Following last week’s disorderly second debate, several Republican presidential candidates are back in Iowa this week with less than 3 1/2 months to make their case to Hawkeye State caucus-goers.
Interestingly, the contestants come back to Iowa all declaring victory in the Trump-less debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), travels from Dallas, Texas, to Dallas County, Iowa, on Wednesday for a town hall. The event begins at 5:15 p.m. in Van Meter. Additional events will be announced in the coming days, Scott’s campaign said.
“After an exciting debate this week, I look forward to speaking with caucus-goers about standing up to China, defending our Judeo-Christian values, and bringing back American manufacturing jobs,” Scott said. “Iowans are ready for new conservative leadership that will empower generations to come.”
Exciting is one word to describe the second debate. Chaotic is the word a lot of pundits and viewers used. Scott, who was criticized for not going on the offensive in the first GOP presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, went full-on attack mode in Simi Valley. He’s running in fifth place in Iowa, at 6.8 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of Iowa caucus polls. Scott is lagging far behind in the national polls (2 percent), running in seventh place.
On Tuesday, Scott met with Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to offer support for the former Democrat following his recent switch to the Republican Party. Johnson, who is black, announced he was leaving the Democratic Party last month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, asserting that U.S. cities dominated by Democrat leadership “desperately” need mayors to champion “law and order and practice fiscal conservatism.”
Scott, the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate, praised Johnson for his efforts to reduce crime in the nation’s ninth most populous city.
“Those are things that I celebrate, and as President of the United States, I would look for more ways to encourage and to recreate some of the inner city communities in some of the largest cities so that we can have the same quality of life that we would hope to have as kids growing up in these big communities,” Scott said in a press release.
Ohio biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will hold his first larger-scale rally in West Des Moines on Thursday evening, all part of what the candidate is billing as Vektoberfest. The rally, scheduled from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Jamie Hurd Amphitheater, will include live music, food trucks, kids’ activities, and a live drone show.
“There will be a range of speakers and a lot of fun events scheduled, but it’s going to be a serious conversation as well about the future of our country, about the why?, about what it sen means to be an American,” Ramaswamy told The Iowa Star.
The anti-woke crusader returns to the Hawkeye State after his “Michigan Unforgotten American Tour,” with a series of stops on Wednesday in Flint, Saginaw, and Bid Rapids — “cities directly impacted by the hollowing out of America’s manufacturing industry.”
Ramaswamy remains a top-tier candidate, although he has slipped in the polls since his relative surge this summer. Nationally, he’s running fourth, at 5.2 percent, according to RealClearPolitics, and in Iowa, he’s in fourth place, at 7 percent.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley will be in Iowa on Sunday and Monday, hosting three town halls in Sioux City, Ida Grove, and Boone.
The first event takes place at 5:30 p..m. Sunday at Morningside University in Sioux City. Haley will old a town hall at 9 a.m. Monday at the Farmacy Soda Fountain & Coffee House in Ida Grove, followed by a 12:30 event at the 1868 Farmhouse in Boone.
In a fundraising appeal sent Tuesday event to Iowans, the former South Carolina governor said she’s never lost a race and is not about to in the race for the White House.
“I’m rising in the polls, and my opponents have begun launching attacks. But I say, BRING IT,” Haley wrote.
The only woman in the chase or the GOP presidential nomination, Haley has risen to third place in the Iowa caucus polls, averaging 8.8 percent support. Nationally, she’s in third as will, at 6.9 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.
But in a race dominated by former President Donald Trump, everyone seems like a long shot. Nationally, Trump leads the crowded field at 56.5 percent and at 49.2 percent in Iowa. His numbers continue to climb.
Trump was in Iowa on Sunday, campaigning in Ottumwa, where some 2,500 people packed the event hall at the southeast Iowa community’s Bridge View Center.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, will be back in the Hawkeye State for a full day of campaigning on Friday and Saturday. He travels to Sidney Friday morning, Mt. Ayr in Ringgold County for a similar event at 1 p.m., at to Greenfield at 4:30 p.m. On Saturday, Pence has campaign stops scheduled for Glenwood, Red Oak, and Corning.
Pence is running fifth nationally (4 percent), and sixth in Iowa, at 3.4 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.
Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus on January 15 is just 103 days away.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Tim Scott” by Tim Scott. Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy” by Vivek Ramaswamy. Photo “Mike Pence” by Mike Pence. Photo “Nikki Haley” by Nikki Haley.
