Ron DeSantis loads up the guest speaker list for Iowa rally Saturday

Kim Reynolds, Ron DeSantis. Image via AP.

Ron DeSantis completes the much-ballyhooed “Full Grassley” on Saturday in Iowa, staging a rally in his 99th county.

And he won’t be alone, as the Florida Governor’s two major Hawkeye State endorsers will be on hand for the event at the Thunderdome in Newton.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and Bob Vander Plaats of the Family Leader Foundation are slated to speak at the event, which will put on display the two bookends of the DeSantis strategy in the state.

Questions have emerged about the endorsements, particularly from the Donald Trump camp, which has spotlighted payments to Van Der Plaats that added up to at least $95,000 earlier this year. For his part, DeSantis says the money was spent on “advertising,” though he falsely claimed that only a supportive political committee and not his campaign ponied up, contradicting reports from the summer on the subject.

First Lady Casey DeSantis will also be speaking at the event, continuing to maintain a robust presence beside her husband on the campaign trail.

DeSantis’ latest trip to Iowa comes as polling shows him continuing to struggle not only with the former President but also with surging Nikki Haley in the caucus state, indicating there is some truth in the Trump camp claims that the brokered endorsements “have failed to give Ron and his campaign any type of positive boost.”

A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted late last month showed DeSantis and Haley tied at 16%, with Trump at 43%. That survey is widely regarded as a reliable benchmark in the Hawkeye State.

That survey’s results were effectively corroborated by a Trafalgar Group survey conducted Nov. 3-5, in which Trump’s 44% support is more than the aggregate backing for DeSantis (18%), Haley (15%) and Tim Scott (9%), who has since exited the presidential race.