West Des Moines, Iowa — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis insisted he is staying in the 2024 race after he finished a distant second to former President Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses and only narrowly coming out ahead of former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.
“You helped us get a ticket punched out of the Hawkeye state,” DeSantis told a crowd of supporters at a caucus watch party in West Des Moines on Monday night.
The road after Iowa is unclear for DeSantis. DeSantis has trailed both Trump and Haley by increasing margins in both New Hampshire and South Carolina — states he has invested much less time in this cycle compared to Iowa. But his campaign is aiming to outlast Haley in this race, and get to a one-on-one matchup with Trump.
“This is shaping up to be a two-person race soon enough, it may just take a few more weeks to fully get there,” wrote DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo in a press release Tuesday.