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All Eyes on Iowa

State of the Union: Welcome to 2024. The Iowa caucuses are now less than two weeks away.

President Trump Meets With Governors-Elect In The Cabinet Room Of White House
(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Welcome to 2024. The Iowa caucuses are now less than two weeks away.

As it stands now, former President Donald Trump has more than a 30-point gap over the rest of the field. His closest challenger, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, is trailing the former president in the Hawkeye State by 31.6 percent. In third, the former Boeing board member Nimarata “Nikki” Haley, who trails by 34.3 points. There is no indication that either DeSantis or Haley will be saved by a sudden disqualification from the GOP primary ballot in Iowa for the former president—the kind of which Trump currently faces in Maine and Colorado.

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Nevertheless, the candidates will have one more chance to humiliate their opposition on live television before Hawkeyes congregate throughout the state. The next presidential debate, scheduled for January 10 in Des Moines, however, will have far fewer participants on stage than previous debates. CNN, the network hosting the debate in Des Moines, announced Tuesday that only Trump, DeSantis, and Haley have qualified, which means each have received at least 10 percent in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican primary voters or caucus-goers. 

Trump has not appeared in any of the Republican primary debates so far—and, yet, somehow he has still managed to win them. The former president’s debate strategy won’t be changing any time soon: Rather than debate in Des Moines, Trump will be fielding questions at a town hall hosted by Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. 

Which makes the January 10 debate a one-on-one matchup between DeSantis and Haley. DeSantis has the opportunity to do the country a great service by showing the Haley campaign for the sham it truly is. In the last debate on December 6, 2023, DeSantis and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy teamed up on Haley with great effect. This time, however, DeSantis will not have the peppery and probing Ramaswamy to twist the knife—he’ll have to do it himself. Haley will be without her ally, too. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who spent much of the last debate arguing why Haley should be the GOP nominee, won’t be on stage and will have to find another ball of hot air to orbit on January 10.

It is no secret that I’m a Trump guy. But, though DeSantis’ campaign has been a disappointment up until this point, I still feel I’m with most Trump voters when I say I still like DeSantis. And DeSantis has proven he is at his best in these one-v-one situations. I thought it was a big gamble when the Florida governor agreed to debate California Governor Gavin Newsom. Had the nimble Newsom embarrassed DeSantis, it may have been time for DeSantis to call it quits for 2024. But DeSantis prevailed: The Florida Governor was focused and forceful. The mojo DeSantis gained from defeating Newsom clearly carried over into the December 6 Republican primary debate, which he approached much more like a one-on-one debate between himself and Haley. Haley, meanwhile, struggled in stunned silence to remember the names of the provinces she wants to help Ukraine take back.

The other Florida man in the race won’t be watching DeSantis debate Haley—he’s got another commitment. But if DeSantis manages to beat Haley handily, maybe it will send a message to Mar-a-Lago that Haley shouldn’t be one heartbeat away from the nuclear football.