Top officials with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign made the case to a gathering of top donors opposed to Donald Trump on Friday that rival GOP candidate Nikki Haley could not defeat the former president in a head-to-head matchup.
If they wanted to stop Trump, they argued, the Florida governor remained their best bet.
In another presentation made to the same group, Haley’s team argued the opposite. DeSantis’ campaign had flatlined, they insisted, pointing to data that showed that the former UN ambassador was ascendent and, therefore, the logical choice for the anti-Trump crowd.
Haley’s team, according to a person familiar with the arguments they made, pointed to public and private polling that showed her ahead of DeSantis in key early voting states. They also noted that Haley’s campaign has more cash on hand than DeSantis, who is leaning heavily on an allied super PAC to pick up much of the tab.
“By every metric,” the person said, “Nikki is moving up and Ron is moving down. It IS a two person race: one man and one woman.”
The dueling presentations were delivered to a major Republican donor network gathering that includes hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer and investor Ken Griffin, two of the biggest contributors in the party. It was delivered amid growing concern in some quarters of the party that a Trump nomination is quickly becoming inevitable.
Real estate developer Harlan Crow organized the conference in Dallas with an eye toward helping consolidate the field of Republican candidates. Many anti-Trump donors have been eager to winnow down the race to a one-on-one contest with Trump, who is leading in the polls against a splintered field.
Staffers for only two candidates — DeSantis and Haley — were invited to present their case, an indication that donors are increasingly zeroing in on those two contenders.
Haley advisers present included campaign manager Betsy Ankney and senior adviser Jon Lerner.
The DeSantis crew included senior adviser Ryan Tyson and campaign manager James Uthmeier, who made several arguments in an effort to win over the room, according to two people familiar with the presentation.
The first was that 90 percent of current DeSantis supporters would ultimately vote for Trump should he drop out, whereas Haley’s voters would disperse to other non-Trump candidates, namely DeSantis. That dynamic, they added, meant that the Florida governor was the one non-Trump candidate who could keep the former president’s vote share down in a primary. The DeSantis officials argued that Haley would ultimately lose a head-to-head contest with Trump by a 70-30 margin.
They also argued that DeSantis besting Trump in the Iowa caucus would provide a chink in the former president’s political armor. And they contended that the proof of their continued viability was evident by the fact that Trump’s team has continued to attack DeSantis, despite his diminished standing in the race. The former president in recent weeks has also begun to attack Haley — the former South Carolina governor — and has coined a nickname for her, “Birdbrain.”
The case from the DeSantis camp was made as their operation has faced a number of setbacks. The Florida governor has seen his polling numbers fall both nationally and in the key early voting states.
But while Haley has managed to improve her standing in the race over the course of several well-regarded debate performances, the main beneficiary of DeSantis’ fall has been Trump, who has consolidated support in the polls
Anti-Trump Republicans hope the gathering, held on the Old Parkland Campus, a development owned by Crow, signals a new phase of the campaign, in which candidates begin to drop out and consolidate around a single Trump opponent.
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