More than 20 former staffers who worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis showed their support for his 2024 campaign in Iowa over the weekend.
They visited Smokey Row Coffee in Des Moines, Iowa, where DeSantis marked the 100 days until the Jan. 15 Iowa Caucuses on Saturday, his campaign told The Post.
“I have, in Iowa today, a bunch of my former staff, from Governor, Congress that have paid their own way to come all the way up to Iowa to be able to go knock on people’s doors,” DeSantis said during his remarks. “Not every candidate has that, obviously.”
Among the attendees were two former chiefs of staff Shane Strum and Adrian Lukas, as well as former secretary of Department Management Services Jonathan Satter.
“We’ve got people that are motivated to do it, and I think it’s going to be meaningful and impactful for a lot of these people as they see these folks from Florida show up at their front door,” DeSantis added.
“And for those of you who are Iowans, this is way colder than we usually have the first week of October.”
DeSantis visited the Hawkeye State this weekend as part of a three-day bus tour with the Never Back Down Super PAC, which is aligned with his campaign.
The governor was a special guest of the Super PAC. He has sought to barnstorm through all of the state’s 99 counties and began the weekend with 58 under his belt.
Many alums from the DeSantis gubernatorial team have made the dive into the 45-year-old governor’s campaign operations in the past.
For instance, over the summer, he tapped James Uthmeier to serve as campaign manager, after shakeup in scaling down his staff. Uthmeier previously served as his chief of staff.
DeSantis has invested heavily in Iowa, conducting a torrent of local media interviews in addition to intense campaigning.
His campaign has recently moved nearly one-third of its Tallahassee staff to Des Moines.
Former President Donald Trump is the commanding 2024 GOP frontrunner in Iowa with a 33.2 percentage point lead over DeSantis who is in second place, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate.
DeSantis has downplayed polling, noting that it’s early and positing that many voters simply haven’t made up their minds yet.
Recently Trump’s team dispatched a top adviser to Iowa, according to Bloomberg.
Given Iowa’s perch as the first in the nation primary, it has the potential to give candidates momentum in the 2024 GOP scrum.
Nationally, Trump retains a staggering 44.8 percentage point lead over DeSantis, his nearest foe, per the RealClearPolitics aggregate.