Gov. Ron DeSantis’s reboot of his struggling presidential marketing campaign started within the spartan basement of a lodge in a rural Iowa city.

No spacious occasion corridor, as at earlier marketing campaign stops. No legion of safety guards ushering crowds of voters by means of steel detectors. No lineup of native luminaries giving elaborate introductions. Even the audio tools was primary, producing noisy suggestions in the beginning of Mr. DeSantis’s remarks to a crowd of about 65 folks and reducing out sometimes all through the opening speech of his bus tour on Thursday.

Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, has tried to downplay his marketing campaign troubles — a fund-raising shortfall and workers layoffs — saying he was switching gears to deal with the early nominating states and suggesting that his prime advisers had not adopted his technique.

“At the end of the day, as an executive, you have a commander’s intent,” he mentioned after his speech in a uncommon session with reporters. “If that commander’s intent is not followed, then you have to make sure it’s followed. So that’s what we’re doing.”

But some issues didn’t seem to alter a lot, at the same time as his marketing campaign has promised a “reset.”

Mr. DeSantis started his speech along with his stalwart opening line: “We have a very simple task ahead of us as Americans, and that is to send Joe Biden back to his basement in Delaware,” he mentioned with out irony from the lodge’s crowded basement, aptly known as the Elbow Room.

And whereas Mr. DeSantis’s stump speech in Chariton, Iowa, was shorter and extra targeted on what his priorities can be as president (the economic system, immigration, difficult the federal authorities forms), he barely talked concerning the state or the city he was in.

In response to its struggles, Mr. DeSantis’s marketing campaign has mentioned it would change its method by spending much less, presenting itself as an “underdog” towards the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and sharpening its message, based on speaking factors distributed to supporters. The bus tour on Thursday by means of a number of counties south of Des Moines was Mr. DeSantis’s first look in an early voting state because the layoffs.

By many measures, his presidential bid seems to be in disaster. His fund-raising didn’t meet inner expectations for the second quarter. He nonetheless trails Mr. Trump in nationwide polls by greater than 30 proportion factors. And in essentially the most alarming signal of all, his marketing campaign confirmed this week that it had laid off greater than a 3rd of its workers simply months after becoming a member of the race. With all of this dangerous news, the marketing campaign has shifted to a extra guerrilla-style method.

He made a number of extra stops in Iowa on Thursday, together with at a county honest, and he held a city corridor at a distillery within the night.

By 4 p.m. Central, Mr. DeSantis had taken questions from the press not as soon as however twice — as soon as after the Chariton occasion and once more after a tour of a small meat-processing facility in Lamoni, Iowa — a uncommon prevalence for a candidate who prefers to have extra management over his media appearances. The interactions are an indication that, as a part of his reboot, Mr. DeSantis plans to have interaction extra with the press, probably providing him higher publicity to voters.

Mr. DeSantis’s jam-packed day took him to 4 rural Iowa counties, with stops at a county fairground, a Casey’s fuel station the place he purchased a crispy rooster sandwich and a Sunkist, and a small lodge the place workers mentioned he was scheduled to take a break and revel in some “executive time,” forward of his night city corridor.

The bus tour on Thursday was organized by Never Back Down, the primary tremendous PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis. As the governor’s marketing campaign cuts prices, the tremendous PAC, which has a warfare chest of $130 million, has signaled that it might take over extra tasks historically reserved for campaigns, like organizing occasions.

While teams like Never Back Down are imagined to be impartial of political campaigns, the Federal Election Commission has dominated that candidates are usually allowed to look at their occasions. Mr. DeSantis was billed as a particular visitor on the bus tour.

Dale Rumple, 84, mentioned on the Chariton occasion that he was nonetheless leaning towards supporting Mr. DeSantis, regardless of the obvious turmoil in his marketing campaign.

“You’ve got to be anti-woke, anti-transgender, anti-gay,” mentioned Mr. Rumple, who’s retired and described himself as an evangelical Christian. “DeSantis doesn’t like any of that stuff.”

Other voters, together with Kathy Harvey of Chariton, had not heard the news concerning the layoffs.

Ms. Harvey, 66, mentioned she was grateful that Mr. DeSantis had taken the time to go to her city of roughly 4,000 folks.

“We’re not real significant,” she mentioned. “But yet he’s willing to reach out.”

Mr. DeSantis, who has a popularity for showing aloof, gamely engaged in small speak with Iowans throughout the day.

“You look good, man,” he mentioned to Ralph Alshouse, a World War II veteran in his 90s on the county fairgrounds in Corydon, Iowa. “I would not have guessed World War II.”

But his makes an attempt didn’t all the time appear to land, as when he advised a younger lady having fun with an Icee, “That’s probably a lot of sugar, huh?” earlier than shaking palms with one other small baby and greeting her with a surprisingly formal “Good to see you.”

And then, “4-H, Wayne County,” a bemused Mr. DeSantis mentioned to himself earlier than shifting on.

At his night city corridor, Mr. DeSantis caught to the same, if considerably meandering, script that at factors ventured into head-scratching territory, equivalent to a disquisition on quantitative easing.

But throughout the question-and-answer session, a voter, Scott McLin, requested Mr. DeSantis to offer two or three bullet factors about what he would do as president to stop the nation from enacting lockdowns and masks and vaccine mandates in a future pandemic. Mr. DeSantis responded that he would maintain leaders like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci accountable for his or her “wrongheaded policies” and eradicate the “revolving door” between the Food and Drug Administration and large pharmaceutical corporations.

The reply — which additionally touched on the “lab leak” principle of Covid, in addition to Mr. DeSantis’s questions concerning the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines, and a dialogue of how the media had attacked him throughout the pandemic — might not have been notably succinct, nevertheless it was efficient.

Mr. McLin, 56, of Osceola, Iowa, mentioned that he had been leaning towards supporting Mr. DeSantis however that the governor’s reply had moved him firmly into Mr. DeSantis’s camp.

“It’s a done deal,” Mr. McLin mentioned in an interview outdoors the distillery. “I really believe that was a huge mistake by Donald Trump, how he handled the pandemic.”