Defeated him, this is a significant poll. And if Donald Trump can replicate this on monday, that is a significant moment because it is really going to make him by and large the frontrunner in this Field And Somebody who is on his way to perhaps crushing the competition and getting to the nomination. Yeah, you know, jim, Like Haley and desantis themselves you can lose track of The Big Picture here by focusing solely on their Comp Titian for what will be a very distant second place. If haley does come in second ahead of desantis, his campaign would really have no rationale for continuing given how much hes invested in iowa. Its not clear to me even with this lead in the Poll Shell do so because shes drawing on the voters most alienated and they may be the least likely to show up on very difficult conditions. But the larger point is that neither of them have really
Look like theyre being so even handed, and its becoming quite a dangerous situation. Yeah, and i have to wonder wheres the line . Is there a line with Donald Trump . Does he not have a line because people are afraid of of whatever consequence may come and an Appellate Court might say, well, this Judge Wasnt fair because he put trump in jail for a day or whatever . Is that essentially what were dealing with right now . He doesnt really seem to have a line. His lawyers arent giving him any guardrails. Obviously his supporters dont. And the problem is i dont think its even the judge is necessarily afraid of an Appellate Court reversal. But theyre so concerned with making sure the institution seems fair, that theyre kind of ignoring whats happening in this instance. Its not just possible threats. I mean judge engorons house, you know, got swatted. I was just about to ask you that. A bomb threat. Its happening constantly with people. Its a very, very voltime situation. It would not be unrea
These cant be good numbers. This cannot be a good result for Ron Desantis. They say three tickets out of iowa, but does Ron Desantis really have a ticket out of iowa if hes going to finish third in the fashion that were looking at right here . He has a ticket back to being the governor of florida, thats what he has. Yeah, back to tallahassee. Back to tallahassee. The fact is this is not going to work for him. You look at the New Hampshire polling, you look at the South Carolina polling, you look at the national polling, he Cant Finish second in iowa forget about it. Jim, can you do me a favor and hit that last slide. Very quickly we said in that third slide, okay, iowa doesnt predict the winner, it does predict the winner when it matches the national polls and that is a very good sign for donald trump. Yeah, dole did it. George w. Bush did it, and they were pretty much the Party Establishment candidates. I remember the dole race. I remember the george w. Bush versus Al Gore race. Of co
Yeah. And of course the weather is a big Wild Card in all this. Jeff, standby. I want to bring in ron brownstein, Our Cnn Political Contributor and analyst. And ron, youre hearing Jeff Zeleny read off these numbers, and we dont want to have this skate by too quickly. If we can show the viewers at home these numbers one more time. There you have Donald Trump at 48 , Nikki Haley at 28 . She has passed Ron Desantis according to this Des Moines register poll. Ron desantis at 16 , and Rivek Ramaswamy not much of a factor here at 8 . Ron brownstein, Donald Trump theres a Story Line about Nikki Haley versus Ron Desantis and of course we can talk about that. But what Jeff Zeleny was talking about a few moments ago, this poll showing Donald Trump so far ahead, a former president now leading the republican party with all the legal questions hanging over him being cast as a threat to democracy by the sitting president , Joe Biden who
Thats a big number. Those are folks who have made up their minds, and it suggests that this field may not move a whole lot between now and monday and may not move a whole lot after monday. Yeah, i mean, look, i mean iowa is good terrain for trump. A lot of evangelical voters, a lot of rural voters. A pretty conservative electorate. Desantis to his credit has formulated in the kind of final stage said here a coherent argument against trump, but its a very idiosyncratic one. Basically hes saying that trump can no longer be trusted to deliver the maga americafirst agenda, that you Cant Trust Trump on abortion, on lgbtq rights, draining the swamp, on spending, on building the wall. The universe of people, the universe of voters who support building a wall on the southern border but dont think they can trust donald trump to do that is probably pretty limited, which i