The two candidates who seem to be best positioned to fight for second place are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
DeSantis had been the clear second place to Trump in the Republican field for months, but Haley has seen a notable rise in the polls since the first GOP debate in August. She came in a close third, only 1 point behind DeSantis, in a national USA Today/Suffolk poll released last week.
Tensions between DeSantis and Haley have risen in recent weeks as the two have become more competitive with each other, as The Hill's Julia Manchester reports.
Both candidates' campaigns and the super PACs supporting their campaigns have taken snipes at each other recently. Most of the recent sparring has been over the United States possibly taking in refugees from Gaza.
The DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down claimed Haley had called in a CNN interview for "bringing Gaza refugees to America." Haley was not referring to refugees in the clip that the PAC referenced, and her campaign released an ad calling the governor "Desperate DeSantis" for attacking her, tying it to her rise in the polls.
"Right now, he doesn't have a Donald Trump problem, he's got a Nikki Haley problem," NewsNation political contributor Chris Stirewalt said on "The Hill" earlier this week, referring to DeSantis.
The two candidates are also closely competing in the fundraising game. DeSantis outpaced the rest of the non-Trump candidates in the third quarter of 2023 with $15 million raised, but his campaign spent almost all of what it raised between those months. Haley's total, more than $11 million across three political committees, trails DeSantis but shows the momentum she has built in fundraising in recent months.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) could be in trouble amid low poll numbers and poor fundraising numbers compared to their rivals.
Pence brought in $3.3 million and has $1.2 million cash on hand but has also taken on $620,000 in debt. Scott raised almost $6 million between his political committees, having $13.3 million cash on hand and $11.6 million available to use in the primaries.
But Scott's burn rate was high, with his campaign having spent $12.4 million during the past quarter, and his total intake was far outpaced by his top opponents.
Both have also struggled to gain traction in the polls, mostly getting no more than 2 or 3 percent support.
Scott's campaign indicated on Monday that it would go "all in" on Iowa by doubling its staff and opening a new headquarters in West Des Moines. It is also shifting ad buys away from New Hampshire to Iowa.
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