Expect tonight’s debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to feature a lot of sharp elbows.
DeSantis is running television commercials contending that “Wall Street–funded Nikki Haley” disrespected Iowans and the caucus when she told an audience at a campaign event in Milford, N.H., “You know that Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it.”
(DeSantis has raised his share of money from Wall Street executives, too.)
DeSantis has also trotted out the line, “You have people like Nikki Haley that care more about the Ukraine border than about our own southern border.”
Based on her messages in recent days, it is likely that Haley will hit DeSantis on voting to raise the debt ceiling while he was in the U.S. House of Representatives, and that “on his second day in office as governor, Ron issued executive orders BANNING fracking and offshore drilling in Florida.” (Go figure, Floridians whose state runs on beach tourism dollars were not excited at the prospect of offshore oil rigs.)
This is the last debate for these candidates before the caucus Monday. As indicated by her comments in Milford, Haley is counting on a strong performance in New Hampshire, but she’s been inching closer and is actually narrowly ahead of DeSantis in the RealClearPolitics average, although it’s only by two-tenths of one percentage point.
I just completed a walk-through of the debate stage in the Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University. As you can see above, those two lecterns seem awfully close together. Those sharp elbows may get literal.