Campaign Almanac: DeSantis to complete 99-county tour of Iowa

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will make the last stop on his tour of all 99 Iowa counties with a rally Saturday in Jasper County.

The event will be at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Thunderdome venue at 1611 First Ave. W in Newton.

DeSantis' campaign has placed high importance on the so-called "full Grassley," a campaigning strategy of visiting all 99 counties, named after U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley's annual tour of the state.

The Republican presidential candidate said on WHO Radio last week that he believes the every-county approach has helped him earn the vote of Iowa's Republicans.

"You got to go to every community," DeSantis said. "You don't just go to the big population centers, you got to go to small towns, rural counties, you got to ask people for their vote, you got to shake their hands and answer their questions."

Former President Donald Trump retains a major lead in polling of the Iowa Republican caucuses. According to FiveThirtyEight's average of recent Iowa polls, Trump has close to 45 percent of support of Iowa Republicans, while DeSantis has 17.5 percent.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and The Family Leader President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Vander Plaats, both of whom have endorsed DeSantis, will speak at the rally, as well as state Reps. Matt Windschitl and Jon Dunwell.

Ramaswamy attacks carbon pipelines

Ohio biotech entrepreneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy opened a campaign office Tuesday in Des Moines.

The opening comes as Ramaswamy has made dozens of campaign stops across Iowa in the last few weeks, hoping to shore up his campaign support in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Ramaswamy also announced his opposition to carbon dioxide capture pipelines being proposed in the state. He criticized the "GOP establishment" and claimed Iowa Republicans promote the pipelines' construction and support the use of eminent domain to force unwilling landowners to grant easements.

"The reality is, no other Republican politician, certainly presidential candidate, has the stones to say a thing about it," he said in a video posted to X. "Presumably because it will make the Republican establishment in Iowa not look very good for their failures of the farmers in Iowa."

Scholten announces re-election bid

State Rep. J.D. Scholten, a Democrat from Sioux City, on Wednesday announced his re-election campaign to the Iowa House.

Scholten, the only Democratic state lawmaker for Northwest Iowa and one of only two Democrats serving in the Iowa Legislature from the conservative western half of the state, is serving his first term in the Iowa House.

Scholten ran unopposed in 2022 to represent the redrawn House District 1, which includes western Woodbury County and part of Sioux City.

Before his win in 2022, Scholten unsuccessfully ran to represent Iowa's 4th Congressional District. He lost to former U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) in 2018 and U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Hull) in 2020.

Scholten drew nationwide attention for almost beating King, a Republican incumbent in a deeply-conservative district. King eked out a 3-point victory over Scholten in the 2018 midterm elections, even though former President Donald Trump carried Iowa’s 4th Congressional District by 27 points in 2016.

Scholten played baseball at Morningside College and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After college, he pursued a professional baseball career, including with the Sioux City Explorers, and pitched in seven different countries. He currently works as an analyst/investigator for a Washington, D.C., law firm.

In a statement, Scholten said he is running for a second term “to get the Iowa Legislature back to focus on people, not politics.”

He criticized Iowa Republicans for passing laws this year allowing Iowa families to use public dollars to pay for private school tuition and expenses, banning nearly all abortions in the state, rolling back state child labor laws and creating additional barriers for low-income Iowans and their families to receive food and medical benefits.

“These bills don’t reflect what Iowans want or the issues that actually matter to our kids, families, and communities,” Scholten said in a statement. “… I am committed to bring back balance to our state and to restore common sense at the Capitol.”