‘I’ll keep track’: Iowa Republicans sift through presidential hopefuls’ messages

DES MOINES — Like so many of her fellow Iowa Republicans, Donna Robinson is taking notes. In her case, that’s literal.

Robinson was one of the hundreds of people who heard from eight Republican presidential hopefuls who spoke Saturday at Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride fundraiser at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

When asked how she’ll be evaluating the candidates, Robinson pulled out a small notebook from her purse. She said she planned to take notes and rank the candidates based on their remarks, hoping to “knock a few of them off.”

“There will be some things they’ll say I won’t like, and I’ll keep track,” she said. “If we do end up with another 16 candidates that we have to choose from, you need to start knocking them off fairly early.”

That quadrennial winnowing of presidential candidates is once again underway in Iowa, and Ernst’s event Saturday was the biggest multicandidate event of 2023 thus far. Organizers said roughly 900 tickets were sold for the event.

The official and potential candidates who spoke included: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, Ohio biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Michigan businessman Perry Johnson and conservative talk radio host Larry Elder.

Notably absent was former President Donald Trump, who has been the leader so far in national polling on the Republican presidential primary. Ernst said Trump was invited to the event, just like the others.

Robinson, a 73-year-old retired nurse from Marengo, said she has in her front yard both a Trump flag and a DeSantis sign. A Trump delegate to the state convention in 2016, Robinson said she’s undecided who she will support.

“I’m not real excited about Trump right now, although I haven’t taken his flag down yet,” she said. “He’s just a little volatile.”

She would not say which of the major candidates with whom she’s not pleased, but did say she’s unhappy with the barbs, jabs and attacks being lobbied back and forth by the Trump and DeSantis campaigns and their allies.

“It’s too early to start attacking one another,” Robinson said.

None of the candidates mentioned Trump by name during the event. DeSantis, though, made a thinly veiled reference to the former president and TV personality, saying: “Leadership is not about entertainment. Leadership is not about virtue signaling or building a brand. Leadership is ultimately about results. And that’s what we do in the state of Florida.”

Ernst’s annual event starts with a motorcycle ride through the Des Moines metro area. Proceeds from that portion of the fundraiser benefited the Freedom Foundation, a veterans service organization in Cedar Rapids.

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At the fairgrounds, conservatives dined on literal and political red meat, as the presidential candidates tested their campaign stump speeches in front of hundreds of Republicans as well as the state and national press.

Jake and Britt Sander, of Carroll, said they are undecided Republican voters who were hearing from the hopefuls in person for the first time. Both said they hoped to hear from the candidates something that would bring clarity on who they might support — and more importantly, who they will not.

Jake, 24, a technician with John Deere who serves in the U.S. Marine Corps reserves, said he is looking for alternative to Trump, while Britt said she’s “keeping an open mind.”

“I already know what Trump did his first four years” and is looking for a candidate who “can potentially do a better job that him,” Jake said. “What I’m trying to find is someone that won’t divide the country more than it has been in the last eight years and actually works to try to bring it back together.”

He said he’s looking for a strong fiscal conservative, who “puts the American people first” and supports the military, veterans and Ukraine.

Al Phillips, of Spencer, said he is not registered with either political party, although he will vote for the Republican presidential candidate in 2024. Phillips said he believes that the eventual Republican candidate must be able to appeal to other voters like himself in the general election.

For that reason, Phillips said while he likes Trump, he worries about the former president’s electability in 2024. Phillips said among the other potential options, he is most intrigued by DeSantis, Scott and Ramaswamy.

Phillips described himself as an “independent,” and said the nominee must appeal to swing voting groups like women who live in metro suburban areas.

“I think whoever the Republicans pick, they have to be able to reach out on a bipartisan issue,” Phillips said. “I think we have become so ideologically driven it’s scary. It’s like you can’t talk to somebody from the other side of an issue.”

Marlyn Jensen, of Osceola, described himself as a lifelong Democratic voter who changed his voting habits with Trump’s 2016 campaign. Jensen said he still is a Trump supporter, but is also interested in DeSantis and Tim Scott. Jensen, like Phillips, said his only cause for concern with Trump is his electability.

“With Trump, there seems to be signs his support has eroded. That concerns me,” Jensen said. “If he’s not in a position where (Republicans) can carry the day, I’d be worried.”

Robert Sherer, 49, a warranty analyst and U.S. Navy veteran from Urbandale, also said DeSantis and Scott have grabbed his attention.

Sherer said he likes the way DeSantis led the state of Florida in protecting children, including by signing a six-week abortion ban and barring lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida public elementary schools.

“I think there’s undue influence in the public education system as far as approaching kids at a really super young age about their gender identity,” Sherer said. “And there have been some notions that maybe parents don’t have a place in guiding their children in that way. I think we should wait until middle school until we start opening the door on some of these topics.”

Sherer said he appreciates Scott’s religious values.

“He seems to have the most significant commitment to his faith of any candidate out there right now. And I think that’s probably the biggest draw for everybody with him,” Sherer said.

Asked about the only major candidate not in attendance — Trump — Sherer shook his head and simply said, “No.”

“I don’t like him,” Sherer said, noting he did not support Trump in the 2016 Iowa Republican caucuses, but did vote for him twice in the last two general elections as “the lesser of two evils.”

“I don’t think that he is a team player,” Scherer said, adding that he believes Trump “undermined the party” in the 2022 midterm elections.

Two of the candidates made fundraising requests Saturday so they can qualify for the first Republican presidential debate. The national party has set minimum qualifications in order for a candidate to participate in the debate, and one of those is a required 40,000 individual donations.

That figure will prove challenging for some of the lesser-known or lower-profile candidates. Elder and Johnson both asked Iowa Republicans to donate to their campaigns specifically to help them qualify for the debate.

After the event, Ernst told reporters she believes Iowa Republicans want to hear from the expansive field of presidential candidates what they would do in a future administration — not a re-litigation of past issues.

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Trump still regularly talks about how he believes the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. There was no significant voter fraud in the 2020 elections, a fact that has been verified and confirmed by dozens of court rulings and state and local elections officials from both the Republican and Democratic parties across the country.

“I think there are a lot of folks that want to move forward. I know that President Trump has a great base here. It is strong. But at the same time, people don’t want to hear about what has happened in the past, because we’ve had two years of a Biden administration that is just destroying our nation,” Ernst said.

“And so they want to know what are the future decisions that will turn our country around and who is going to lead us forward. So whether that’s President Trump, whether it’s one of the candidates that we saw on the stage, they’re hungry to hear about the future — what are these candidates going to bring to us in the future — not about what’s been left behind.”

Iowa Democrats issued a statement saying that the field of presidential candidates represents “the most extreme element” of the Republican Party.

“All of the candidates parachuting in (Saturday) are fighting to roast Medicare and ride away with the money millions of seniors have invested in Social Security, they’re all proposing taking away our most basic freedoms, and they’ve repeatedly put the wealthy ahead of the middle class,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Hart said. “Meanwhile, Iowa Democrats are fighting hard for common-sense solutions to reduce the cost of living and make sure everyone has the freedom to live the way they want to. We look forward to continuing to draw that contrast.”

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