Columnist Lee Rood has written for the Des Moines Register newspaper for 20 years. Every four years, she watches the circus come to town — kissing babies and eating corndogs. Here’s what she’s hearing from GOP voters in the Hawkeye State.
DES MOINES, IOWA — It only feels like the GOP primary has lasted forever. Here in my home state, six out of 10 Republican voters didn’t have a candidate in December. Only one in four of those likely to attend the Feb. 1 caucuses had gone to see a candidate speak.
I think Rubio’s going to look back and realize it was one of the worst mistakes he ever made.
- Democratic strategist in Des Moines, Brad Anderson
We’re less than a month away from the first run-off in the 2016 election, and only now is it harvest time.
That means there will be a lot of movement between now and caucus day. Already, a Des Moines Register poll in mid-December found that Ted Cruz leaped 10 points to overtake Donald Trump as the leader among likely Republican caucus goers, 31% to 21%. It’s unlikely those numbers won’t shift again.
Four years ago around this time, polls showed Rick Santorum trailing Mitt Romney and Ron Paul; Santorum was the winner.
Will there will be a surprise surge again this year? Here’s where the candidates stand.
Lots of huck, no fire
Mike Huckabee cozies up to coffee drinkers on a crisp Saturday morning in Indianola, about 20 minutes south of Des Moines. He’s wearing his black NRA jacket. He’s autographing Bibles.
He’s telling the roughly 20 people in the room they will get better gas mileage if they put “Huck 16” bumper stickers on their cars.
The Corner Sundry here is one of a whopping 150 campaign stops the former Arkansas governor is making in the whirlwind leading up to Feb. 1. Huckabee is wagering the Holy Grail here will still be a scorched-earth, touch-’em, talk-to-’em approach across 99 counties that helped him win the 2008 Republican caucus.
“Nothing would make for more fun than having the network people spinning around in their anchor chairs on caucus night and wondering how they go it so wrong,” Huckabee tells the roughly 20 folks who aren’t media.
But as Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham will tell you, all the handshakes in the world won’t work if you can’t spark a flame. While Huckabee would seem on paper as a favorite among the state’s evangelicals, this year those voters have an alternative: Sen. Ted Cruz.
On this day, even the man wearing the “Huck” sticker who introduced the candidate says he’s looking for fresh blood.
“I’ve been trying to keep it neutral so I don’t discourage anyone from caucusing,” says Warren County Republican co-chairman Steve Armstrong, 33.
Armstrong’s top three?
“Cruz, Carson or Rubio.”
Not enough love from Rubio
David Yepsen, a former political columnist at the Register and now director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, believes Sen. Marco Rubio stands to gain more ground with moderates and conservatives.
He may be onto something. Of a half-dozen undecided GOPers I sampled after one Rubio event after New Year’s, every one said they were swayed his way.
“Rubio has that piece that’s missing,” said Rich Martin, a 49-year-old psychologist. “Some of the others are being labeled as too evangelical. He’s more electable. And he’s not going to scare off the New Hampshire folks.”
But while Rubio does draw large, enthusiastic crowds, he’s made about half the campaigns stops and doesn’t have the organization. Instead, he’s chosen to spread himself across early states and focus on debate performances.
That’s just plain wrong, many here believe.
“I don’t understand it. He’s got money,” said Brad Anderson, a Democratic strategist in Des Moines. “If you live in Decorah (in far eastern Iowa) or Council Bluffs (bordering Omaha, Neb., to the west) and you want to support him, where do you go to find his offices or staff?”
Those questions are being echoed in New Hampshire and South Carolina. And that failure is “hands down the biggest missed opportunity” of the campaign, Anderson said.
“I think Rubio’s going to look back and realize it was one of the worst mistakes he ever made.”
ISIS and Carson’s collapse
Talk presidential priorities with Jim Vander Wert, a newly retired farm machinery dealer from Pella, a manufacturing hub of about 10,000, and he sounds like many others circling the Republican stump speeches.
“America doesn’t need to be a bully out there in the world,” he says. “But we do need to regain a certain amount of security.”
If the 2012 race wound up being about hope and change for Iowa Democrats, early 2016 is about fear and loathing for Republicans.
GOPers here talk a lot about the economy and undoing seven years of Barack Obama. But after the Paris attacks and San Bernardino shootings, they are fixated on terrorism, gun rights and national security.
All the arm wrestling over who’s got the most strength and swagger has cemented in the collective consciousness.
Ben Carson, who admitted he’s a national-security novice, seems weak-kneed.
Polls show Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslims and ousting illegal immigrants have taken hold.
Sixty-seven percent of likely GOP caucus goers said the US should stop all Syrian refugee resettlement and 54% want to deport all people living in the country illegally, according to the last Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Poll.
