Mary Lou McDonald's conference speech in Athlone comes ahead of a big year for the party.

Ron DeSantis, once considered a likely rival to Donald Trump's Republican bid for president, was met with large numbers of empty seats at a campaign event in Iowa, despite what official photos might suggest. The Florida Governor has been attending a number of campaign events across the state this weekend in an attempt to boost support for himself after a dwindling campaign. The following pictures were tweeted by the Never Back Down PAC for DeSantis: Perhaps it looks like a successful event with a high turnout, but in reality, this is the true size of the crowd: Miller, a writer for media outlet The Bulwark, tweeted the image on Saturday, it has over 1 million views. He added that "DeSantis is doing a bunch of events this weekend and not all have been this sparse. This is the reality when you reboot and have to do the grind it out, lots of small events Let Ron Be Ron deal." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter According to FiveThirtyEight, 45.9 per cent of Americans have an unfavourable opinion of DeSantis, in numerous other polls he is also seen trailing behind former president Donald Trump in Republican primaries. It wasn't long for DeSantis' biggest rival for the Republican nomination, Trump, used the opportunity to mock him. On Truth Social he highlighted that only 10 people were watching a livestream of a Ron DeSantis event in Iowa saying "WOW!" Trump's political advisor Steven Cheung also mocked DeSantis: The photo has since gone viral with many sharing the humiliating moment for DeSantis' campaign: DeSantis has seemed to centre the early days of his campaign combating 'wokeness', having recently faced widespread criticism following his introduction of Florida's new Black history curriculum, that suggests middle schoolers should be taught slaved learned some skills that could be of "personal benefit". Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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