Nothing seems to be going right for DeSantis’s Never Back Down super PAC or the consultant managing it, longtime political operative Jeff Roe. According to NBC News, something approaching a shoving match nearly broke out within the PAC’s ranks amid a heated exchange over how to manage the organization’s dwindling resources. PAC-sponsored ads targeting Nikki Haley had to be withdrawn because they were reportedly “backfiring on DeSantis.” The PAC’s board members are complaining about the “objectionable” way in which funds are being spent and transferred to allied groups, and the donors who previously filled its coffers with $200 million are vocally dissatisfied with the lack of “return” on their investment. One stung contributor expressed utter resignation: “You don’t just keep throwing money at Radio Shack.”
Fueled by his declining standing in national polls of Republican primary voters and rumors of sedition within the DeSantis camp’s ranks, the press is cultivating an air of failure around the governor. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds’s endorsement of her colleague from Florida did little to derail that narrative, but that is understandable. Her endorsement is her first foray into competitive caucus politics as governor, and her clout is untested. Moreover, her predecessor, longtime Iowa governor Terry Branstad, declined to back a candidate in the caucuses in 2012 or 2016. There’s no reason to assume that the governor’s opinion has a measurable effect on how Republican voters are evaluating the field of 2024 candidates.
But the same cannot be said for Bob Vander Plaats, the CEO of the Family Leader organization. The influential Iowa-based Evangelical does not lose — at least, not when it comes to picking caucus candidates. And on Tuesday, he lent his support to DeSantis’s presidential campaign.
“We need to find someone who can win in 2024,” Vander Plaats told Fox News hosts following his endorsement. “I just think he’s got the spine to do it, and I think he’s got the experience to win for us.” It’s fair to question Vander Plaats’s judgment when it comes to a candidate’s appeal to the national electorate. None of his endorsees have ever gone on to win the Republican nomination. But all of them went on to win the Iowa caucuses.
Ted Cruz polled evenly with Ben Carson in the race for second place in the Iowa caucuses, well behind Donald Trump, when Vander Plaats lent the Texas senator his imprimatur in late 2015. Cruz, whom then-governor Branstad openly opposed because of his hostility toward taxpayer-provided subsidies for Iowa’s ethanol industry, needed a shot in the arm. Vander Plaats’s “highly motivated” constituency gave him one. Cruz entered the caucuses trailing in the polling average by nearly five points. But when the returns were in, that animated base of caucus-goers handed Cruz a three-point victory.
Vander Plaats’s organization took credit for Rick Santorum’s surge in the polls following the Iowa activist’s endorsement of his candidacy in late 2011. “The buzz I’ve been hearing and the pulse of the voters all indicate a come-from-behind surprise victory for Rick Santorum on January 3rd,” the Family Leader CEO said on the eve of the 2012 caucuses. That boast was amply justified. Santorum languished in sixth place in Iowa’s volatile polls. First, Herman Cain surged into the lead, only to fall back to earth. Newt Gingrich’s prospects followed a similar trajectory. Mitt Romney enjoyed a modest lead by caucus night. Ultimately, Santorum edged out Romney to win the narrowest victory in the Hawkeye State.
Vander Plaats served as Mike Huckabee’s Iowa campaign chair ahead of the 2008 cycle, but the Arkansas governor’s presidential candidacy appeared moribund in the late fall of 2007. The polls suggested that, going into caucus night, the race was at best a coin toss between Huckabee and Romney. In the end, it wasn’t particularly close. Huckabee defeated the former Massachusetts governor by nearly ten points.
Donald Trump’s pollsters have dismissed Vander Plaats’s endorsement as inconsequential. The Family Leader CEO has “no significant impact” on the caucus process, a memo produced by Make America Great Again Inc. pollster Tony Fabrizio read. “While the DeSantis camp will try and spin that a Vander Plaats endorsement will revive their sputtering and shrinking campaign, cold hard data tells a much different story,” it continued.
Fabrizio is right — the “hard data” is not difficult to interpret. Donald Trump’s roughly 30-point lead in surveys of Iowa’s Republican voters cannot be easily dismissed. What’s more, DeSantis’s support appears stagnant while his nearest competitor in the race to face Trump head-on is gaining steam. But if Vander Plaats’s candidate goes down to defeat on January 15, it will be the first time the Evangelical influencer picked the wrong horse in a state he knows so well.