DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Ambitious Republicans are beginning to make moves in Iowa, a test ground for future presidents. Their first step is to find out if the activists have overcome the last one.
Former President Donald Trump remains a huge presence in Iowa, where he won twice by healthy margins. He has hinted that he will run again, and their false claims that the last election was stolen, still dominate some Republican circles.
But that doesn’t mean Trump has frozen the field of potential Republican presidential candidates in 2024. Several Republican politicians have plans to travel to Iowa and other states with initial nominations this spring. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is the first since the election to assess Iowans’ personal interest this week.
Party activists say those early arrivals are welcome, despite Trump’s lingering popularity and widespread belief that he was somehow unjustly unjust in his 2020 defeat. But interviews with GOP County party leaders and local activists across the state show the difference between his declared love for Trump and the hope that he will return.
“There are Trumpsters who can’t wait for him to run again. They’re the ones who still complain and complain that they’ve been tricked into the election, ”said Gwen Ecklund, a veteran former county president in western Conservative Iowa.“ But there are some mid-range Republicans who pass. page “.
This is what Pompey will look for at this very early stage. The former Trump diplomat and successful Kansas politician planned to speak Friday with a regular Republican group of breakfasts and future Republicans in Des Moines, as well as meet privately with top Iowa party officials.
Pompey has a national political debut at the American Conservative Union’s CPAC conference last month in Florida. As expected in Iowa, Pompeo distinguished himself subtly, without alienating Republicans still loyal to Trump and hoping for a return to 2024.
“I had the opportunity to take American hostages from Pyongyang,” Pompeo told the audience in Orlando. “‘America first’ has some courage. It takes a secretary of state willing to come into a room and say it like it is, and a president who has his back.”
Others will try to walk the same line.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott plans to follow the path of presidential prospects with an April 1 trip to Cedar Rapids. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott will meet with Republicans in the Quad Cities of eastern Iowa on April 15, a sign of an exceptional start to the 2024 campaign.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has met with virtually Republicans in New Hampshire’s primary state, is also planning to visit Iowa in the coming months, advisers said.
Nancy Amos, Republican president of Henry County, will get a fair hearing. But most of his southeast corner of Iowa want to see Trump run again.
“Oh, sure, we’re going to listen to them. It’s not that we don’t give others a chance, “said Amos, who represents one of the Mississippi River counties that Trump led after Democrat Barack Obama before.” It’s that most of the talk is about Trump. “
Trump’s lingering popularity, however, doesn’t mean everyone wants him to run again. Although Trump led Crawford County (where Ecklund is co-chair of the GOP) more than 30 percentage points twice, he has found Republicans “willing to move on” and “tired of extreme controversy.”
Across the state, Trump’s views have darkened some since he brought Iowa about 8 percentage points in November. In the March Des Moines Register poll in Iowa, 53% of Yowans viewed the former president unfavorably and 45% favorably, roughly the opposite of a year ago.
To an unscientific extent, a survey of 1,000 CPAC conference attendees found that 97% of these devout conservative activists approved of the work Trump had done as president, although only 68% said , who is now 74, should reappear in four years. years.
Still, Trump provoked loud applause and a standing ovation in Orlando when he told the audience, “Who knows, I may even decide to beat them for the third time,” alluding to his false claim that he won the 2020 elections.
Members of his own administration, including Attorney General William Barr, do not say any evidence of widespread fraud to voters has been discovered. Courts in several battlefield states have launched a barrage of lawsuits presented on behalf of the President.
In a January poll by Pew Research, conducted after the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, a 57% majority of Republicans said Trump should continue to be a major political figure for many years.
To maintain his influence, he will have to find a way to return to the spotlight, a challenge without his Twitter account signature, said Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who has advised Republican Senate candidates, including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst .
“At some point he’ll figure out how to get more attention than he’s getting now or he’ll fade away until dusk,” Goeas said. “I think Donald Trump in two years’ time will look very different from Donald Trump a month ago.”
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Hannah Fingerhut contributed from Washington.