Nearly one month until the first GOP presidential nominating contests, the top two 2024 candidates behind former President Donald Trump are attacking one another once again in their bitter battle to emerge as the alternative candidate to Trump.

In a town hall with CNN this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) blasted former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley for advocating changes to Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age. Less than 24 hours later, Haley's campaign hit back, attacking the governor as "desperate" and accusing him of lying about her record and his own.

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DeSantis's remarks that Haley wanted to "jack" up the retirement age came in response to CNN’s Jake Tapper questioning him about Haley's claims that reform was needed.

The governor first pointed out that Haley claimed "the retirement age is way, way, way too low."

"Life expectancy is declining in this country. It's tragic. But it's true. So, to look at those demographic trends and say that you would jack it up so that people are not going to be able to have benefits," he continued. "I mean, I don't know why she's saying that. You've got to look at the trends. Overall, in the long term, how do you strengthen the program? You've got to have bipartisan agreement."

The Haley campaign claimed in an email that while he was a House representative, DeSantis voted for budget resolutions that would have raised the retirement age to 70 in three consecutive years from 2013-2015. It also disputed DeSantis's claim that life expectancy was declining.

Last year, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures showed life expectancy at birth dropped for the second year in a row in 2021, from 77.0 to 76.1 years. This was the lowest level since 1996. The drop in life expectancy in 2021, coupled with a 1.8-year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline in life expectancy from 1921 to 1923, according to the CDC. This came as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the nation.

However, the life expectancy began to rise as the U.S. recovered. According to the CDC, life expectancy in the U.S. is 76.4 years for all adults at birth, while for men it's 73.5 years, and for women it's 79.3 years.

Haley's campaign concluded with the attacks against DeSantis by claiming the former ambassador "has ONLY called for adjusting the retirement age for younger workers in their twenties like her children."

The DeSantis campaign, however, challenged the accusations of lying in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "From her failure to stand up for girls to her pledge to use government to get every social media user’s name, to opposing sex changes for minors, Nikki Haley is the one who has been caught lying about her positions, and the American people are not falling for her attempts to conceal her liberal record," said Carly Atchison, a national spokeswoman for the DeSantis campaign.

The skirmish over Social Security is the latest hot-button item DeSantis and Haley have lambasted each other over. The two candidates have battled over their ties to Chinese business leaders while in office, Israel's war against the militant group Hamas, and DeSantis's stance on off-shore drilling in Florida, among other topics.

During the fourth GOP primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, earlier this month, DeSantis hammered Haley's conservative record against his own, a factor that gave him his best performance of the primary season. In one notable moment, DeSantis lambasted Haley for not supporting legislation he signed into law limiting discussions of gender and sexuality in elementary schools, which critics dubbed the "Don't Say Gay bill." The former ambassador shot back with the oft-repeated phrase that DeSantis "continues to lie about my record."

But the battles have not helped either candidate to dethrone Trump's hold over the GOP base. According to a RealClearPolitics poll, Trump leads all other rivals by double digits at 60.3%, with DeSantis at 12.6% barely above Haley at 12.1%. The most recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll showed Trump at 51%, with DeSantis at 19% and Haley at 16%.

With nearly a month until the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, time is running out for either DeSantis or Haley to claim the mantle as Trump's chief rival.

DeSantis has made winning the caucuses a key part of his campaign's viability, gaining the coveted endorsement of Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) and influential evangelical Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Family Leader. Without a decisive win or a close second-place finish place to Trump, he risks having to suspend his campaign.

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Haley, however, may only need to have a respectable finish in Iowa to tide the campaign over to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where she recently won the backing of Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) and is barnstorming the state with him. Like DeSantis, she would need an outright win or close second-place finish to last until the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24. But if she doesn't beat Trump in her home state where she served as a two-term governor, it could be a death knell for the campaign.

The former president, however, is hoping to quash his rivals by commanding a decisive win in Iowa on Jan. 15 with another win in New Hampshire as the icing on the cake.