Ron DeSantis enlists South Carolina senator to undercut Nikki Haley in Iowa

MARION — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enlisted the help of conservative South Carolina state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg, in Iowa as he scrambles to head off Republican presidential rival Nikki Haley.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador, has gained ground in Iowa, the leadoff nominating state, pulling even with DeSantis for second place in recent polling of likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers.

DeSantis and Kimbrell stopped Thursday evening at Mr. Beans coffee shop in Marion, where they addressed and took questions from a crowd of less than 100 supporters and media.

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“The reason I'm here today is because our state is a red state and it’s redder because of Gov. DeSantis being governor of Florida than Nikki Haley being the governor of South Carolina,” Kimbrell, who represents South Carolina’s deeply conservative Upstate region, told the crowd.

“Governor DeSantis stands better for South Carolina values than Nikki Haley stood for South Carolina values,” he continued. “ … Because in Florida, he stood up for parental rights. He stood up for the notion that you can raise your kids better than a government bureaucrat can.

“He stood up for the radical notion there are two genders in the United States of America. We shouldn't be teaching your 4-year-old to change everything. He has stood up to cut taxes and to promote school choice.”

South Carolina state lawmakers also have passed multiple school choice and parental rights bills, because “we emulated what Ron DeSantis did.”

“I can say as a South Carolinian, and it’s not personal — it’s not about personalities — it’s about you’ve got a governor in Florida who has a consistent record on the issues,” Kimbrell told reporters afterward. “Haley says the right stuff, but the record doesn’t back it up.”

Asked about Haley not citing slavery as a cause of the American Civil War when asked at a campaign town hall Wednesday in New Hampshire, Kimbrell said “at the end of the day, slavery absolutely ... was the spark that lit the Civil War.”

Halely has since said: “Of course the Civil War was about slavery. We know that. That's unquestioned.”

“But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government,” she said Thursday in New Hampshire.

“We can have a modern day debate over states rights, and that’s fine,” Kimbrell said, but Haley, as a southern conservative running for office, “should have been prepared to answer the question.“

“I think it was a sign of frustration that she wasn’t prepared for that,” Kimbrell said. “I’m not sure how she wasn’t prepared for that.”

Haley’s campaign told CNN: “Here’s a quick refresher: Nikki is a conservative outsider who took on the establishment to put votes on the record.”

“It’s sad to see Ron DeSantis stooping to such desperate, lame attacks, but nothing will save his dying campaign,” her campaign spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik told CNN.

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Surrogates

Kimbrell is the latest DeSantis ally to join him on the campaign trail as he makes his closing pitch to Iowa voters just weeks from the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses.

DeSantis and surrogates such as Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt barnstormed Iowa before Christmas.

DeSantis will be joined Friday at an event in Clayton County by Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has endorsed his campaign. She will also join DeSantis for a New Year’s Eve Celebration in West Des Moines.

Former President Donald Trump continues to hold a consistent and commanding lead over the Republican presidential primary candidates, both nationally and in Iowa, ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa Republican caucuses. He is just over 50 percent in the rolling polling averages at both Real Clear Politics and fivethirtyeight, with roughly 30-point leads over the rest of the field in both.

‘Lame duck’

DeSantis argued Republicans nominating Trump in 2024 is a high-risk choice with low reward for the party and said Trump would be a “lame duck” if elected for a second term.

“If you look at what is going to happen in 2024, you know, we have we have a couple of options.

“We can have the option with the former president being the nominee for a third time in a row and the whole election will be about him … and will be about all these different investigations and legal cases. which, look, I think they're unfair. I will fire Jack Smith on Day One when I'm president,” DeSantis told the crowd of the special counsel who is prosecuting Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

“Nevertheless, the media and the Democrats -- that's what they want the election to be about. They do not want Biden to face any accountability.”

He said Trump would be a drag on the party in a general election, as he was for Republicans in 2020 and 2022.

“Even if somehow he could surmount that, you have a lame duck president on Day One,” DeSantis said. “How are you going to be able to get things done? How are you going to be able to recruit the personnel that you need to?”

The Florida governor said Trump failed to “drain the swamp” in Washington and lacked many legislative accomplishments while in office, instead using executive orders that can be overturned by a new administration.

DeSantis pitch

DeSantis said, if he is elected, Republicans would expand their majority in the U.S. House and wrest back control of the Senate. And he would adopt a tactic used by President Joe Biden, the budget reconciliation process, to pass his agenda in Congress.

“Ultimately, you either produce these results or you don't,” DeSantis said.

“To sit here and have slogans and campaign and say all this stuff, that's fine. I want to bring it all in for a landing. And that's what I did in Florida. … I delivered on 100 percent of the promises — finished, done and delivered.

“And I'm the only one running that has beaten the left across the board on issue after issue. That's what it's going to take to turn this country around.”

He said Iowans have an “opportunity to change the trajectory of politics in this country.”

“This will reverberate — the Iowa caucus — not just across the country, but really across the world,“ DeSantis said. ”So you have an opportunity to do that.

“And I'm motivated to run because I see us be in jeopardy of being the first generation of Americans to leave to our kids and grandkids an America less prosperous and less free than the one we inherited.“

Voter thoughts

Kristin Schrader, of Marion, is 59-year-old self-described “Never Trumper,” said she remains undecided who she will support in the Iowa caucuses.

She was among those who listened to DeSanits on Thursday in Marion. The vice president of an engineering company, Schrader said she was curious to see DeSantis in person and was talked into attending by a co-worker who is a DeSanits supporter.

Schrader said she likes DeSantis’ military record and his response to the coronavirus as governor of Florida, but was leaning toward supporting Haley.

“I like that she’s an accountant. I like that she has strong international (foreign policy) experience,” she said. “And her policies make sense to me” on tackling inflation, reining in federal spending and reducing the federal deficit.

Haley has said she would veto any budget that doesn't bring spending back to pre-COVID levels, eliminate $500 billion in green energy subsidies and implement mandatory zero-based budgeting. Her plan also would implement Social Security and Medicare reforms for younger generations.

Asked what would clinch her support for either candidate, Schrader said the one best positioned to win in the 2024 general election. Asked who she felt that was, she said: “I don’t know.”

After listening to DeSantis, she said she remains undecided.

“He pointed out not only what he was going to do, but how he was going to do it,” she said. “I don’t think that’s represented in the media very well. Now, I’m really undecided.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com

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