Could Iowa be Ron DeSantis’s last stand?

Ron DeSantis did everything right in Iowa. The Florida governor has checked all the boxes that Republicans must completeif they are to stand a chance in Hawkeye State.

He completed the “Full Grassley,” named for Iowa’s long-serving Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, where he visited all 99 counties in the state. He made the hard sell at Iowa’s State Fair. He received the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s governor, and Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the Iowa Family Leader and a kingmaker in the state whose support of Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz all played a role in their victories in the caucuses.

Mr DeSantis has staked everything on Iowa, a state that should have been a perfect match for him.

Despite Mr DeSantis’s Catholicism, the state’s heavily white, heavily churchgoing evangelical population should have been fertile ground for a man who has prided himself on delivering for social conservatives.

Indeed, Mr DeSantis’s supporters regularly point to how he fulfilled campaign promises conservatives wanted, from passing a six-week abortion ban to fighting Disney when it opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” law that restricted how schools taught about sexual orientation and gender identity to passing school vouchers. Mr DeSantis himself hammered former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley about her failure to live up to conservative promises during the final debate at Drake University.

But just four days before the first-in-the-nation contest, former President Donald Trump is still blocking out the sun in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average in the state. At 52.3 per cent, Mr Trump remains far ahead of Mr DeSantis, who has now even lost the second spot to Ms Haley, who is at 17.7 per cent to Mr DeSantis’s 16.2 per cent.

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