AS Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flipped pork chops in front of the cameras at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, a plane appeared in the broiling blue sky.
It was Donald Trump's Boeing 757 private jet. It circled the fairgrounds, and thousands in the crowd looked up and went wild, cheering for the Republican former president.
An hour later, Trump arrived in a motorcade from nearby Des Moines airport to a rock-star reception, stealing DeSantis' thunder and reducing his nearest rival for the Republican presidential nomination to a bit-part player at one of the biggest political events on the United States political calendar.
It was a moment that epitomised the state of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating race: Trump is far ahead in national polling, eclipsing DeSantis and the rest of the field.
The Iowa State Fair is a political must for aspiring presidential candidates in the Midwestern state that kicks off the Republican nominating contest in January.
But with Trump leading DeSantis by 34 percentage points among likely Republican primary voters in an Aug 3 Reuters/Ipsos poll, and the rest of the field languishing in single digits, the fair this year had the air of a coronation rather than a beauty pageant.
Despite Trump's legal problems, indicted three times this year and could be indicted a fourth time in Georgia this week, he holds one of the biggest primary polling leads in US electoral history.
Meanwhile, DeSantis has had two staff shake-ups in the past three weeks and has been sinking in the polls as he desperately tries to recalibrate his campaign.
As Trump walked from the pork chop tent to a bar to make a speech, flocked by supporters, a reporter asked him about DeSantis.
"He's doing very, very poorly in the polls. He really should leave the race," Trump said.
Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who opposes Trump's nomination, has been holding focus groups with Republican voters all year.
During the last two she held, in the past two weeks, not a single person even mentioned DeSantis.
Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for DeSantis, said the Republican contest was between Trump and DeSantis, who "is the only candidate in the race who can beat Joe Biden and implement the agenda we need to reverse this country's decline and revive its future".
In voter interviews, Reuters found that most liked DeSantis, but not enough to back him over Trump.
George Knuckey, 67, said: "I like what DeSantis has done in Florida, but I want Trump, a businessman, running the country, I want Trump to get a second term.
"He was great for our economy; he'll cut down the size of government. DeSantis can run next time around."
On Saturday, tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and DeSantis appeared for interviews with Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds.
They were greeted by about 200 people politely, although DeSantis had to speak over a half dozen women's rights protesters blowing whistles and under a plane flying a banner that declared: "Be Likeable, Ron!"
He has a reputation for being a wooden campaigner.
When Trump arrived, with Secret Service agents and sniffer dogs, his crowds were huge, with 2,000 people waiting to see him.
Chris Jackson, a public opinion researcher with Ipsos, said at present, the primary resembles a "coronation" for Trump.
But Jackson cautioned that can still change, especially as Trump's legal problems mount.
Primary voters could still worry about Trump's electability in a general election, Jackson said, "and wake up and maybe think the emperor has no clothes".
The writer is from the Reuters news agency
