign achievement and naturally came as welcome news to the Trump team, whose members have long characterized the governor’s political operation as overhyped and poorly managed, even as their own candidate faces four criminal indictments.

“There comes a point in time when you can’t throw any more fairy dust,” Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita tells National Review.

DeSantis’s orbit has sought to distract from this behind-the-scenes turmoil by keeping the focus on his endorsements from Republican governor Kim Reynolds, Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, and more than 100 faith leaders in Iowa.

Those endorsements, DeSantis backers are quick to point out, are paired with a strong ground game in Iowa: Never Back Down has knocked on more than 718,000 doors, secured nearly 30,000 commitments to caucus for the Florida governor, and has 30 full-time paid staff on the ground, a super PAC official tells NR.

“It’s an organizational exercise. And when you got the governor, she’s a very popular governor, and she’s on TV and in mailboxes,” Vander Plaats told NR on Saturday in Newton, adding: “Iowa breaks late.”

But polls suggest the Florida governor’s robust political operation has done little to win over the large swath of Iowa caucus-goers who are still more inclined to support the former president, indictments and all. After the governor concluded his remarks at a Saturday afternoon rally in Newton, one voter asked him what distinguishes him from the former president on matters of style and substance.

“So, one, I mean I think his policies were overall sound. I think he had a lot of good policies,” DeSantis said in response. “I think I’ve actually shown an ability to implement America-first policies more effectively than he did.” The rest of DeSantis’s nearly five-minute-long answer blasted the former president for elevating former chief medical adviser turned Republican bogeyman Anthony Fauci, not finishing the U.S.–Mexico border wall, and constantly getting into “needless food fights” instead of setting a “good example for this country.”

Can Evangelicals help carry him across the finish line? DeSantis’s conservative record on abortion and the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly paid dividends with faith leaders like Liberty Baptist Church pastor Darran Whiting, who teared up during Sunday morning’s service when speaking about Governor Reynolds’s temporary decision to close down churches at the beginning of the-19 pandemic. “She’s a dear friend of mine, and she did not keep our churches open right away,” he reminded his congregation. “And she knew really quickly that was a mistake.”

Whiting praised DeSantis’s decision to keep Florida churches open throughout the pandemic and joked that his own track record in previous Republican nominating contests may curse the governor’s presidential prospects. “Sorry, governor, I’m notorious for picking the losers,” Whiting teased. “You’re ill-fated from the very beginning!”

After shaking hands and snapping photos with churchgoers following the service, DeSantis offered some encouraging words in return. “Keep doing your thing, man, we need it,” he told Pastor Whiting on his way out of Liberty Baptist Church. “You can count on me.”