Iowa doors swing open for those in GOP eyeing White House run
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA >> The polls were closed in Iowa for less than 48 hours when South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott was shaking hands and posing for pictures with eastern Iowa Republicans at a Cedar Rapids country club last week.
Scott, one of the many Republicans testing their presidential ambitions, hardly has the state to himself.
At least a half-dozen GOP presidential prospects are planning Iowa visits this summer, forays that are advertised as promoting candidates and the state Republican organization ahead of the fall midterm elections. But in reality, the trips are about building relationships and learning the political geography in the state scheduled to launch the campaign for the party's 2024 nomination.
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 Kauffman said. “It's unfettered.”
Beyond Scott, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to visit late this month, and plans to campaign with as many Iowa congressional Republican candidates as she can in a little more than two days.
Haley, who is also the 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, she plans to keynote a fundraiser
for Gov. Kim Reynolds. Haley will also campaign with Zach Nunn, chosen to face two-term Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who is among the most vulnerable House members this year. Haley's still-fluid schedule also includes attending Rep. Randy Feenstra's annual fundraiser in GOP-heavy western Iowa.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who visited several times in 2021, is expected the first week in July to speak at the county GOP dinner in Story County in central Iowa.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has visited Iowa more often 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.
Pompeo did endorse Nunn before the primary, a nod to their shared military experience, Pompeo aides said.
The plans also 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 announced it was unable to 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 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.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who won the 2016 caucuses and was the final candidate to drop from the 2020 Democratic contest, was in southeastern Iowa Friday to rally support for United Auto Workers striking at a CNH agricultural machinery plant. Sanders' plans,
which also included a stop in southeastern Wisconsin, sparked questions about whether the 80-year-old has a third White House bid in mind. He has said he wouldn't challenge Biden if the president sought reelection, and Sanders advisers said there had been no stated changes in his plans.
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 also wasted no time noting he had contributed money from his campaign fundraising account to Iowa Republican candidates, including targeted eastern Iowa GOP House freshmen members Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson.