The latest poll from Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll is good news for Donald Trump. He remains solidly in first place in the Republican presidential primary and his lead has inched up a bit since the last poll. An interesting development is that Nikki Haley is now tied for second place with Ron DeSantis.

Nikki Haley is in her home state of South Carolina today filing for the state’s Republican primary. Ron DeSantis was reported to do that recently. Trump has been focusing on South Carolina where he remains popular. All of the candidates are working Iowa, as it is the first state in the caucus/primary season. Winning the Iowa caucus is a goal all presidential campaigns have – the first win is important. The winner of the Iowa caucus rarely wins the GOP nomination, though, so we will see if this time around is any different. In 2016, Ted Cruz won. Not since George W. Bush in 2000 has the Republican winner in Iowa gone on to be the party’s nominee.

Trump is ahead by 27 points. 43% of likely Republican caucusgoers support Trump as their first choice in the primary. That is up from 42% in the August Iowa poll. His legal problems continue to not affect his popularity with primary voters, if anything, the legal battles are making his support stronger.

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are tied at 16%. Ron DeSantis has aggressively focused on Iowa, working on doing the ‘full Grassley’ which means visiting all 99 counties in the state. His wife, Casey, and their three young children are usually in tow. The DeSantis campaign feels good about his chances in Iowa.

Nikki Haley has risen in many polls conducted since the second RNC debate. I’ve written about that because I think the stars may be aligning for her campaign due to world events. Her wheelhouse is her foreign policy experience, something that sets her apart from the other not-Trump candidates, especially since Pence dropped out on Saturday. Pence could have given her a run for her money on that subject but his campaign was doomed from the beginning. In the middle of October I asked the question of who would drop out first, Pence or Tim Scott. Tim Scott is hanging in for now and making a huge push in Iowa, so we’ll see if he can do himself some good.

DeSantis has the opportunity as a sitting governor to show his leadership skills and he’s been successful at that. He and Nikki are going against each other a little stronger now, as she rises. He recently drew a contrast between his position on Gazan refugees coming to the United States and that of Haley. This morning I heard an ad paid for by the super PAC supporting DeSantis and it attacked Haley by name. It’s that time in the primary where the not-Trump candidates have to make aggressive moves in hopes of advancing. Admittedly, it’s an uphill climb at this point against Trump.

DeSantis dropped and Haley rose in the DMR poll.

That’s a drop of 3 percentage points for DeSantis, who was the first choice of 19% of caucusgoers in August. And it’s a 10-point jump for Haley, who was at 6%.

“You just have (Haley) rising. You have DeSantis kind of holding on for second place,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the Iowa Poll. “But both of them are on ground that you could only describe as shaky compared to the solid ground that Donald Trump stands on.

“If anything, he’s showing improvement.”

Voters in Iowa are slow to make up their minds about candidates. Haley’s rise now may bode well as the race continues, if DeSantis doesn’t find a way to make some headway against Trump. DeSantis is more of a populist candidate while Haley is more of a traditional Establishment kind of Republican.

Tim Scott is in 4th place and Vivek is in 5th place in Iowa. Vivek is slipping in polls. The novelty of his candidacy as the fresh face, the young guy is starting to wear off, I think. He consistently has to correct his statements when he receives blowback and seems to moderate his positions when he starts going too far. Voters are noticing and he is falling in the polls.

Ramaswamy's Iowa fade is notable in new DMR poll: No change in overall support since summer (4%) but negatives way up, from 20% to 37%. Biggest jump in unfavorables of any GOP candidate. https://t.co/TnSIX0BctY

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 30, 2023

Here’s an example of a tweet that earned Vivek lots of snarky comments today.

We’ll avoid World War III if every nation looks after its own national self-interest first – because WWIII isn’t actually in most nations’ individual interest. The only way it’ll happen is if a country like Ukraine with incentives for broader war manages to chain-gang the U.S.…

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) October 30, 2023

It was a small poll because, well, it’s Iowa.

The poll of 404 likely Republican caucusgoers was conducted Oct. 22-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Haley and Tim Scott will likely benefit most from Pence dropping out.

Support is solid for Trump voters, while those considering DeSantis and Haley are less solid in their support. Haley is rising due to her appeal to independent voters and women suburbanites. DeSantis does well with younger male voters, under the age of 45. DeSantis leads Haley in that demographic 22%-13%.

The competition between DeSantis and Haley in Iowa is important because she is also his strongest competition in New Hampshire right now. Her rise in support put her in second place in New Hampshire after Trump. DeSantis slipped to third place.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the third RNC debate. It will be a smaller group on stage. Trump won’t be there but Vivek has decided to participate, as he confirmed this morning on Fox. He was asked about that because he has been saying he wasn’t sure if he’ll participate with the field so large. His position is that with such a large group of candidates on stage, no one gets enough time to articulate their positions. The field is slowly shrinking now, though, and his numbers are falling in polls, so he pretty much has to do the debate at this point.

I know she says she is not, but I wonder if Nikki is going for vice president if Trump is the nominee. Would Trump choose her? He said he gave her his blessing to run in the primary when she told him she would challenge him. She would bring Establishment Republican cred to the ticket, as Pence did in 2016, to calm voters who are not enthusiastic about voting for Trump in 2024. Just a thought.