MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — There’s no rest for the weary.
With the first Republican presidential primary debate in the books, the bruised combatants are back on the campaign trail, hoping to build on debate night momentum — or repair the rhetorical damage done.
The top two GOP candidates not named Donald Trump plan a rigorous return to the campaign schedule, particularly Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy who’s planning a two-day, eight-city campaign swing through Iowa.
Ramaswamy, running third in the packed field of Republican candidates, opens his latest trip to the first-in-the-nation caucus state Friday morning with a Breakfast Roundtable in Indianola, a small college town in southcentral Iowa. His tour includes stops at the Polk County Summer Sizzle Friday evening in Clive and at the India Day Celebration at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Urbandale’s Living History Farms. Ramaswamy is a second-generation Indian American.
Not only is the 38-year-old political outsider rising in the polls, his campaign reports that he was the “most searched” Republican primary candidate last week. His name popped up in 41 percent of searches of GOP presidential candidates, outpacing faraway front-runner Trump (34 percent), DeSantis (10 percent), and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (5 percent), according to Google searches.
DeSantis, running second in the GOP presidential nomination chase, will also be in Iowa on Friday and Saturday for three events. Never Back Down, the DeSantis-backing super PAC has scheduled a meet and greet with the Florida governor at 9 a.m. in Rock Rapids. He’ll be in Algona at 9:15 a.m. Saturday and in Garner at 1:30 p.m. And then DeSantis is off to South Carolina for the Faith & Freedom BBQ on Monday afternoon.
DeSantis returns to Iowa boasting of Hawkeye State endorsements. As Fox News reported, the DeSantis campaign said it has received 40 endorsements from state legislators and has secured a total of 120 county-level chairs supporting him — at least one in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. With less than five months before the Iowa caucuses, team DeSantis claims the candidate has north of 10,000 Iowa voters committed to caucus for him.
Trump’s campaign had no events scheduled as of Wednesday other than the former president’s appearance in Fulton County (GA) Court on his fourth criminal indictment. With each new charge in what Trump supporters have called a witch-hunt by his political opponents, it seems the GOP front-runner’s poll numbers rise.
South Carolina U.S. Senator Tim Scott will be back in Iowa next week for three campaign events, beginning with a town hall with U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) slated for 4 p.m. Wednesday in Le Mars. Scott also will host a town hall on Thursday in Oskaloosa.
The senator is then back in his home state, with DeSantis, at U.S. Representative Jeff Duncan’s (R-SC-03) 12th Annual Faith & Freedom BBQ in Anderson. Duncan told The Associated Press that Scott was invited in his capacity as South Carolina senator, not as a presidential candidate. DeSantis is the event’s headliner.
Duncan’s event, a fundraiser benefiting his reelection campaign, has long been a showcase for possible White House contenders, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), and former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, according to AP.
Haley plans to be back home to host a town hall in Indian Land, SC, beginning at 1 p.m. Monday.
Pence has a busy campaign schedule next week. The former vice president begins a two-day swing through Iowa on Wednesday with a 7:15 a.m. meeting with the Northside Conservatives Club in Ankeny followed by a noon forum sponsored by the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce in Centerville. On Thursday, Pence will travel to far southeast Iowa for a town hall, beginning at 6 p.m. in Fort Madison.
And then he’s off to first primary state New Hampshire on Monday, Sept. 4, for the annual Labor Day Picnic at the Derry-Salem Elks Lodge in Salem.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy” by Vivek Ramaswamy.
