Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said Sunday that a poor showing in Monday’s Iowa GOP caucuses won’t stop him from continuing with his White House bid, even as he faces poor polling numbers in the Hawkeye State.
A recent NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll shows the Florida governor in third place among Republican voters in Iowa, behind front-runner Donald Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
“We’ve got a huge number of people that have committed to caucus, and we expect that these are the people that turn out,” Mr. DeSantis said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s a lot of excitement on the ground. We’re in this for the long haul.”
Mr. Trump leads in Iowa by almost 30 percentage points over Ms. Haley, prompting Mr. DeSantis to say the former president has “set high expectations for his performance on Monday” but “may not meet those expectations.”
Mr. DeSantis cited another indicator that he intends to stay in the race is that his campaign has planned events in the early primary states after Iowa, including New Hampshire, Ms. Haley’s home state of South Carolina and Nevada.
“I’m participating in the caucus against Donald Trump. Nikki Haley is not, so she can’t win any delegates in Nevada,” Mr. DeSantis said. “My view would be if you’re in it to win it, you got to compete for every single delegate.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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