Cruz, the well-oiled uber-conservative favorite of evangelicals and Tea Partiers, only gained ground after he promised to carpet bomb the Islamic State.
Rubio has impressed likely voters with the endorsement of Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
“Rubio,” Gowdy boasted at a town hall in early January, “has become a leading expert, if not the foremost expert, on national security in Congress.”
The rise of Cruz
Cruz still trails Trump substantially in national polls, but he’s jumped ahead in Iowa for now.
Iowa Rep. Steve King, one of several top conservatives backing the Texas senator, says he’s “in all the way” after not endorsing a candidate in eight years.
King is placing a safe bet: Social conservatives have decided the last two GOP caucus winners.
Supporters who crammed an undersized town-hall venue last week in Winterset said they believe Republicans have found their winner.
“I think Trump’s great for the race and good for the party,” Drew Van Werden, a robotics salesman, told me as a home-school family performed songs written just for the candidate. “[But] I want to back the most conservative candidate who can win.”
A minister’s son and former solicitor general in Texas, Cruz invested heavily here, hiring a large staff, crunching voter data and securing ministers in all 99 counties to get out the vote.
But when the senator says he opposes abortion rights for rape and incest victims and vows to wipe out the IRS, he leaves moderate Republicans squeamish.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who have been polling low in Iowa despite early interest, are trying to fill the void with more center-right Republicans.
Christie, at least, is making some headway, drawing crowds or 250 to 400 this month and support from many top Republicans close to Gov. Terry Branstad (who isn’t officially endorsing a candidate).
Trump bubble…
What Donald Trump has done exceptionally well is steal supporters from others, most notably from Cruz and Rubio.
After Trump entered the race in mid-June, Rubio lost 21% of regular Republican supporters and Cruz lost 47%, according to one survey by RealClearPolitics.
“Trump has upset everything by creating his own lane,” said Matt Strawn, former chairman of the Iowa GOP.
The big question is: Can Trump sustain his support?
In Iowa at least, I’m witnessing a softening. Though he’s still drawing large crowds (he is the most entertaining show in town after all), the No. 1 thing Republican voters here want is a
candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.
“At first, Trump’s message was refreshing. But after a while it just got old,” says Donna Smith, a mother and volunteer in Pella who says she’s tentatively backing Rubio. “I just don’t think [Trump] has staying power.”
Longtime students of the Iowa game say they won’t be surprised if the test here reveals chinks in Trump’s gold-plated armor.
Yepsen believes Trump’s arc is a little like Jesse Jackson circa 1988.
“He’s great entertainment and has the ‘gawk factor.’ But come caucus night, Iowans didn’t vote for him.”
…or Trump surge?
Only about 20% of registered Republicans — about 120,000 voters — showed up in 2008 and 2012.
Just shy of one-fourth of those who turned out in 2012 for the GOP caucus were independents, who make up the biggest group of voters here.
The crystal ball still fuzzes when analysts try to anticipate whether Trump will be able pull a Barack Obama and jump-start large numbers of outsiders to actually vote.
But there’s a difference between how Democrats and Republican caucus here that Jerry Crawford, the kingmaker of Democrats who’s behind Clinton, says will make a big difference for Trump.
Democrats back their candidates in public. Republicans vote in private.
Trump has upset everything by creating his own lane.
- Former chairman of the Iowa GOP Matt Strawn
Crawford hopes Cruz wins for Hillary’s sake but, “I believe the secret ballot will work in Trump’s favor on caucus night.”
What comes next
No matter what happens, the field will start to narrow coming out of Iowa. Already at the Jan. 14 debate in South Carolina, as few as six candidates are expected to be let on the stage. The candidates will meet one final time on Jan. 28 in Des Moines, another chance to sway the significant number of undecideds.
Momentum could be a big factor for Trump, says caucus watcher Christopher Larimer, an associate professor at the University of Northern Iowa.
“If Trump doesn’t come out at the top, what do you do in New Hampshire or South Carolina?” Larimer asks. “How is he going to keep spinning himself as a winner?”
And an unexpected second- or third-place finish by, say, Christie could shift attention.
“And does it really matter if Rubio beats Cruz or Trump?” Strawn asks. His answer: “Not as much as if he beats Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and [Ohio Gov.] John Kasich.”
Another candidate on the ballot, meanwhile, is Iowa itself. If, after Huckabee and Santorum’s losses nationally in 2008 and 2012, Iowa Republicans fail to pick someone who can win the nomination, critics will have a field day.
Larimer said if voter turnout is on the low end, that criticism will be even worse.
“That’s going to create even more pressure for Iowa to justify its first-in the-nation position,” he said. “And that’s going to be a huge concern for the Iowa GOP come Feb. 2.”