‘Too soon’ for GOP to be looking to 2024, RNC chair says

CENTRAL CITY — The parade of potential presidential hopefuls to Iowa — including former President Donald Trump’s announcement that he’ll return to Iowa for a rally — seems to suggest Republicans already have turned their attention to 2024.

However, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is reminding them they need to be focused on 2022 and winning a congressional majority in the midterm elections.

“It’s way too soon” to speculate on 2024, McDaniel said last weekend while in Iowa. “I'm not looking at it at all — 2024 doesn't exist for the Republican Party if we don't win in 2022.”

McDaniel was in Linn County for Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson’s inaugural BBQ Bash, which attracted about 700 people.

“I think we have a lot to do before 2022,” said one of them, Darran Whiting of Marion. “We need to take it one step at a time and see how it goes from there.”

He wasn’t alone in saying the Republican Party needs to avoid looking too far down the road — but then the crowd gave Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz a standing ovation and stayed on its feet for his entire 20-minute speech.

Perhaps more than an endorsement of a possible Cruz candidacy in 2024, McDaniel said, the enthusiasm “on a hot, hot day in Iowa shows there’s something happening.” That gives her encouragement as she looks to 2022.

However, others said they’re not looking at 2022 because they don’t think the 2020 election has been settled yet.

“We need to count votes legitimately,” said one man who like many others declined to give his name.

Several others who also would not identify themselves complained that the Republican Party should be more aggressive in protecting voting rights and gun rights as well as being more fiscally responsible, rather than what they described as doing what’s politically correct and prioritizing personal careers.

There were plenty of people wearing Trump T-shirts and caps. Many, including Lou Rogers, a Marion Republican who ran for the Iowa Legislature in 2020, said they would be interested in seeing the former president run again, but stopped short of committing to support him in 2024.

Trump said earlier this week that he’s planning to do more rallies, including in Iowa.

“We’re going to Iowa. We’re going to Georgia. We’re going to some others,” he said during a radio appearance.

“If he does run again, then he needs to have a viable candidate by his side that's much stronger as a leader than he is to bring back our country in the right direction,” Rogers said.

A concern shared by McDaniel and others is that if the GOP doesn’t win a majority in either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate, Democrats will federalize election laws to make it easier for them to control election outcomes. That’s not all that could happen if Democrats maintain their majorities, McDaniel warned.

“Who knows what would happen with the filibuster or the Supreme Court?” she said. “So in my mind, the only thing that leads us to 2024 is taking back the House and or the Senate in 2022.”

Of Iowa’s six members of Congress, only one — 3rd District U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne -- is a Democrat. But in Iowa, hers and four other seats are coming up for a vote in the November 2022 elections. Democratic candidates have announced challenges to Republicans in three of them.

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