Ahead of New Hampshire, some Pennsylvania Republicans insist presidential race has just begun

Former President Donald Trump beat his closest two opponents in Iowa by 30 points on Monday, a commanding showing from the GOP front-runner as the contest heads to New Hampshire next week.

But Republicans hoping for an alternative to the twice-impeached Trump say they still see a window, as narrow as it might be, for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“I think she does need to do very well in New Hampshire, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that,” former U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, who backs Haley, said this week. “She has put a lot of time and effort in there. ... It’s well-suited for her to do well. I’m pretty confident she will.”

DeSantis supporters don’t mention New Hampshire much — skipping ahead, as the candidate largely has, to a South Carolina contest where he’s polling better but still significantly behind Trump.

“The governor’s planned this race for the long haul,” said former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, who endorsed DeSantis. “I know that by the work they’re doing in Pennsylvania, which is well after Super Tuesday.”

Across the country, anti-Trump Republicans see the next few weeks of the GOP primary as crucial for an alternative to break through in a race where voting has only just begun but the trajectory has seemed set for months. Pennsylvanians are unlikely to have much of a say with a late April primary, the nomination petitions for which start circulating next week.

Since Iowa, both Haley and DeSantis have shifted to take on Trump more directly. Haley this week announced that she won’t debate unless the former president joins her on stage — a move some New Hampshire supporters have criticized, wary of her short runway to close the gap with Trump in the state.

DeSantis, who received 21% of the vote in Iowa, declared victory, given that Trump received only about 51% of the vote. The campaign laid off staffers this week as the contest moved forward.

“Not everyone who wins Iowa goes on to be the nominee,” Barletta said. “I don’t buy that. Listen, Trump has a lot of support, there’s no denying that — but there’s more people watching and pulling for DeSantis than people might think.”

Haley supporters, including Toomey, insist it’s now a two-person race between her and Trump — despite her third-place finish.

“DeSantis’ campaign threw everything but the kitchen sink into Iowa,” said Emily Greene, a senior adviser for Americans for Prosperity Action, which backs Haley. “And for Trump to predict he’d win with 60% and come in with 51% and for Nikki to almost best Ron, that shows momentum to me.”

Presidential primaries are all about momentum, but it is true that Iowa winners have not predicted much.

“It’s 100,000 people who came out in a snowstorm at exactly 8 p.m.,” political consultant Chris Nicholas said of the Iowa results. “They are not representative of the Republican Party in Iowa or in the country.”

The last person in a competitive contest who won the GOP nomination and the Iowa caucuses was George W. Bush in 2000. Trump came in second in the 2016 caucuses before going on to win New Hampshire and the nomination.

“I would readily concede the polls so far are good for Trump but this is an odd situation where you have a former president running and facing 90-some criminal counts, so it’s all brand new,” Nicholas said.

In Pennsylvania some Republican leaders have expressed concern about what Trump’s name at the top of the ticket could mean for GOP candidates down-ballot in November.

“I do feel a little nervous heading into Tuesday,” acknowledged Philadelphia GOP chair Vince Fennerty, a Haley supporter. “If it’s another Trump runaway, it seriously hurts the prospects of the alternatives.”

“I think it has significant down-ballot implications,” Toomey, who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, said of a Trump nomination, which he thinks would make it harder for Republicans to win the Senate and House.

Former U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus spent the days before the Iowa caucuses trudging through frozen neighborhoods knocking on doors with DeSantis’ mother.

Rothfus, who represented the Western Pennsylvania district now held by Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio, served with DeSantis in Congress and is volunteering for his campaign. He encouraged Iowans to “look downstream,” a similar argument he plans to make while stumping for DeSantis in South Carolina.

“You have to take a look at what’s happening in swing states like Pennsylvania and I just remain very skeptical as to whether President Trump would be able to win those states,” Rothfus said.

Republicans started losing county-level elections in Pennsylvania in 2017, the year after Trump was elected, Rothfus noted.

“It hasn’t changed and the same has been true in other states. Donald Trump is the number-one motivator for Democrats and there’s a lot of folks in the suburbs who aren’t gonna vote for him.”

Trump supporters note that Trump eclipsed his 2016 raw vote total in Pennsylvania in 2020 and point to polls showing him neck and neck with Biden here.

U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R., Pa.), who endorsed Trump, said that before a single vote was cast in Iowa he saw the party coalescing around Trump.

He called Haley “a solid candidate” but said she lacked the “people’s trust in the way Republicans trust Trump.”

“They want him there. They know he can do the job and they know how to get him there.”

Meuser, whose district stretches from Berks County to the New York border, said he thinks the former president is taking a more coolheaded approach in speeches and interviews, aware of bringing in some skeptics.

“He’s talking about uniting. He’s talking about the things that those who aren’t yet maybe there appreciate and that’s a side of President Trump that I see more — not the combative Trump,” Meuser said.

Even if Haley wins New Hampshire, Meuser said, he has a hard time seeing a threat to the front-runner for the nomination. “If that actually happened that would be a little concerning,” he said. “Until he goes into South Carolina and wallops her.”