Trump heading for Republican 'coronation' as 2024 rivals struggle to
stop him
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[August 14, 2023]
By Tim Reid
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flipped
pork chops in front of the cameras at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, a
plane appeared in the broiling blue sky.
It was Donald Trump's Boeing 757 private jet. It circled the
fairgrounds, and thousands in the crowd looked up and went wild,
cheering for the Republican former president.
An hour later, Trump arrived in a motorcade from nearby Des Moines
airport to a rock-star reception, stealing DeSantis' thunder and
reducing his nearest rival for the Republican presidential nomination to
a bit-part player at one of the biggest political events on the U.S.
political calendar.
It was a moment that epitomized the state of the 2024 Republican
presidential nominating race: Trump is far ahead in national polling,
eclipsing Florida's governor and the rest of the field, who have so far
been at a loss over how to narrow that gap.
The Iowa State Fair is a political must for aspiring presidential
candidates in the Midwestern state that kicks off the Republican
nominating contest in January. But with Trump leading DeSantis by 34
percentage points among likely Republican primary voters in an Aug. 3
Reuters/Ipsos poll, and the rest of the field languishing in single
digits, the fair this year had the air of a coronation rather than a
beauty pageant.
Despite Trump's legal problems - he has been indicted three times this
year and could be indicted a fourth time in Georgia this week - he holds
one of the biggest primary polling leads in U.S. electoral history. No
candidate in modern history has had such a big lead in a contested
primary and gone on to lose the nomination.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has had two staff shake-ups in the past three weeks
and has been sinking in the polls as he desperately tries to recalibrate
his campaign.
As Trump walked from the pork chop tent to the Steer N' Stein bar to
make a speech, flocked by supporters chanting, "We love you Trump!," a
reporter asked him about DeSantis.
"He's doing very, very poorly in the polls. He really should leave the
race," Trump said.
Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who opposes Trump's nomination,
has been holding focus groups with Republican voters all year. During
the last two she held, in the past two weeks, not a single person even
mentioned DeSantis.
When asked directly about the Florida governor at the recent focus
groups, one voter called him "sneaky." Another dismissed him as just
"another regular politician." A third said he was part of the "deep
state," a term often used by conspiracy theorists to refer to people in
government they believe are working clandestinely to manipulate national
policy.
"DeSantis is in a death spiral," Longwell said.
Bryan Griffin, a spokesperson for DeSantis, told Reuters the Republican
contest was between Trump and DeSantis, who "is the only candidate in
the race who can beat Joe Biden and implement the agenda we need to
reverse this country's decline and revive its future."
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Republican presidential candidate and
former U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns at the Iowa State Fair
in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. August 12, 2023. REUTERS/Scott Morgan
NARROWING TRUMP'S LEAD
As for the rest of the Republican field, Longwell said, it's hard to
see how any of them might catch Trump.
There is a narrow path for somebody to beat the former president,
"but they have to generate excitement and come first or second in
Iowa to make it a two-person race and persuade people they are more
electable," she said.
At the state fair, that uphill struggle to catch up to Trump was on
display amid the 90-degree Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) heat, pork chops
on a stick, deep-fried, cream-filled Twinkies; foot-long corn dogs;
and a staple of the event: a life-size cow sculpted out of butter.
In a dozen voter interviews, Reuters found that most liked DeSantis
- but not enough to back him over Trump.
"I like what DeSantis has done in Florida, but I want Trump, a
businessman, running the country, I want Trump to get a second term.
He was great for our economy; he'll cut down the size of government.
DeSantis can run next time around," said George Knuckey, 67.
Asked about DeSantis, Carla Wilkinson, 68, said: "Hell no. He's OK
in Florida, but I don't think he's presidential material. I'm Trump
all the way."
On Saturday, tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina
Governor Nikki Haley and DeSantis all appeared for interviews with
Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds.
They were greeted by about 200 people politely and warmly, although
DeSantis had to speak over a half dozen women's rights protesters
blowing whistles and under a plane flying a banner that declared:
"Be Likeable, Ron!"
The Florida governor has a reputation for being a wooden campaigner.
When Trump arrived, with Secret Service agents and sniffer dogs
everywhere, his crowds were huge, with about 2,000 people waiting to
see him.
Chris Jackson, a public opinion researcher at polling firm Ipsos,
which conducts polls for Reuters and other media organizations, said
at present the primary resembles a "coronation" for Trump.
But Jackson cautioned that can still change, especially as Trump's
legal problems mount. Primary voters could still worry about Trump's
electability in a general election, Jackson said, "and wake up and
maybe think the emperor has no clothes."
(Reporting by Tim Reid in Des Moines, Iowa; editing by Ross Colvin
and Jonathan Oatis)
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