Knock-out punch. dana: then so haley and desantis are the next two that could possibly come in second. tell us about that contest and how you see it. i don t know where desantis goes if he does not finish second. haley is already polling very well in new hampshire, the next race. her home state is the race after that. so if she does pull off a second place finish in iowa, that gives her tremendous momentum and where does desantis go? he put all the chips into the center of the table in iowa. he needs to finish second or else those rumors may become reality. dana: is it possible he could come in second? absolutely. he has been consistently second or statistically in a tie with haley for second. they are working very hard. the trump folks have elevated their ground game as well. the money is the issue. haley has all the money going into this last week if you
California has the most for republicans. iowa has 40. it is only 40. but it has significant impact on the impression you make as a candidate in your campaign all the way out here through the primary. you need to get 1250 roughly in order to get the nomination. bill melugin knows that live in des moines getting things set for us. good morning to you. what s happening today live in des moines? bill, good morning to you as well. there has been some media speculation out there that maybe the desantis campaign is starting to run out of steam here in the state of iowa. keep in mind he has gone all in on the state visiting all 99 counties in iowa and he has the endorsement of the popular republican governor here as recently as a few weeks ago, he was saying he expects to win the state. here is what he told fox news december 18th. look, the victory is to win a majority of the delegates. we will win in iowa.
we caught up with desantis after one of his events here in iowa yesterday. i asked him again directly does he still stand by that, does he still expect to win? here is what he said. you previously said we re going to win iowa. do you expect that and stand by it? i kind of like being underestimated. if people will say he is not, let them set those expectations, that s fine. i do better when i m the underdog but we ll do well. here is a snapshot of the current polling in iowa now, donald trump still with a big lead sitting at 51%. desantis and haley far behind. but we ve been talking to a lot of voters in iowa telling us they don t care about the polls. they don t trust the polls and feel they don t apply. bill, as you mentioned, it is a caucus system. not just show up and vote. neighbors getting together to talk to each other on caucus night and make their choices. back live one quick thing to point out. an opinion piece in the hill
Believe advertising and events as a predictor of that. dana: has the money made a difference significant difference for any of these candidates? for haley and her instituted pacs it makes a huge difference because they were ready just at the time that she started gaining some traction. that was after the hamas terror attack and her credibility as a former u.n. ambassador helped her as she was speaking to the public. she was catching fire at the right time just as desantis was starting to cool after his initial burst. you hear her on radio and see her on tv. that s a message that even though we say we don t want to rely on ads, it is the last thing people here before they go out the door on caucus night. dana: you mentioned vivek ramaswamy has done the full grassley visiting all 99 counties twice. energetic and out there and gets earned and social media. could he surprise on caucus night? he again has an all-in for
Over the weekend speculating desantis would drop out of this race if he doesn t beat trump on caucus night. desantis tells me that report is categorically false and in it for the long haul. bill: see you soon in iowa. thank you very much. bill melugin in des moines. dana: iowa political analyst and radio host jeff stein. it is so good to have you. i have to own it up for you to talk. you said great points. one of the things you are watching is that key number of 50%. why? in all of the contested caucuses, only twice has a candidate gotten more than 40%, much less 50. the last time was george w. bush in the year 2000. so if trump comes in with 46%, that s a record for the caucuses. 50 is important because of the optics. it shows he has more support than everybody else combined. those are the numbers he is looking at. he wants to deliver an early