SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — Ramona Nitz met Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for the first time on Saturday while attending the Feenstra Family Picnic hosted by Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA). Nitz, a 68-year-old retired teacher from Cherokee, Iowa, is like most attendees who showed up for the picnic on a cloudy weekend morning: she’s a conservative who wants a candidate who will defeat President Joe Biden during next year’s presidential elections.
“We need to win this next election. I think we have a good shot at it with him,” Nitz told the Washington Examiner about the Florida governor.
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“I do like him … he doesn’t take anything from anybody and I kind of like that,” she added. “He really doesn’t back down and I kind of like that. But he’s a little more thoughtful in his speaking and that appeals to me. So we’ll see.”
Ritz, donning a Never Back Down hat, is just one of the many GOP primary voters in the first-in-the-nation GOP caucus state DeSantis will need to convince to support him over former President Donald Trump as they battle to become the 2024 Republican nominee for president. But the race won’t be easy. DeSantis hasn’t officially declared he’s running for president, Trump continues to lead polling despite legal complications, and Trump, along with his allies, has brutally undercut DeSantis with endorsements and stinging memos — all of which have dragged down DeSantis’s poll numbers.
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But in Iowa this weekend, DeSantis made the case for why he is the conservative who can take down Biden, at two different events in Sioux Center and Cedar Rapids, while Trump was forced to cancel his own Iowa rally in Des Moines due to inclement weather. DeSantis even made a surprise visit to Jethro’s BBQ Southside in Des Moines late Saturday night.
“You can’t win big with just Republicans and we proved that. But here’s the thing, we didn’t do it by trimming our sails. We didn’t contort ourselves to be anything that we’re not. We led boldly, we lead conservatively, and we delivered results and people responded,” DeSantis told the Feenstra picnic crowd.
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“At the end of the day, governing is not about entertaining. Governing is not about building a brand or talking on social media and virtue signaling. It’s ultimately about winning and about producing results,” DeSantis continued in a subtle dig at Trump, who lost the 2020 election.
He also declared the GOP “must reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years.” Afterward, he spent time meeting with voters, shaking hands, signing poster boards, and then flipping burgers with both Feenstra and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R).
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Trump and DeSantis are the two leading Republicans in the GOP 2024 race but the two men haven’t hesitated to criticize the other in an attempt to gain more primary voter supporters. While DeSantis made sly references to Trump and did not utter his name during his speech, the former president has publicly excoriated DeSantis — a sign that he may be more worried about the Florida governor’s nascent campaign.
“He’s got no personality. And I don’t think he’s got a lot of political skill,” Trump told the Messenger, a new media outlet that launched on Monday. On DeSantis’s soon-to-be-launched campaign, Trump had this to say: “So far, I’m not a fan of the way that he’s running. First of all, he shouldn’t be running right now because he hasn’t filed [official paperwork as a candidate.”
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Yet, Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, has gone up with a seven-figure ad buy in the four early-voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. The group also unveiled 37 endorsements from Iowa state Republicans, a strong showing of the support DeSantis is gaining in the Hawkeye State.
“The support in Iowa for Governor Ron DeSantis to jump in the race and be our next President is overflowing, as shown by this historic list, which is the largest number of endorsements from Iowa legislators at this stage of a GOP primary in modern memory. Iowa’s leaders are getting behind DeSantis as the future of the Republican Party,” said Erin Perrine, the group’s communications director.
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Trump’s history in the Iowa caucuses is checkered. He lost the Iowa caucus in 2016 to then-rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) but in 2020 he won Iowa in a decisive victory as he faced minimal challengers for the nomination. As he attempts to claim the mantle again he’ll also have to convince skeptical voters who are weary of Trump’s baggage to give him another shot.
“Not only do we need someone that I agree with, we need somebody who’s clearly electable,” Arlan Ecklund, a 68-year-old farm equipment seller from Denison, Iowa. “If Mr. Trump is the nominee, I’ll support him but I think I’m ready for somebody else.”
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Ecklund said he wanted to hear more about DeSantis’s views before he would decide on which candidate to support. “I need somebody who believes in strong conservative principles, who I believe is a person of principle and somebody who I think is electable,” he concluded.
Nitz, the retired teacher, voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. But she said, “I think it’s time to move on.”
