Trump crusade to ’take America back’
DES MOINES: There are 848 days until the Republican Party holds its caucus in Iowa, the first state to decide who will be the party’s challenger for the White House in 2024.
Yet despite conservative hopefuls, pretenders and wannabes flocking to the state in recent months, the result is in little doubt.
Barring a decline in health, a fresh twist in one of the criminal investigations into his business affairs, or some other catastrophe, Donald Trump will be the candidate.
The former president, 75, rolled into Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, yesterday for the latest in a series of swing state rallies – freewheeling events where the faithful lap up familiar broadsides from their hero against claims of election fraud, the communists who have supposedly hijacked the Democratic Party, the spinelessness of the Republican establishment and the disastrous influence of the “fake news media”.
Mr Trump has the Grand Old Party in a vice-like grip.
It is almost impossible to be nominated for a congressional or Senate seat without his endorsement, and he is said to be waiting to see how his candidates do in the midterm elections in November next year before making a decision. If they win the majority of their races, the Trump 2024 campaign will move into overdrive.
When that happens many of the other plausible Republican contenders are expected to melt away rather than antagonise the populist base by standing in a primary against the 45th President.
The Des Moines Register reported that Mr Trump spoke for 90 minutes on stage and even joked about a new campaign slogan.
“We’re going to take America back,” he said.
A woman selling Trump banners, baseball caps, badges and bumper stickers by the side of the road said it was clear he was going to run again in 2024.
“Why would he not run,” she said. “He has already basically said that he will.”
Mr Trump has in fact not said so explicitly.
He has gotten close to playing his hand, including using a speech to the New York police on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks to say: “I know what I’m going to do, I think you’re going to be happy”.
Instead he is crisscrossing the country, wallowing in the adoration of packed rallies like the one in Des Moines, hoping to recapture the euphoria of 2016 when his unique brand of superstar political charisma swept aside a field of experienced Republican politicians.
Mr Trump is building a new team. His “super-PAC” Save America, a funding vehicle that has raised more than $100m since January, recently hired two former employees in Iowa.
“I think everyone assumes that Trump is running,” Republican strategist John Feehery said.
“Most in the party faithful believe Trump won the 2020 election and it was stolen from him, so that puts everyone else in a fairly difficult spot. Why does he not deserve an opportunity to get the nomination again?”
Mr Trump’s support is surging. A recent Gallup survey put his approval rating higher than that of President Joe Biden for the first time since the election.