The Iowa-Iowa State college football game wasn’t the only hotly contested rivalry on display in the Hawkeye state on Saturday, as former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made some defensive moves ahead of the first GOP primary in January 2024.
Throughout the day, Trump “drew far more eager and excited onlookers who appeared unbothered that he faces criminal charges in four separate cases,” the Des Moines Register reported.
But the former president’s reception wasn’t universally positive and met with audible boos and obscene gestures throughout the day, including a plane flying a “Where’s Melania?” banner. The flyover was a dig at Trump’s third wife, who is seldom seen with her husband and has reportedly rebuffed his multiple requests to join him on the campaign trail.
Game day attendees were also met by two inflatable figures resembling Trump and Anthony Fauci, the former White House medical advisor, wielding an inflatable syringe to represent the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s unclear who sponsored the stunt, but in July, the Iowa political director of the pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC oversaw an identical set of costumed characters who followed Trump to several campaign stops.
On Saturday, Never Back Down released an ad designed to reach digital devices around the stadium that criticized the former president for allowing transgender women to compete in Miss America pageants and promised to “end the insanity.”
While Trump took in the game in box seats, DeSantis watched in the stands with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who has appeared with DeSantis and his wife, Casey, numerous times. In July, DeSantis said he’d consider tapping Reynolds as his running mate, and is seeking to exploit a rift between the Iowa governor and Trump. Reynolds reportedly did not interact with Trump “in any way” on Saturday.
The event comes as Trump dominates the GOP primary with seemingly little effort. A mid-August Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll showed the former president as the top choice of 42% of likely GOP Iowa caucusgoers. DeSantis notched less than half that number with 19%, and U.S. Senator Tim Scott came in third at 9%. Overall, Trump leads the primary field by nearly 40 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s compilation of recent polls.
In addition to Trump and DeSantis, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum attended game day events Saturday, to much less fanfare.
Since the former president’s last visit to Iowa, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis hit Trump with his fourth criminal indictment and charged him with attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The multiple state and federal allegations have drained Trump’s campaign coffers, preventing him from funding the kinds of massive rallies that he so relished during previous races and forcing him to rely on events hosted by state Republican parties. His visit to Iowa Saturday was only his seventh during the campaign; DeSantis, by contrast, has claimed to have visited over half of Iowa’s 99 counties.
DeSantis indirectly addressed Trump’s sprawling criminal indictments during the game. “Iowans don’t want the campaign to be about the past or to be about the candidates’ issues,” he told The New York Times. “They want it to be about their future and the future of this country. And that’s what I represent.”
Jack McCordick
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