DeSantis disses Haley, Pence in pitch to Virgin Islands GOP
Ron DeSantis dismissed Republican rivals Nikki Haley and Mike Pence on Monday as candidates who won’t be able to win the persuadable pool of GOP presidential primary voters necessary to defeat Donald Trump, according to audio obtained by McClatchyDC.
Speaking to about 30 members of the Virgin Islands GOP committee virtually, DeSantis said his campaign estimates that 20% of the 2024 Republican electorate will definitely vote for the former president, with 35% having ruled Trump out completely. That leaves about 45% of Republican voters who are still considering their options.
“They’re not going to vote for people like Pence and Haley. I respect them, they’re just not,” DeSantis told the Virgin Islands group, referring to voters in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. “They will vote for me, because I have a record of being a very strong leader.”
DeSantis spoke to the Virgin Islands gathering because the unincorporated territory in the Caribbean holds an early caucus on Feb. 8 for nine delegates. A candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote will sweep all the island’s delegates.
Other than Trump, Haley and Pence were the only candidates the Florida governor cited during his remarks, which lasted about 23 minutes and included questions from the audience.
Neither Haley nor Pence’s campaigns responded to a request for a reaction to DeSantis’ assessment.
“We’re going to win Iowa,” DeSantis declared. “We’re way ahead of any other candidate who’s won the caucuses in the past.”
DeSantis is correct that other candidates like Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Ted Cruz in 2016 made up considerable deficits to ultimately pull off a surprise victory there. But neither of them was running against a former president on his third campaign for the White House, and neither Huckabee nor Cruz went on to secure the GOP nomination.
An Iowa State University poll conducted by Civiqs earlier this month showed Trump with a staggering 38-point lead over DeSantis, with the former president receiving 55% support, compared to DeSantis’ 17%. Haley was in third with 11%.
New Hampshire looks like an even tougher challenge for DeSantis, with some recent polling showing him falling behind Haley in the Granite State.
Haley has seen a bump in her polling fortunes following two well-received debate performances, where she tangled with her rivals in sharp-tongued back-and-forths. In the September debate, Haley attacked DeSantis for being against fracking and drilling. But while he made a promise to ban fracking as a candidate, it’s Florida voters who approved an amendment to ban offshore drilling through a constitutional ballot initiative.
On Monday, DeSantis also pitched his general election viability to the Virgin Island Republicans.
“The fact is, I won Florida by 17 points more than Trump won Florida,” he said, comparing his 2022 re-election victory to Trump’s Florida performance in 2020. “So we have the ability to win nationally in a way that I think he would struggle doing.”
DeSantis said if Ronald Reagan were running for a third time, he’d have locked down 90% of Republican voters by now, maintaining that a majority of GOP voters favor an alternative.
The governor referenced the need for the field to consolidate in order to topple the front-runner and predicted that some of his rivals polling in single digits would end their candidacies, though he did not say when that would occur.
“Coalesce the 35% of the people who want to move on,” and then win the sizable slice of voters still open to an option other than Trump, DeSantis said. “That will do the trick if you can get that done and I think we will.”
Correction: The original version of the article misreported the South Carolina Republican primary date.
This story was originally published October 17, 2023 at 8:14 AM with the headline "DeSantis disses Haley, Pence in pitch to Virgin Islands GOP."