The Iowa voter had a question for Ron DeSantis—a plea, of sorts, on behalf of “all the small-town people.”
Outsiders “suggest we’re the flyover country, the racists, the deplorables, the Walmart shoppers,” Jason Summers, a 53-year-old Republican activist who owns a small insurance business, tells the governor of Florida. Presidential candidates, he adds, “come around every four years, they kiss our babies, pat us on the head and send us on our way, and then they forget about us.” How could the residents of Albia, Iowa—pop. 3,712—be sure that DeSantis wouldn’t abandon them too?
Less than an hour earlier, DeSantis had roared into town juggernaut-style, disembarking from a bus emblazoned with his name and that of Never Back Down, his $100 million super PAC, trailed by a dozen advisers and security staff. DeSantis has vowed to visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties—Albia’s Monroe County would be No. 31—precisely for moments like this one, a chance to commune with voters and perhaps even to have the sort of viral moment that would loft his struggling campaign back into contention for the GOP presidential nomination. Now he stood in a former church converted to a veterans’ wellness center, surrounded by a scrum of media, cameras and microphones extended to watch him take a swing at the softball Summers lobbed up.
But given the chance to offer some hint of emotion, DeSantis proceeds to answer the question like a standardized test. First, he says the stereotypes about flyover country are “not a narrative that I’ve ever accepted.” Then he points out that while people may associate his state with “places like Miami or Palm Beach or Central Florida theme parks,” it also has “a lot of those types of communities.” They
