Ron DeSantis’s Cold, Hard Reality
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Updated at 4:40 p.m. ET on January 16, 2024
Even before the caucus began, Matt Wells was working the room. The 43-year-old wore an autographed Ron DeSantis trucker hat as he strolled up and down the aisles of the Washington High School auditorium in rural southeast Iowa, greeting neighbors and passing out DeSantis flyers. When it was time for three-minute speeches, Wells spoke from the podium without notes, his voice quivering with emotion. DeSantis “always backs up his words with action,” he told the crowd. “He will be a president we can be proud of.”
Minutes later, Wells’s hopes were dashed. DeSantis lost to Donald Trump in Wells’s precinct by five votes. The former president went on to win the Iowa caucus by nearly 30 points statewide, carrying 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties and beating his own 2016 margin of support by more than 25 points.
This wasn’t exactly a surprise. Trump had held a similar lead in opinion polls beforehand, and the only question was whether that margin would hold up if the snowdrifts and subzero temperatures kept caucus-goers frozen in their homes. Turnout , but by the end of the
