First thing to note: Christie held a town hall there in hopes of selling his aggressively anti-Trump message to Republican voters. Let's just say it's a hard sell in South Carolina.
Now, there are two new polls, both from Fox Business, that shed light on the status of the Republican race in Iowa and South Carolina. The Iowa survey, of 806 caucusgoers, found former President Donald Trump with 46% of the vote and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) 30 points behind with 16%. In a development that is attracting a lot of attention, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is in third place with 11%, just 5 points behind DeSantis. Behind the top three are Vivek Ramaswamy at 6%, Nikki Haley at 5%, former Vice President Mike Pence at 4%, Doug Burgum and Chris Christie at 3% each, and Asa Hutchinson and Francis Suarez each at 1%.
In the South Carolina poll, of 808 primary voters, Trump is in the lead with 48% of the vote, while former South Carolina Gov. Haley — not DeSantis — is in second place with 14%. DeSantis is in third place with 13%. After that come Scott with 10%, Pence with 4%, Ramaswamy with 3%, Christie with 2%, and Hutchinson with 1%. Burgum, Suarez, and a few others have too little support to measure.
Two important points about the polls. The first is that Trump's numbers in Iowa and South Carolina mirror his numbers nationwide. You've heard many analysts — me included — point out that national polls are interesting, but it's important to remember the GOP race is a series of state contests, beginning with Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Now, it appears that Trump's lead nationally does reflect his lead in two important early states.
Trump's standing in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls is now 51.8%. His lead over the second-place Republican, DeSantis, is 33.3 points. In Iowa, Trump is at 46% with a 30-point lead over his closest competitor, and in South Carolina, Trump is at 48% with a 34-point lead.
So, the Iowa and South Carolina polls are good news for Trump. They suggest that what he is doing to build a lead in the national polls is also working in the first states he will need to win the Republican nomination. (As far as New Hampshire is concerned, the Real Clear Politics average of state polls has Trump with a 22-point lead over DeSantis, 41% to 19%.)
The second important point about the Fox Business polls is that they show that DeSantis is not a rock-solid second-place contender everywhere. In fact, he is not in second place at all in South Carolina, where Haley, the state's former governor, edged out DeSantis for the No. 2 position. In Iowa, DeSantis is still in second place, but it appears Tim Scott is gaining on him. In the Fox Business poll, Scott is 5 points behind DeSantis in Iowa. In previous polls from other organizations, Scott was 14 and 17 points behind.
There are lots of indications DeSantis knows things aren't going well. There have been stories about multiple "reboots" of his campaign. That's never good news, in part because it can indicate that a campaign is tinkering around the edges when it in fact needs to make fundamental changes.
DeSantis is also signaling that he will focus like a laser beam on Iowa. His staff recently sent out a memo pledging that DeSantis will do the "full Grassley" in Iowa, that is, visit all of Iowa's 99 counties, as longtime Sen. Chuck Grassley does in his reelection campaigns. That's a big acceleration in DeSantis's Iowa strategy and an indication that he thinks he has not pushed hard enough in the first-voting state.
It's impossible to say where things will stand on Jan. 15, 2024, when the Iowa caucuses take place. Maybe Trump will be out of the picture. Maybe he'll have an even bigger lead than he does today. Who knows?
On the other hand, it is not impossible to say that a poor finish by DeSantis — say, third place in Iowa — would be a big comedown for the man seen as Trump's strongest challenger.
At the moment, DeSantis is failing to catch up with Trump even as other candidates are catching up with him.
(COMMENT, BELOW)