AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
- Ron DeSantis said Donald Trump would push claims of fraud should he falter in Iowa or New Hampshire.
- "He will say it's stolen no matter what, absolutely," DeSantis said during an appearance on Friday.
- DeSantis is working fervently to win the Iowa caucuses, but Trump remains in a dominant position in the state.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday said that former President Donald Trump would claim that the Iowa caucuses were "stolen" from him should he lose the first-in-the-nation Republican contest in January.
And DeSantis added that Trump would push the same narrative should he come up short in New Hampshire, the first primary on the GOP calendar and a contest where former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has seen her standing rise in recent months.
"If Trump loses, he will say it's stolen no matter what, absolutely," DeSantis told a group of reporters during a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. "He will try to delegitimize the results. He did that against Ted Cruz in 2016."
(In the 2016 Iowa caucuses, Cruz, then a first-term Texas senator, edged out Trump 28%-24%, and Trump promptly alleged that Cruz had "illegally stole" the victory from him. And the former president continues to dispute his 2020 electoral loss to President Joe Biden.)
"I don't think there's been a single time he's ever been in competition for something, where he didn't get it, where he has accepted [it]," DeSantis continued, referencing Trump's complaints after his onetime NBC show "The Apprentice" failed to win an Emmy Award.
But DeSantis said he was confident that Trump's potential complaints about the election outcomes would be rejected by the GOP electorate.
"I think that that's to be expected, but I don't think people are going to buy it," he added.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung on Friday pushed back against DeSantis, accusing him of repeating Democratic Party talking points.
"When Ron's political career is finished in a few weeks, he can start moonlighting as a Democrat surrogate because he's showing everyone his true colors," he said in a statement.
DeSantis for months has poured much of his campaign's resources into capturing Iowa next month, hoping that a win in the Midwestern state will give him some real momentum in the GOP contest and derail the Trump campaign's plan to cakewalk to the nomination. But despite DeSantis' best efforts, the former president retains huge leads over him in Iowa.
In the FiveThirtyEight's weighted polling average of the Iowa GOP caucuses, Trump is currently averaging nearly 48% support, with DeSantis at 19% and Haley at roughly 16%. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is averaging roughly 6% support.
Last week, Trump blasted Gov. DeSantis after his wife, Casey DeSantis, unwittingly told her husband's out-of-state supporters to come to Iowa to participate in the caucuses. Casey DeSantis — who was seeking to encourage volunteers to help out with the campaign — had to clarify that only Iowa residents could vote in the caucuses after the ex-president accused her of trying to "rig" the contest.