It is generally assumed that former President Donald Trump will win Iowa and then march the rest of the way to the Republican presidential nomination. 

But what if Trump loses in Iowa?   

That is not beyond the realm of plausibility.   

He lost Iowa in 2016 to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (although he complained that the election was stolen) and there is ample evidence that he could lose there again. 

He has improbably picked a fight with Kim Reynolds, The Hawkeye State’s extremely popular governor who hasn’t endorsed in the race yet and was recently seen sharing a stage with Casey DeSantis, the wife of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Trump also refused to participate in a forum hosted by the Family Leadership Summit. Tucker Carlson did the honors, interviewing the participants and providing a nice platform for Gov. DeSantis, who did a good job of threading the needle between appealing to the hard, isolationist right and not upsetting his big donors. 

Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa conservative, was the brains behind the summit, and he is decidedly not on team Trump. He endorsed former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) in 2012 and Cruz in 2016, so he has a pretty good track record of picking winners in his home state. 

Radio host Steve Deace is another conservative who would rather see DeSantis than Trump be the Republican standard bearer in 2024. Deace wrote the best-selling book “The Faucian Bargain” about the role of Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the COVID-19 shutdowns and in the federal jab requirements. Deace believes DeSantis handled the pandemic much more professionally than Trump. Deace supported Trump for the bulk of his presidency, but also supported Cruz over the former president in 2016. 

The Iowa caucuses typically go to the candidate who has the best ground game and who has captured the hearts and minds of hard-core conservatives. That’s why candidates such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and televangelist Pat Robertson can win, while more establishment types like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) typically don’t. (Although Romney was initially declared the winner in 2012, Santorum was officially declared the winner after a recount.)  

The rap on Iowa is that as Iowa goes, so goes Iowa. It can knock candidates out of the race, but it rarely crowns the winner, unless it is an incumbent who has no serious opposition.   

But this year, Iowa could play a more significant role if Trump falls and DeSantis prevails.    

Here are a couple reasons. 

First, politics is a game of expectations. In 2016, nobody really expected Trump to win the nomination. By almost beating Cruz, Trump showed the world that his campaign was for real and that he was a force to be reckoned with. In 2024, if Trump doesn’t win, it will be a massive upset. And if DeSantis does beat him, the pundits and donors will see that he has a message that resonates with conservatives. He will no longer be dull Ron but instead the guy who beat the Donald. 

Second, if DeSantis wins, that could inspire the rest to step aside and let him be the sole Trump alternative. The Republican field doesn’t need several candidates to run against 45. It needs one. In 2016, Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) all thought they had enough juice to beat Trump, but clearly they didn’t. The former president polls around 40 to 45 percent of the Republican field, about the same amount that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got among Democrats against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. My guess is that if DeSantis is able to win Iowa, he will soon get Trump all to himself.   

Third, a DeSantis victory in Iowa will be a victory for conservative policy, and especially a victory over Trump’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic. The coronavirus shutdowns, the mask mandates, the school closures, the vaccine regime, all of which started under Trump, was the starkest abuse of our collective constitutional rights in our nation’s history.  

Of the current candidates in the field, only DeSantis can run against the COVID regime, and I believe that this is where Trump is most vulnerable. A victory in Iowa would allow that campaign to move forward and I think will catch fire in the rest of the country.  

 Is a DeSantis victory in Iowa plausible? Yes. If he does win, will it make a difference? I think it will. 

Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).