DES MOINES, Iowa—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will square off Jan. 10 in the fifth and final Republican presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses.
Former President Donald Trump, who holds a commanding lead in polls of likely Iowa caucusgoers, will again skip the debate to hold an event of his own.
The stakes are high for both debate participants in this debate, coming just five days before the caucuses.
The DeSantis campaign has struggled to regain momentum after sagging in the polls last summer. Some analysts have said the Florida governor must win in Iowa or, at the very least, significantly close the gap between himself and President Trump to remain viable in the race.
President Trump currently leads Mr. DeSantis by 34 percentage points in an average of recent polls reported by FiveThirtyEight. Ms. Haley is just 1 percentage point behind Mr. DeSantis.
A strong showing by Ms. Haley would add to her surging momentum ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23, where Ms. Haley is polling within single digits of President Trump.
America First Versus Peace Through Strength
Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley hold similar views on a number of issues. Both are pro-life. Both want to halt illegal immigration at the southern border. Both are pro-Second Amendment.They differ significantly on the role of the United States on the world stage. That difference was displayed at their back-to-back town hall meetings in Iowa on Jan. 4.
Asked whether he would send further arms to Ukraine in order to win back territory lost to Russia or would cede the ground to make peace, Mr. DeSantis listed tenets of an America First strategy.
“What are our top national security issues? I would say the top in this country are the border and China,” Mr. DeSantis said. He went on to say that his priority would be to end the Ukraine conflict quickly and that European countries should bear the primary burden of arming Ukraine.
“Our interest in this is to not have larger conflicts,” Mr. DeSantis said, adding that “some of the people always want to get us in deeper, and in these conflicts, you run the risk of an escalation.”
Ms. Haley, when asked about Ukraine, offered a detailed explanation for why the defense of Ukraine is a vital interest of America. “Terrorists, dictators, and thugs always tell you what they’re going to do. They’re amazingly transparent,” Ms. Haley said. “Russia said once they take Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. Those are NATO countries, and that puts America at war. This is about preventing war.”
Ready for Prime Time?
Both candidates are likely to position themselves as capable executives who are ready to lead while diminishing their opponent.Mr. DeSantis has called attention to recent gaffes by Ms. Haley on the campaign trail, including her mishandling of a question on the cause of the Civil War and a remark that seemed to indicate New Hampshire voters were more astute than Iowans.
Ms. Haley has offered corrections to both remarks.
Mr. DeSantis is likely to continue his attacks against Ms. Haley.
“I’m just thinking to myself, you know, she’s phony. You know, she doesn’t have a core set of convictions,” Mr. DeSantis said in a Jan. 4 interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register.
For her part, Ms. Haley has criticized Mr. DeSantis for appearing to be insincere in his pledges of support for Israel.
After Mr. DeSantis appeared in December at a campaign event with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the only House Republican to vote against a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, Ms. Haley lashed out at a campaign event in Des Moines.
“You can’t be pro-Israel and bring the most anti-Israel Republican into this state, who voted against fighting anti-Semitism on college campuses,” Ms. Haley said on Dec. 17.
The Case Against Trump
President Trump was mentioned very little in previous debates, except by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. That’s likely to change on Jan. 10.Both Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have upped their criticisms of the former president, beginning to present themselves as the viable alternative to a second Trump administration.
Mr. DeSantis is likely to amplify his message that he is capable of producing results, compared with President Trump, who Mr. DeSantis says failed to deliver on promises.
Speaking of President Trump’s promise to take executive action to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants, Mr. DeSantis noted that he had the opportunity to do that while in office but chose not to. “I think the fact that he’s campaigning on something does not mean that he would actually follow through on it,” Mr. DeSantis said.
Regarding abortion, Mr. DeSantis said, “Donald Trump has said that pro-life protections, even at the state level, are a, quote, ‘a terrible thing,’” speaking of comments the former president made about the six-week abortion ban enacted in Florida. “He has flip-flopped on this issue.”
Mr. DeSantis will likely make the case that conservatives need a two-term president, noting that Mr. Trump is now limited to one more term.
Ms. Haley’s line of attack has been less direct but no less biting.
“I agree with a lot of his policies,” Ms. Haley said about President Trump. “But the reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”
Trump Takes a Stage
President Trump has bypassed the four previous debates in favor of his own programming. But Jan. 10 will mark the first time he has scheduled a rival appearance in the same city at the same time.The DeSantis-Haley debate will be televised by CNN and moderated by anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
President Trump will simultaneously appear in a town hall forum televised by Fox News and hosted by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
In recent town halls that Fox News held with President Trump, commentator Sean Hannity dominated the questioning, with few, if any, queries coming from the audience. Attendees have applauded vigorously and cheered loudly for the former president at these events.
Mr. Baier, in a post on X, hinted that this forum may be different. He said questions would come from the moderators and from “citizens in the crowd—who will be a mix of Iowa voters,” possibly suggesting that some questioners may not be fans of the former president.
Both events begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
