Why GOP rivals are struggling to attract Trump’s super fans in Iowa
TOPEKA — Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis keep plugging away in Iowa despite modest polling numbers insufficient to match former President Donald Trump.Trump, the businessman and television celebrity who became president and the only candidate dealing with dozens of felony fraud and corruption charges, has insisted the GOP primary election was essentially over.
The FiveThirtyEight’s average of polling in Iowa indicated he might be right, given his sway over 44.7% of respondents. DeSantis appeared stalled at 17.5% in Iowa, while Haley surged in November to 15.3%.
“So, Trump is campaigning as if … he has no opponents really,” said Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University in Topeka. “He has a devoted following. They’re still treating him like an incumbent president.”
In the summer and fall of 2023, his quest was to better understand Republican candidates participating in the Jan. 15 caucus as they sharpened their messages and dumped money into races they hoped would create buzz rather than fizzle. The Democratic ticket will be punched for incumbent President Joe Biden.
Beatty has bounced along the campaign trail in Iowa to interview and observe presidential candidates for two decades. His 30-minute documentary, “The Iowa Caucuses and the 2024 Election,” will be on KTWU public television at 8 p.m. Jan. 8, 8 p.m. Jan. 11 and 1 p.m. Jan. 14.
Until someone in the GOP field changed the math, Beatty said, Trump has the option of concentrating on a rematch with Biden. Trump has forsaken retail politics common in Iowa, Beatty said. Trump doesn’t stand around shaking hands at donut shops or answering questions at ice cream parlors. He skipped GOP debates.
Instead, his campaign relied on large rallies with hundreds of people in the audience. The events resemble rock concerts with supporters securing tickets, waiting in line and cheering on the leader of the band.
“In his speech, he said, ‘Hey, let’s let’s have a landslide in Iowa and basically be done,’ ” Beatty said on the Kansas Reflector podcast.
DeSantis’ peak
Beatty said DeSantis, the Florida governor and former congressman, peaked too soon. DeSantis hadn’t been able to break the 20% barrier since July despite a zealous county-to-county tour of Iowa and endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. On Sunday, DeSantis predicted victory next month in the Iowa caucus.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, lingered at 10% in the FiveThirtyEight polling summary until July before starting a climb to 15.3%. Americans for Prosperity’s political action committee recently endorsed Haley in an attempt to promote a candidate with potential to take out Trump, Beatty said.
“She’s one of those candidates that if Trump was not in the race, the attention given to her would be 10 times as much because she’s a very politically attractive candidate,” Beatty said.
The fourth place Republican in Iowa, billionaire businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, has a FiveThirtyEight polling average of 4.7% despite promising Trump supporters that he would pardon the former president if they helped elect Ramaswamy in November 2024.
Beatty said if the 38-year-old Ramaswamy didn’t prevail there was a chance he could resurfaced four years later. At the same time, he said, it was useful to consider what happened to Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate who attracted a flurry of attention in 2020. Yang ended his candidacy after the New Hampshire primary and later that year left the Democratic Party.
“He got excited from his Iowa experience, then ran for mayor of New York, and then he lost and now we haven’t heard much from him again. So you gotta be careful in politics,” Beatty said.
The other pack
Beatty said it was to Trump’s advantage to have a lengthy list of candidates in the Republican primary, because splintering of support among voters made it harder for a rival to break out of the pack and close the gap on him.
A pair of candidates — former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott — recently dealt with reality and idled their presidential campaigns.
As early as July, Beatty said, handwriting was on the wall for Pence. He didn’t gain traction in polls and struggled to raise money. There was evidence of frustration among Trump loyalists with Pence’s decision not to stop certification of the presidential ballot count by Congress in January 2021.
Crowds at Pence events often featured people with pro-Trump hats and signs expressing dismay about legitimacy of Biden’s victory and irritation with Pence’s decision to turn on his former boss, Beatty said.
Scott, the South Carolina Republican who had been appointed to the U.S. Senate by Haley, suspended his campaign for president in mid-November. His candidacy just didn’t take off, but Beatty said he might have an opportunity in the future to seek higher office.
“Pretty soon he got the reputation in the race as being the nice guy. Sort of the old Hubert Humphrey happy-warrior type of candidate, but super conservative,” Beatty said.
Beatty said former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former U.S. House member who served as prosecutor in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, stood apart from other Republicans in Iowa because he dared to repeatedly attack Trump. The response of Trump backers was predictable, Beatty said: “They’re happy to boo anyone who complains about Trump.”
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is thought to be a billionaire, sought traction in Iowa by offering $20 gift cards in exchange for any amount of donation to his campaign. He came across at campaign stops as a capable governor, but his presence in the race was due to personal wealth rather than personal attraction, Beatty said.
“This happens every four years,” Beatty said. “Somebody looks in the mirror and says, ‘Well, heck, I’d be … a pretty good president.’ ”
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