Trump celebrates win in Colorado election case during return visit to Iowa
Former President Donald Trump celebrated a win in a closely watched election case during a return visit to Iowa on Saturday, where he blasted his political foes and encouraged his supporters to not move past their grievances with President Joe Biden.
A Colorado judge on Friday rejected an effort to keep the GOP front-runner off the state's primary ballot, concluding that Trump had engaged in insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol but that it was unclear whether a Civil Warera constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from public office applied to the presidency. It was Trump's latest win following rulings in similar cases in Minnesota and Michigan.
Trump, campaigning in west-central Iowa, called the Colorado decision “a gigantic court victory” as he panned what he called “an outrageous attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters by getting us thrown off the ballot.”
“Our opponents are showing every day that they hate democracy,” he charged before a crowd of about 2,000 people at a commit-to-caucus event at a high school in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where people had lined up for hours to get a seat in the gymnasium.
Trump's visit was part of his fall push to sign up supporters and volunteers before the state's fast-approaching caucuses that kick off the race for the Republican presidential nomination. It was the latest in a series of targeted regional stops aimed at seizing on the large crowds the former president draws to press attendees to commit to voting for him on Jan. 15.
Though Trump has had a comfortable edge over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in early polls of likely caucus participants, Trump's campaign has been more aggressive in Iowa than any of the other early-voting states.
And he continued to attack DeSantis during his appearance Saturday, slamming the governor over his past opposition to federal ethanol mandates and for running against Trump.
Trump in a Thursday radio interview mocked DeSantis for “doing very poorly” even after winning the endorsement of Gov. Kim Reynolds, who broke with the general practice of Iowa governors not to support a candidate before the caucuses.
DeSantis, who stopped by his campaign's new office in Urbandale on Saturday, told reporters that Trump was making missteps by attacking Reynolds and focusing on larger rallies.
“I think it's been a mistake how he's not been willing to engage with Iowans outside of swooping in and doing, you know, a speech and then just leaving,” DeSantis said. “I think you got to get on the ground, you got to shake the hands, you got to answer their questions.”
DeSantis was campaigning across southern Iowa, moving closer to his goal of campaigning in all 99 counties. That's a traditional marker some candidates have tried to reach.