Trump once again is being evasive and avoiding facing his opponents -- that speaks volumes to me. He knows that DeSantis would outshine him.
Could evangelical leader's endorsement upend Trump's massive lead before Iowa's caucus?
With less than two months to go until the Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump remains the commanding front-runner in the state that leads off the Republican presidential nomination calendar.
But a prominent social conservative leader in Iowa — a state where evangelical voters play an outsized role in Republican politics — said he believes Trump is still beatable.
"You’re seeing the field naturally coalesce. It’s getting smaller and smaller," Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader, a politically active and influential social conservative group, told Fox News Digital as he pointed to the winnowing of the 2024 GOP presidential field.
Noting that the former president's under 50% support in the latest polls in Iowa, Vander Plaats predicted that Trump's backing might be as low as 35% by the time of the Jan. 15 caucuses.
"There’s definitely a shot that the former president can be beat here," he argued.
Vander Plaats, who's likely to endorse one of Trump's rivals in the coming weeks, was interviewed on the eve of Friday's Family Leader presidential Thanksgiving forum.
Joining Vander Plaats for what's being described as a "family discussion" will be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramawamy. Haley and DeSantis are currently battling for a distant second place behind Trump.
Trump was also invited to Friday's forum, but is not attending. He also skipped the Family Leader's summit in July, which attracted nearly the entire field of presidential contenders.Vander Plaats, who's long had a rocky relationship with Trump and who has argued that it's time for new conservative leadership, said that the former president's "absence communicates a lot to our base."..............
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/evangelical-leaders-endorsement-could-upend-trumps-massive-lead-before-iowas-caucus
