GOP presidential prospects plan summer visits to Iowa

Republicans look to form ties in the state that’s set to launch the campaign for the party’s 2024 nominee.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The polls were closed for less than 48 hours before South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott was shaking hands and posing for pictures with eastern Iowa Republicans last week at a Cedar Rapids country club.

Scott, one of the many Republicans testing their presidential ambitions, hardly has the state to himself.

At least half a dozen GOP presidential prospects are planning Iowa visits this summer, forays that are advertised as promoting candidates and the state Republican organization before the midterm elections.

But in reality, the trips are about building relationships and learning the political geography in the state that is scheduled to launch the campaign for the party’s 2024 nominee.

While potential presidential candidates have dipped into Iowa for more than a year, the next round of visits marks a new phase of the ritual. With Iowa’s June 7 primary out of the way, Republicans eyeing the White House can step up their travel and not worry about stepping into the state’s intraparty rivalries.

“Now that it’s done, it’s full-bore,” state GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said. “It’s unfettered.”

Beyond Scott, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to visit late this month; she plans to campaign with as many Iowa congressional Republican candidates as possible in a little more than two days.

Haley — also a former governor of South Carolina, another early-voting state in the presidential calendar — plans to begin her trip in eastern Iowa on June 29 with first-term Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. She’ll also headline a state GOP fundraiser in Dubuque.

Working from the Mississippi Valley westward, Haley plans to keynote a fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds. She will also campaign with Zach Nunn, who was chosen to face two-term Democratic Rep. Cynthia Axne, among the most vulnerable House members this year.

Haley’s schedule also includes attending Rep. Randy Feenstra’s annual fundraiser in GOP-heavy western Iowa.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who visited Iowa several times in 2021, is expected the first week in July to speak at the county GOP dinner in Story County in the central part of the state.

Former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, who has visited Iowa more than any GOP prospect, is working out details for a late-summer return, aides said, likely timed to the Iowa State Fair in August, a storied draw for would-be candidates.

The plans come in light of the Republican National Committee’s unanimous decision in April to open the 2024 presidential selection sequence in Iowa, a question still hanging over Iowa Democrats.

In 2020, a smartphone app designed to calculate and report the Democratic caucuses results failed, prompting a telephone backlog that prevented the party from reporting final results for nearly a week after the Feb. 3 contest. The Associated Press said it could not declare a winner after irregularities and inconsistencies marred the results.

Stripped of their automatic special status in April, Iowa Democrats are trying to salvage their leadoff spot with a plan to allow early participation by mail and to streamline the sometimes time-consuming process.

With Joe Biden in the White House, Democrats with White House ambitions have largely kept their distance from Iowa.

On the GOP side, Scott’s return was not only timely; it reflected the dual aims of these early appearances, part introduction and part demonstration of support for the local party.

The 56-year-old sketched his childhood as one influenced by grandparents who helped raise him. Of his grandfather, Scott said, “For a guy who picked cotton in the 1920s, he lived long enough to watch me pick out a seat in the United States Congress.”

Sprinkled with lighthearted contrasts of his Southern home and Midwestern hosts, Scott wasted no time noting that he had contributed money from his campaign fundraising account to Iowa Republican candidates, including GOP House freshmen members Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson.

“It’s going to take us all pulling together,” he told a table of about 10 eating barbecue sandwiches, as he worked the dining room before the event.

Even before Scott’s arrival, former Vice President Mike Pence was on the phone that day to Chairman Kaufmann and Steve Scheffler, Iowa’s Republican National committeeman, to talk about the primaries and the summer ahead, they said.

Pence was planning a summer trip to Iowa, though the date was not confirmed, a senior aide said.

Notably missing from the Iowa travel schedule is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is among the rising national Republican figures most mentioned in conversations this year with Iowa party activists.

DeSantis’ priority this year is running for reelection, aides said.

“I love DeSantis,” said Emma Aquino-Nemecek, a Linn County Republican Central Committee member who attended the Scott event. “Can you imagine if he comes? He would pack the place.”

DeSantis got within shouting distance of Iowa in September, when he helped headline a fundraiser for Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, but he did not cross the Missouri River to touch Iowa soil.

Missing from the summer schedule so far is former President Trump, who staged a rally last year at the Iowa state fairgrounds and has endorsed several Republicans from the state.

Kaufmann said he had not heard from Trump’s team. Iowa operatives for Trump did not return messages.