Team DeSantis plays the blame game after coming up short in Iowa

Even in defeat, Ron DeSantis is following in Donald Trump’s footsteps.

Trump dealt DeSantis a double-digit drubbing in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, defeating him in a state the Florida governor’s campaign had desperately sought to win. And DeSantis, who’s portrayed himself as a Trump clone ever since his gubernatorial campaign in 2018, stayed right on script Monday with false claims that election interference played a role in his loss.

Specifically, DeSantis’ campaign and his allies whined on social media that news outlets’ quick projections that Trump would be the winner effectively amounted to voter suppression because, they claimed, voters who were still caucusing heard the projections and decided not to cast their ballots for the Florida governor.

Scott Wagner, chairman of the pro-DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down, claimed that he knew of multiple prospective caucusgoers who declined to participate after hearing that the media had projected Trump as the winner.

DeSantis’ campaign spent much of Monday night sharing similar claims from people kvetching over this purported interference. And the candidate himself brought it up during his post-caucus speech, complaining that media outlets “called the election before people even got a chance to vote.” 

The reaction continues the finger-pointing from DeSantis and his allies. As his poll numbers have sagged over the last year, his camp has blamed his faltering candidacy on press coverage, on prosecutors charging Trump with crimes and even on his own Never Back Down PAC. In that sense, the “election interference” cries sounds like a campaign that put all its eggs in the Iowa basket and saw them crushed on live television. 

But consider that Trump has made perpetual victimhood and false claims of election interference de rigueur in today’s Republican Party. So, as pitiful as DeSantis’ claims may be, they’re just par for the course in today’s GOP.