A few hours after finishing second in the Iowa Caucuses, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis looked chipper and sounded optimistic in his first campaign event on Jan. 16 in Greenville, South Carolina.
With many pundits trying to count him out and many networks calling the Jan. 15 race for former President Donald Trump before many Iowans had even voted, Mr. DeSantis looked ahead to New Hampshire on Jan. 23 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24.
“They threw everything but the kitchen sink at me,” he said defiantly. “During this process, they spent almost $50 million against me. That’s more than has been spent against [President Joe] Biden and Trump combined. The media, nonstop, all they were trying to do was knock me out.
“And you know, [former South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley said yesterday only the top two from Iowa go on to be viable. Well, guess what, we punched our ticket out of Iowa yesterday.”
Ms. Haley, with a late surge, had passed Mr. DeSantis to take second place in many polls. But on a frigid night there, with temperatures below zero in most of the state and wind chills of nearly minus 30 degrees, he beat her out for second place behind President Trump.
His chances are dimmer in New Hampshire. The Real Clear Politics Average of major polls as of Jan. 10 had President Trump at 43.6 percent, Ms. Haley at 29.3 percent, and Mr. DeSantis at only 6.5 percent, behind former Gov. Chris Christie, now out of the race but then polling at 11.3 percent.
His chances are a shade better in South Carolina. Ms. Haley was elected to two terms as governor there, leaving office in 2017 to become the Trump administration’s United Nations ambassador.
The RCP Average for South Carolina, for several months ending on Jan. 3, had Trump at 52 percent, Ms. Haley at 21.8 percent, and Mr. DeSantis at 11 percent.
Meanwhile, Mr. Christie, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have all withdrawn. Their collective 7 percent of South Carolina voters is now up for grabs.
Mr. DeSantis talked about his November debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democrat is not a candidate but is seen by many as likely to run if President Joe Biden drops out. Mr. DeSantis questioned President Biden’s fitness for office.
“You know, I needed practice debating somebody who’s almost as liberal as Nikki Haley,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“Haley was governor here for six years. Can you name major achievements under her tenure? I mean, tell me if there are, because she hasn’t been able to do it.
“She goes around and says that she’s a champion for school choice. Did they do school choice when she was in office here? No.”
He contrasted that with his record, this past year having signed a universal school choice bill in Florida, “the most sweeping in the country.”
DeSantis tagged President Trump for his refusal to debate and for his failure to deliver on his 2016 campaign promises during his term in office: a Mexican border wall, a ban on birthright citizenship, “draining the swamp,” eliminating the debt, and “holding [former Sen.] Hillary [Clinton] accountable.”
“And all you do to sign things, and he had four years to do it, is sit down at that desk, pick up that pen, let ‘er rip and you do it. And he didn’t do it over a four-year period.”
“Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me,” Mr. DeSantis said. “He had a chance to do it. He didn’t do it. So that’s not how I roll. If I tell you I’m going to do something, I will absolutely do it.”
Mr. DeSantis was introduced by two Congressmen who supported him. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R.-Texas).
Mr. Massie told a story about getting on President Trump’s wrong side at the beginning of the pandemic. Congress was asked to pass a $2 trillion spending bill.
“But they were going to do it by unanimous consent. They said it’s too dangerous for Congress to show up for work. You will just stay home and we'll pass it by unanimous consent. Nobody needs to be in the chamber as long as nobody objects.”
“And I thought, hold on a second. The nurses are still working during COVID. The grocery store baggers are still carrying groceries to your car. We’ve got farmers still working. Truckers are still working.
“I told Congress—my car and I drove eight hours—and I objected. I said, get your butts to work. Come here to Washington, D.C. Go on the record.
“Well, you’re clapping,” he told the applauding audience, “but none of them were. There were 434 people who hated me for breathing air. CNN called me the most hated person in Washington, D.C.”
Mr. Massie told Congress: “This will cause inflation. This will cause shortages if you pay people not to work. If you give this money to the states, the blue states will keep the economy shut down forever with this money. This is a horrible idea, and oh, by the way, it funded the Malian election of 2020.”
As he was ready to make his motion on the House floor, he said: “My phone rings. And I looked at it, and it was like this weird number with a bunch of zeroes in it. Like, who could get a phone number, and it’s all zeroes?
“That’s Trump. So I let it go to voicemail. Yeah. He did not leave me a voicemail. But he called again, and he called again, but I couldn’t leave the floor of the House. I had to make that motion to object because no one else was going to do it.”
Once he had forced debate, he said: “I walked out, and I called the president back, and he came on the phone, and he said ...”—Mr. Massie, at this point, broke into an imitation of the president—"'I’m coming to you like you’ve never seen before.
“Never in your life have you seen the way in which I will come at you. I’m more popular than you, and you know it. I’m backing your primary opponent, and you’re gonna lose.’
“Then he proceeded to scream at me for quite some time while I tried to talk about the Constitution. It was like being in listen-only mode on a conference call.
“Then he hung up on me, and I went back to my seat. He tweeted that I should be thrown out of the GOP. He said I was a third-rate grandstander.
“Come on folks, I’m at least second rate, don’t you think?”
Mr. Massie said it was a lonely time for him. He had a primary coming up in eight weeks, had no friends, and was sure he'd lose.
Then he got a call from Mr. DeSantis, who was elected to Congress in 2012 at the same time as himself. The Florida governor still had his number.
“And he called me up, and he said, you are doing the right thing. Don’t let them get you down. I see they’re hating you. Everybody’s hating you: Republicans, Democrats, the president, the press.
“He said, ‘The same thing is happening to me here in Florida because I will not shut down our schools. I will not shut down our small businesses. I will not wreck this economy. I will not deprive our children of an education. I will drag this country back out of lockdown.’
“And he said: ‘I know it could cost me my next election. They’re saying I’ll never recover from this.‘ He said, ”I don’t care. It is the right thing to do. And in two years, they will see that we were correct, that you were correct, Thomas, and that I was correct in Florida.’
“So he said, ‘Keep the faith. Keep doing what you’re doing.’
“And I thought to myself, here’s a politician looking two years in advance. Most of my colleagues can’t think past lunchtime.”
