Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a rally on Tuesday in Greenville, S.C. DeSantis stopped in South Carolina first, after his second place end within the Iowa caucuses, earlier than heading on to New Hampshire.

Jeffrey Collins/AP

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Jeffrey Collins/AP

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a rally on Tuesday in Greenville, S.C. DeSantis stopped in South Carolina first, after his second place end within the Iowa caucuses, earlier than heading on to New Hampshire.

Jeffrey Collins/AP

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The skies above the airplane hangar the place Ron DeSantis spoke to a packed crowd in Greenville, S.C., Tuesday morning have been muted and grey, however the Florida governor spoke with rays of optimism after his efficiency within the 2024 Iowa Caucus the night time earlier than.

Presidential contenders often trek straight to New Hampshire, the following state on the nominating calendar, however DeSantis’ cease within the Palmetto State was a focused message to rival Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor who completed simply behind DeSantis in Monday’s contest. The overt a part of that message is that he plans to compete — and win — on her house turf.

“This is an important state,” DeSantis advised reporters after delivering a stump speech and answering questions from voters who braved the chilly to listen to his message about “woke ideology” within the navy, mass firing of federal authorities staff and different plans for if he turns into president.

“Nikki Haley, this is her home state, if she can’t win this then I don’t see how she could say she’s gonna win on Super Tuesday or those other states,” he added.

The subtext delivered all through his remarks is that DeSantis views himself as the one viable candidate to tackle former President Donald Trump who handily gained in Iowa with simply over 50% of the vote, enjoys leads in just about each state-level and nationwide main ballot and earned extra delegates than DeSantis and Haley mixed.

“Half the people wanted somebody else,” DeSantis argued.

In South Carolina, DeSantis attacked Haley as “liberal,” mentioned she had no main achievements whereas serving as governor and argued her assist within the presidential race would not come from conservatives.

“Her fundamental problem is that she does not have support amongst Republicans,” he mentioned. “She’s relying on non-Republicans, which is not the way you win a Republican nomination.”

But DeSantis faces a troublesome path in the direction of profitable the nomination himself. Running a marketing campaign that has emphasised lots of the identical culturally conservative stances and points which have drawn a lot of the occasion’s base to assist Trump, DeSantis has didn’t convert a significant share of Trump’s voters to assist his marketing campaign and alienated some average parts of the Republican Party frightened about competitiveness and viability within the common election.

DeSantis can be trailing each Trump and Haley in polling of the New Hampshire main slated for subsequent week and dangers not incomes delegates from that state. Candidates are required to satisfy a ten% threshold of votes to be awarded delegates.

In Nevada later this month, DeSantis and Trump are the one candidates on the delegate-earning caucus whereas Haley is the one main candidate on the state-run main that won’t depend in the direction of incomes the nomination. Effectively, this implies Haley is just not contesting Nevada, one thing DeSantis was fast to level out.

“Nikki Haley is not competing in Nevada at all,” DeSantis mentioned. “She’s just not going to win any delegates in Nevada.”

“We’re gonna win delegates in Nevada,” he pledged.

There will probably be greater than two weeks between Nevada and the South Carolina contest, which may see last-ditch efforts for Haley and DeSantis to interrupt out and mount a critical problem to Trump, by advantage of South Carolina’s delegates being awarded to the winner in every of its seven Congressional districts in addition to the general statewide winner.

Tuesday night time, DeSantis is slated to seem at a CNN city corridor in New Hampshire, whereas Haley and Trump have each indicated they are going to skip a deliberate debate in New Hampshire later this week.