‘You Lost Me’: Iowa Republicans Tell MSNBC Trump Has ‘Too Much Baggage’ – DeSantis, Others Can Still Catch Him

MSNBC’s Allie Raffa was in Iowa on Saturday and spoke to GOP voters as the 2024 Republican presidential candidates converged on the state in hopes of wooing primary support.

Donald Trump has strong support in the state but it is not absolute, as was noticeable in his arrival at a college football game on Saturday. Raffa spoke to Republican voters supporting other primary candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and told host Yasmin Vossoughian on Saturday that those Iowans believe Trump can be caught in the primary race.

“We spoke with quite a few Iowa Republican voters before they all started sort of flocking to the stadium here for this game,” said Raffa. “And sort of the gist we got from voters on the ground here, the majority of them had told us that they see potential in other GOP candidates besides Trump.”

Raffa then showed clips from two of those interviews. The first, with a woman who voted for Trump twice but said that he lost her vote because he is unable to admit when he is wrong, and that his legal issues are a big problem for a potential president. She is instead going to caucus for DeSantis, who actually brings “tangible plans” to the table, she told Raffa.

“I feel that he has too much baggage with his legal battles. And as our country is facing a lot of problems, we need to unify. And I feel like with him, there’s going to be a lot of fighting. He never even once said, you know, ‘yes, I did wrong. Yes, maybe I could have done this better.’ It was always, no, I never did anything wrong. I’m always right. And that to me was like, I’m sorry you lost me.”

The second clip featured a Trump voter who said that Trump’s legal issues don’t bother him at all, and he’s glad Trump didn’t take part in the GOP debate.

“I don’t know if Trump needs to do any more because I feel like a lot of his reporters already have their minds made up. I think he is. I think he’s doing the right thing of not going to the debate because I think everyone already knows his opinions and everything from what he’s done, and his past presidency.”

“And Yasmin, what struck me most from my conversations with Republicans like Holly, who are planning to caucus for someone other than Trump, are what they said about the other candidates as far as timing,” Raffa said. “And they were confident that, with four months left until caucus day, they say there is still time for these candidates to make some sort of dent in this massive disparity, this massive gap in support, with Trump currently enjoying an over 30 percentage point lead over Ron DeSantis, as well as the other GOP rivals.”

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.