Iowa looms large for Trump, rivals
DES MOINES, Iowa — Donald Trump was in Iowa on Monday. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made his first visit two weeks ago. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., have each made recent trips. And Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence was speaking.
Even as Democrats have chosen to snub Iowa in 2024, the state has never loomed so large for Republicans in the presidential nominating race.
For one Republican, it has taken on a do-or-die feel — the first real-world test of the strength or vulnerability of Trump.
No former president has sought to regain the White House in modern times. A loss or even a less-than-convincing win for Trump in the state’s caucuses, the kickoff contest for Republicans early next year, would signal a nearly fatal weakness for his campaign, according to GOP strategists in and out of the state.
For that reason, both his challengers and Trump himself are paying extra attention to Iowa.
“I don’t see a formula where Trump loses Iowa, and it doesn’t really wound him and his chances as a candidate,” said Terry Sullivan, who managed Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Even though Trump easily carried Iowa in the general elections of 2016 and 2020, Republican activists in the state said a 2024 caucus victory was not assured, although he remains the frontrunner.
Last week, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that Trump’s appeal was eroding: If he is the nominee in 2024, only 47 percent of Iowa Republicans would definitely support him in the general election.
That was a double-digit decline from the 69 percent who in 2021 said that they would definitely support him.
“For the former president, winning the Iowa caucuses is everything,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential leader of the state’s evangelical voters. “If he loses, it’s ‘game on’ to the nomination” for everyone else. “If he wins the Iowa caucuses, there’s nobody stopping him.”
After Democrats decided that Iowa’s nearly all-white, largely rural population was not representative and substituted South Carolina as the kickoff state for their 2024 primaries, Republicans are embracing the state’s traditional role as a proving ground.
The Trump campaign has hired experienced state leaders and plans to build an Iowa caucus infrastructure that signals its wish for a do-over of 2016, when Trump was shocked to finish second in the caucuses.
Back then, the politically inexperienced reality TV star had believed that big crowds at his rallies would easily translate into a surge of caucusgoers.
Instead, he lost to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Trump was so angry that he flew out of Iowa without thanking his local staff, baselessly tweeting later that Cruz had won because of “fraud” — a preview of his approach after losing re-election in 2020.
Trump advisers said they did not intend to repeat the mistakes of 2016.
“We have a serious political operation in the state of Iowa, run by and coordinated with extraordinarily competent professionals who know what they’re doing,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “We’re doing that because, one, we’re serious, and two, we’re in it to win it.”
Trump has hired as his state director Marshall Moreau, who managed the upset victory last year of Iowa’s Republican attorney general. He also hired as his director of early voting states Alex Latchan, a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party. Latchan witnessed the bumbling Trump effort in 2016.
In 2016, Trump’s Iowa staff members — including a former “Apprentice” contestant — signed up volunteer organizers but failed to teach them how to reach caucusgoers or even to provide literature to leave at their doors. The Trump headquarters in suburban Des Moines was dark many nights when rivals had scores of volunteers working the phones.
Trump advisers said things would run differently this time. They pointed to Trump’s first visit to Iowa on Monday as a 2024 candidate. The campaign said it was following up on the names and emails of thousands of people who registered to attend and filled the packed hall, seating 2,400, in Davenport, Iowa.
“The real work of the campaign starts when the president is wheels up,” Latchan said. “We’re going to continue to engage these people constantly every single day up until February.”
Trump has also bowed to campaign traditions he once eschewed.
At his Davenport appearance, he took unscripted questions for 20 minutes. Before the rally, he made an unannounced visit to a Machine Shed restaurant, a popular Iowa chain.