New Iowa poll shows Trump far ahead, DeSantis and Haley work to gain ground
The latest shows Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley polling in the teens but far behind frontrunner Donald Trump. Both are working to make up ground with less than five weeks until the caucuses.
The poll, released Monday, found that most likely Iowa caucusgoers support Donald Trump. The former president is far ahead, polling at 51%.
Support for DeSantis increased since October. He's now polling at 19%. Nikki Haley is in third place at 16%. Every other candidate is polling in the single digits in Iowa.
With roughly one month until caucus night, time is running out to pull off an upset and overcome Trump's growing lead.
However, DeSantis told Iowa reporters Wednesday morning he believes he can still win over Iowans who are leaning toward the former president.
"When people who are nominal Trump supporters come [to DeSantis events], we convert them. We flip them," DeSantis said. "There's a lot of those nominal Trump supporters who have not fully decided to go with him and are open to another candidate."
DeSantis said his age, role as a father of young children and perspective on presidential leadership separate him from Trump.
"You have the former president, obviously, he's now getting up in years. He's running on a lot of the same things he ran on in 2016 and didn't deliver. He's got a lot of things personally that he's running for in terms of retribution," DeSantis said. "I'm a conservative governor who's delivered massive results for my state. I've led on every single issue that Republicans care about and won on every single issue that Republicans care about."
Nikki Haley said she's also working to win over Iowans who like Trump. Haley's now polling in third at 16% in Iowa behind DeSantis. An October poll had her tied with the Florida governor for second place, also at 16%.
"I think President Trump was the right president at the right time," Haley said during an interview with vlog Sunday. "But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows Trump. It just follows Trump. Everybody knows that's true. And we can't have a country in disarray in a world on fire and be dealing with four more years of chaos. We won't survive that."
Haley also said her electability in a general election sets her apart from Trump and other GOP candidates. She pointed to a recent that found she would defeat Biden by 17 points in a head-to-head matchup.
The same poll found that Biden would defeat DeSantis. It found Trump would narrowly beat Biden in a general election, showing Trump with a four-point lead.
Haley said the poll shows that, with her as the GOP nominee, she would deliver the American people a "landslide."
"What do the American people win? A landslide that allows for an economy to get back on track. A landslide that forces us to get our kids reading. A landslide that forces us to secure the border and a landslide that allows Americans to feel strong and proud again. That's what we're trying to do with this campaign," Haley said.