Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, trying to restart his stalled campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, joined U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and about a dozen GOP hopefuls Friday night during a Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa.
The candidates delivered typical stump speeches tackling similar topics: protecting the southern U.S. border, embracing law enforcement, ending woke ideology, and ridding the U.S. government of what they called the radical leftism of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Iowa is a crucial campaign stop because its caucus gathering Jan. 15 will kick off the primary season.
"Our country is in decline," DeSantis said, "and Joe Biden is the custodian of that decline. I'm running for president because we as Republicans cannot be content with simply managing decline of our country a little bit better than the Democrats.
"We must reverse American decline. We must restore this country to greatness, and we must provide our country with a new birth of freedom. To do that, it requires vision. It requires courage, and it requires leadership. That's exactly what we did in the state of Florida."
DeSantis has been in second place in the GOP field since announcing his candidacy in May. However, his margin behind former President Donald Trump, who also was scheduled to speak, has grown significantly. The latest RealClear Politics average polling of GOP candidates shows Trump at 52.4% and DeSantis at 18.4%. Scott, at 3%, is even further down among the list of candidates, but he didn’t lack confidence in his speech.
"Joe Biden and the radical left, he is attacking the values that made us possible," Scott said. "He is tearing down every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. … Protecting the values of America is protecting the rungs on the ladder that allow the poorest and most vulnerable students in this nation to climb."
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