Gov. Ron DeSantis says that no matter how hard he tried as a candidate, his voters had "checked out" of the 2024 election long before the Iowa caucuses.
During an interview with radio host Steve Deace, the Governor told a former supporter in the 2024 race about his realization that as hard as he tried to move voters in the Hawkeye State, it was clear he wasn't going to be able to break through. He said voters had "checked out," believing a Donald Trump renomination was a "fait accompli."
"I kept running into voters who, when I'm at the caucus sites, for example, speaking, or when my speakers are speaking at the sites on my behalf, running into a lot of voters who are like, 'The Governor is awesome, he'd be a great President. But we feel like we just have to stick with Trump this time and he can do the future,'" DeSantis told Deace.
DeSantis spotlighted a "lack of enthusiasm overall to participate in the caucus" from his targeted supporters.
"We started noticing this in the Fall, where voters who had caucused in 2016, previous caucusgoers, when they were being polled, they said they're definitely not caucusing. And it was kind of odd that they would say that because normally they would probably, if you've already caucused, you like, well, maybe we'll see."
These voters "did not want to see Trump nominated again, but they had basically been told that it was inevitable, that it was over," DeSantis said.
"Why even bother? And they just totally dropped out of the process. So to have 110,000 people show up when 2016, you had 186,000 show up, when Iowa has more Republicans this year than they did in 2016. That shows you there's a lot of our voters who have checked out."
DeSantis also suggested the inevitability of Trump would have only been reinforced after Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary.
"What does it look like after New Hampshire when he has a big victory? You're going to all of a sudden go into South Carolina, even if it's a two-man race between us two and just shift the narrative? How are you going to do that? Are there going to be debates? No," DeSantis said.
"Are you going to see the media be eager to say that this is a horse race? No, they've moved on basically," he added. "And so that was just the reality. And then I think in each contest, those voters that had checked out. I think that number will, the percentage will grow and those are the voters you need to be competitive."
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