Former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) have dueling appearances this weekend at Iowa’s state fair, an important stop for any presidential campaign.
But although the pair are the top two contenders in the 2024 Republican primary, their greatest challenge in Iowa remains the expectations game, with Trump being the race’s undeniable front-runner and DeSantis contending with criticism regarding his bid.
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Between trying to devour a pork chop while retaining their dignity to remarking with awe at the sight of a butter cow sculpture, the Iowa State Fair is a carousel of activity that is less about networking with party activists and more about the candidates making personal appeals to likely caucusgoers, according to University of Iowa politics professor Timothy Hagle.
“These activities give candidates the chance to show how they relate to individual voters and can result in good media coverage of them having a good time interacting with people on the campaign trail,” Hagle told the Washington Examiner.
Drake University professor Dennis Goldford underscored the importance of retail politics to Iowa’s caucus process, which typically only involves about 20% of either party’s eligible registrants, trending toward activists who are more willing to take part for hours on a winter Monday night.
“You have to talk to people face to face in groups of one or two or three or four, and the state fair allows candidates to do that much more efficiently than trying to drive across the state,” he said.
But the 11-day annual event in Des Moines, this year from Aug. 10-20, can also create problems for candidates, particularly if they are confronted by a member of the public, protesters, or representatives from other campaigns, as former Vice President Mike Pence discovered this week. “Why did you commit treason on Jan. 6?” one Democrat asked him at the fair. “How is life treating you since Tucker Carlson ruined your career?” an aide to former 2022 Republican Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake shouted.
“It’s a bit like debates where it’s rare for someone to really ‘win’ a political debate but possible for someone to ‘lose’ one,” Hagle said.
Regardless, DeSantis is participating in both Gov. Kim Reynolds’s (R-IA) “Fair-Side Chat” and the Des Moines Register’s “Political Soapbox” series, in addition to sitting down for interviews with a range of local and national media outlets.
“A candidate may do well with questions, answering them thoroughly and thoughtfully, but it’s often the one mistake that gets all the attention,” Hagle added. “The example that comes to mind here is when Rick Perry was asked the three federal agencies he wanted to eliminate and he blanked on the third. As he said, ‘Oops.'”
Another instance was when then-former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told an Iowan in 2015, “Corporations are people, my friend.”
Despite the risks, candidates cannot avoid the fair because “Iowans like candidates to earn their vote,” per Hagle.
“That’s likely one reason that Trump, who hasn’t signed up for either the soapbox or chat, will still be attending the fair,” he said. “He didn’t run a traditional caucus campaign in 2015-2016 and isn’t this cycle either, but even though he seems to be well ahead in the polls, he can’t just skip the event entirely.”
For Goldford, Iowa’s caucuses are not over until the state’s delegates are allocated after Jan. 15. Simultaneously, Trump’s “remarkable” polling advantage means the contest is his to lose, while DeSantis has been “remarkably wooden and unappealing on the stump,” he said.
“Every candidate has the same opponent, and that opponent’s name is ‘expected,’ that you do better than ‘expected’ or worse than ‘expected,'” Goldford continued. “Trump is not the incumbent president, but in a sense, he’s the incumbent party leader for an awful lot of Republicans. So the caucus will be a referendum on their incumbent favorite candidate. Do they stay with him? Or is it time to move on?”
DeSantis’s campaign has defended the governor’s interpersonal skills, citing his recent bus tours of Iowa, endorsements from the likes of popular radio host Steve Deace, and polling. DeSantis is outperforming his national polling average of 15% in Iowa, with 17% support, RealClearPolitics finds. Trump’s national average is 54%, but his Iowa average is 10 percentage points lower at 44%.
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“Ron DeSantis will be visiting the Iowa state fair with a contingent of Iowa supporters,” DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said. “Trump, meanwhile, is having to import his support from out of state.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is behind Trump and DeSantis in Iowa with 10%, followed by biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with 5%, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley with 4%, Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 3%, and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) with 2%.
