Asa Hutchinson in Iowa: ‘I’m still running’

WAUKEE, Iowa — Asa Hutchinson surveyed the beer and burger joint. ‘’Do we have any Iowans here?’’ the Republican presidential candidate asked dubiously.

He hesitated, knowing there weren’t many. Most of the faces staring back were students visiting from Duke University, attending Iowa caucus campaign events hosted by several candidates to learn more about the state’s democratic tradition.

One woman couldn’t quite figure him out. ‘’Was he a state trooper?’’ wondered Debbie White, who was visiting Iowa and had heard snippets of Hutchinson’s speech on fentanyl and immigration.

Canvassing earlier in the day also gave rise to some confusion. ‘’I knocked on a door today, and they said they loved me,’’ Hutchinson said in an interview. ‘’And they said, ‘Who are you going to support?’ and I said, ‘I’m still running.’ ‘’

There are long shots, longer shots, and then there is Hutchinson, a former two-term Arkansas governor-turned-2024footnote. Months after better-polling, better-funded candidates such as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former vice president Mike Pence concluded they had no path in a race dominated by former president Donald Trump and ended their campaigns, Hutchinson is still running.

‘’Asa is not going to do well in the caucus,’’ said John Hughes, who formerly lived in Arkansas but retired in Iowa, ‘’but I’m going to vote for him because I like him, I like what he says, and I know he’s a good guy.’’

In a pre-Trump era, Hutchinson might have fared far better. He has the resume of conservative accomplishments and executive experience that would have likely made him a serious contender for the nomination. First appointed the youngest federal prosecutor in the country by then-president Ronald Reagan, Hutchinson became a conservative fixture in the once-blue Arkansas, serving three terms in Congress. Under President George W. Bush, he headed the Drug Enforcement Administration and then went on to the Department of Homeland Security, overseeing the creation of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When he ran for his second and last term as the state’s governor, he won more votes than any previous Arkansas governor.

But Trump has reshaped the Republican Party, and Hutchinson trails well behind him and the rest of the pack. The former governor has under 1 percent support, according to some polling averages.