Saturday’s Cy-Hawk showdown will feature an added layer of competition, the kind the first-in-the-nation caucus state has grown accustomed to.
Former President Donald Trump and GOP presidential rivals Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson will be in attendance at annual intrastate battle between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.
“We’re thrilled to invite Donald J. Trump to the Iowa vs. Iowa State football game this weekend,” Matt Whitaker, a former Iowa football player who briefly served as Trump’s acting Attorney General, said in a news release.
Ramaswamy, an Ohio biotech entrepreneur and author currently running third in the GOP presidential polls behind Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is expected to appear at the 4th District Tailgate Presidential Rally, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Story County Fairgrounds, before the big game. Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and fellow presidential candidate Ryan Binkley, a Texas pastor and businessman, also plan to attend the rally.
The much-anticipated game on the field begins at 2:30 p.m. The contest for the Republican Party presidential nomination is ongoing, with the first match-up slated to kickoff on January 15, when Iowa holds the first 2024 presidential caucus.
Trump is dominating the competition, No. 1 in the polls and leading his nearest rival by nearly 40 percentage points.
He’s back in Iowa for the first time since being indicted a fourth time this year, this time in Fulton County, GA, on charges of interference in the 2020 presidential election. As in the first three indictments, Trump is vigorously defending himself against what he and many Republicans believe to be a political witch hunt — orchestrated by liberal allies of Democrat President Joe Biden and his politically weaponized Department of Justice. The prosecutions come as Biden runs for re-election, more than likely against Trump in a sequel to the hotly contested 2020 election.
Parking and security should be intense at Jack Trice, Iowa State’s 62,000-seat stadium that had already expected a sell-out crowd.
As candidate for president in a crowded Republican field of hopefuls, Trump took in the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry game in 2015.
Whitaker knows how electric the match-up is. He was a tight end for the Hawkeyes in the early 1990s. State Senator Jack Whitver (R-Grimes), Senate majority leader, was a wide receiver for the Cyclones. He’ll be at the game with Trump.
“Tens-of-thousands of Iowans will gather to tailgate and cheer on their favorite team,” Whitver said in a statement. “I’m proud to have President Trump witness the greatest rivalry in college sports.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Background Photo “Jack Trice Stadium” by GoIowaState.com. CC BY-SA 2.0.
