Ex-President Donald Trump is crushing rivals in a new early-state poll that shows him 30 points ahead of Ron DeSantis in Iowa and 38 points ahead of Tim Scott in South Carolina.

Politico Playbook notes the results of Fox Business Network polls of Iowa and South Carolina show Trump clobbering the competition — but also providing a few of them with some good news:

In Iowa:

Trump … 46%
DeSantis … 16%
TIM SCOTT …11%
VIVEK RAMASWAMY … 6%
NIKKI HALEY … 5%

In South Carolina:

Trump … 48%
Haley … 14%
DeSantis …13%
Scott … 10%
MIKE PENCE … 4%

These results officially qualify Trump, DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, Scott and CHRIS CHRISTIE for the debate, as Zach Montellaro and Steve Shepard write.

But as Politico notes, the current also-rans have qualified for debates that Trump is not likely to show up for.

And these results — early as they are — do not bode well for anyone hoping, like DeSantis, to squeak past Trump with a state-by-state strategy.

This was DeSantis on Friday being confronted about his failure to catch fire in the polls nationally:

REPORTER: Why Utah today? Your poll numbers behind President Trump have been pretty substantially behind and…

RON DESANTIS: Not here! (HUMAN LAUGH) (CHEERS) No look, I think at the end of the day…

REPORTER: You think you can parlay this into a national resurgence to overtake…

RON DESANTIS: It’s a state, it’s a state by state race. And so that’s how we’ve set everything up. You know, we are we are focusing on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And then as we get into Super Tuesday, which of course, is is Utah. And that really requires being on the ground or requires building out the organization. And we’re doing that and we’re doing that better than anybody is doing that right now. We really, I think most of you saw last Friday we were in Iowa for the Family Leader summit. That really was the kickoff to the caucus season.

But if these numbers hold, that will be a steep hill to climb — even for Scott in his home state.

The post NEW FOX POLL: Trump CRUSHING DeSantis In Iowa — And Tim Scott In South Carolina first appeared on Mediaite.

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