The hour grows late for Ron DeSantis.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Heritage Foundation, Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, as part of the Mandate for Leadership Series in Washington. (AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel)

First things first. Former vice president Mike Pence made news this week.

After much prayer and deliberation, I’ve decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today.”

That’s not much of a surprise. Pence stands at a dismal 3.5 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. His campaign simply never gained any traction.

The real political news this week comes from someone you’ve never heard of. Ann Selzer is a key player every presidential cycle. She is president of Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Company. Selzer & Company produces the Iowa Poll. Ms. Selzer describes it like this.

Well, the Iowa Poll is – just brace yourself – the longest continuously running statewide newspaper poll.”

The Iowa Poll has a sterling reputation among political polls. It was the Iowa Poll that predicted in 2008 – when Barack Obama was running – that 60 percent of Democrats in the Iowa Caucuses that year would be voting for the first time in their lives.

When that jaw-dropping number was published it was widely dismissed by the “experts.” But when caucus day came around, the actual number came in at 59 percent.

With exactly 75 days remaining until the Iowa Caucuses the Iowa Poll has delivered some bad news to Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

According to the Iowa Poll published last Saturday, former president Donald Trump stands at 43 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers, up one point from August.

Ron DeSantis and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley are tied for a distant second place at 16 percent each. But that’s a 10-point jump for Nikki Haley since August. And a three-point drop for DeSantis.

DeSantis has lost upward of half of the poll support he enjoyed nationally since officially announcing his candidacy on May 24. But DeSantis has been quick to dismiss national polls.

First, he says that national polls lack any true meaning for the simple reason that a nomination campaign is a state-by-state effort. Second, he has repeatedly asserted that the primary will only truly take shape when voters truly start paying attention. That attention-paying he said will begin with the results of the Iowa Caucuses on January 15.

Accordingly, he has spent more time in Iowa than any of the other GOP candidates – apparently to little avail.

In the words of Ann Selzer:

You just have Haley rising. You have DeSantis kind of holding on for second place. But both of them are on ground that you could only describe as shaky compared to the solid ground that Donald Trump stands on.”

As we have reported here previously, Ron DeSantis was in East Texas in September for a fundraising luncheon to which I was given access. Any objective observer listening to him would give him credit for being a plausible candidate for the presidency. His re-election in Florida in November of last year was the only bright spot in what was otherwise a disappointing midterm election for Republicans.

Yet, the Iowa Poll is casting a long and growing shadow over GOP voters wishing for an alternative to Donald Trump in the person of Ron DeSantis.