The two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will share the same stage for the first time in Iowa Friday at the state party’s Lincoln Dinner. Former President Donald Trump maintains a double-digit lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in local polls, but Iowa GOP leaders say Trump has left an opening for DeSantis – and other rivals – to gain some ground. Recently, Trump rubbed some Iowans the wrong way after ducking some prominent ‘cattle calls’ and publicly criticizing popular Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has pledged to remain neutral in the primary. The Associated Press has the story:
Trump, DeSantis to address influential Iowans at GOP dinner
Newslooks- DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)
Donald Trump and rival Ron DeSantis are appearing for the first time at the same Iowa presidential campaign event, both addressing a major Republican dinner Friday night as they each face critical moments that could reshape the direction of the race.
Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, is making a rare appearance with the rest of the field at an Iowa Republican Party fundraiser a day after he was charged with additional counts over his retention of classified documents. He is also bracing to be charged soon in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump frequently avoids attending multicandidate events in person, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are badly trailing him in polls.
But Iowa leads off primary voting and, with its caucuses less than six months away, Trump and a dozen other GOP hopefuls are taking advantage of the chance to speak to about 1,200 GOP members and activists at the Lincoln Day Dinner.
DeSantis is Trump’s strongest rival in the field but has been trying to reset his stalled campaign for two weeks. His campaign is increasingly focusing on Iowa in its efforts on trying to derail Trump.
DeSantis’ stumbles have raised questions about whether another candidate might be able to emerge from the field and catch the former president. Some evangelicals, who can be determinative in the state’s caucuses, have pointed to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s upbeat message and pulpit-style delivery as strengths that could help him rise there.
Scott held a town hall Thursday night in Ankeny with Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and a crowd of a few hundred people. Afterward, Scott took a swipe at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s support for new standards that require the state’s teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
The only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, Scott said all Americans should recognize how “devastating” slavery was. “There is no silver lining” to slavery, he added.
DeSantis has also faced criticism from teachers and civil rights leaders, as well as mounting pushback from some of his party’s most prominent Black elected officials. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said he hoped officials might “correct” parts of the curriculum addressing lessons on the developed skills of enslaved people. Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman now also running in the GOP presidential primary, have also criticized DeSantis.
Still, the governor continued to dig in on the issue, saying at a pre-dinner event in Oskaloosa on Friday, “D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left.” The governor has defended the new school curriculum, saying, “I think it’s very clear that these guys did a good job on those standards.”
John Niemeyer, 52, from Kalona, Iowa, attended DeSantis’ Friday event and was impressed. But, as a high school teacher, he’s not a fan of some of the governor’s positions on education policy.
“I don’t want to make our classrooms a political battlefield,” he said, adding that it would be a “mistake” to make the issue the forefront of his campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris made her own Iowa stop on Friday, seeking to draw a contrast with the Republicans as she looked to lift President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Harris met in Des Moines with activists and discussed abortion rights, after Reynolds recently signed a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. A judge has temporarily blocked the law, but the Iowa Supreme Court will consider the governor’s request to put it back in effect.
“I do believe that we are witnessing a national agenda that is about a full-on attack on hard won freedoms and hard won rights,” the vice president said.
Hours later, many Lincoln Day Dinner attendees wore “Trump Country” stickers, including 72-year-old Diane Weaver of Ankeny, Iowa.
“I think he makes America great,” said Weaver, a retiree who plans to caucus for Trump. “I think he did it once and I think he can do it again.”
She also said the rest of the Republican field should make a more robust and vocal defense of Trump as he faces his legal problems.
For his part, DeSantis ducked repeated chances Friday to criticize Trump over the additional charges he faces. Pressed on why he isn’t willing to use them to go on the offensive against a primary opponent he’ll need to beat, DeSantis pointed to past policy clashes he’s had with Trump over issues like the COVID-19 pandemic response and the federal deficit.
“We have engaged when appropriate,” DeSantis told reporters, adding that he’s not interested in “relitigating the latest superseding indictment.”
The governor has pledged to eventually visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties and is in the midst of a two-day state bus tour organized by a super PAC supporting his run. But he faces fresh questions about his strategy and path forward.
After his fundraising reports showed him burning through donations, the governor cut more than a third of his campaign staff. One of the laid-off aides had shared a video featuring DeSantis’ face superimposed on a symbol embraced by the Nazis.
DeSantis’ cash crunch seems to be driving the campaign to rely even more on the efforts of the super PAC Never Back Down to take up the work typically done by campaign staff.
Super PACs can receive unlimited sums from donors but are barred under federal rules from donating to candidates or coordinating with campaigns on how their money is spent.
While presidential campaigns have been supplemented before by the work of super PACs, which frequently use deeper coffers to run expensive television ads, the work Never Back Down has done to promote DeSantis has been more expansive.
The group has been organizing on the ground, including lining up caucus supporters for DeSantis. And while candidates before him have appeared at events put on by super PACs, DeSantis is embarking on the bus tour as the PAC’s “special guest.”
Both the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down defended the arrangement when asked how it complies with federal rules.
“There are decades of precedent for Super PACs to host candidates and others as special guests at events,” said Jess Szymanski, a spokesperson for Never Back Down.
