As the Iowa caucuses draw near, former President Donald Trump holds a significant lead ahead of other Republican presidential candidates — but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign hopes to harness the support of Iowa evangelicals, an influential group of GOP caucusgoers, to win the caucuses.
That strategy was strengthened Tuesday when Family Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats endorsed DeSantis for president. On the Bret Baier show on Fox News Tuesday, the influential evangelical leader said the driving force behind his endorsement was that he believed DeSantis could win in the 2024 general election.
“At last Friday’s Family Forum, he closed the sale with me,” Vander Plaats said. “He was very clear about, ‘We need a president who can serve two terms, not one term. We don’t need a president that’s going to be a lame duck on day one’ … And I just think he’s got the spine to do it, and he’s got the experience to win for us.”
The Family Leader, a conservative Christian political organization, hosted three candidates – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — on Nov. 17 at its Thanksgiving Presidential Forum. As the candidates shared their personal religious beliefs and policy proposals, Vander Plaats asked them about how they would bring moral leadership and “civility” to the White House.
The Family Leader, and Vander Plaats have long played an important role in the Iowa Republican caucuses. He endorsed the eventual winner of the Iowa caucuses in several recent nomination cycles: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012 and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008.
While Vander Plaats’ support aided these candidates in winning the first-in-the-nation caucuses, these candidates did not end up winning the Republican presidential nomination. But Vander Plaats told Baier that Iowa’s role in 2024 is to show the country that Trump’s nomination is not inevitable.
“If you upend the former president here, I think we’re going to offer America a choice,” Vander Plaats said.
It will be a tall order. Trump has consistently led in national and Iowa polls – with 43% of likely Republican caucusgoers listing him as their first choice in the caucuses in the October Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll. But in a recent interview with the Iowa Capital Dispatch, Vander Plaats said the number one concern for Iowa evangelicals is winning the presidency – and while many Iowans like Trump, they fear he may not succeed in a rematch against President Joe Biden in 2024.
“Typically, what I hear is that they’re very thankful of President Trump and the administration,” Vander Plaats said. “They’re exhausted about the indictments and the constant complaints about the past. And they really believe America has made up their mind on the former president and that he’s not going to be able to win again. And so, they’re looking for an alternative.”
He is not the only prominent Republican to believe Trump may not be able to win in the general election – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed DeSantis earlier in November, telling reporters she does not believe Trump can win in 2024.
Other candidates have also recently gained the backing of influential Iowans. Haley received an impromptu endorsement from Marlys Popma, a former Iowa GOP executive director and former president of Iowa Right to Life, at a Friday event, where she encouraged Iowans to “be bold” and support Haley in the 2024 caucuses. Popma worked on multiple GOP presidential campaigns, including including working for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016 and working as National Coordinator for Evangelical Outreach for late U.S. Sen. John McCain’s 2008 campaign.
“Don’t be afraid to support the person you want to support because you think somebody else is going to win,” Popma said in a video published on social media. “Because that’s how we lose.”
Evangelicals make up a significant portion of Iowa Republican caucus participants. In the August Iowa Poll, 55% of respondents described themselves as being “devoutly religious,” down from 62% who identified as such in the January 2016 Iowa Poll. A January 2016 NBC News exit poll found 64% of Iowa Republican caucusgoers identified as evangelical or “born-again” Christians.
Among likely GOP caucusgoers who identify as evangelicals, 44% said Trump is their first choice for president in the October Poll.
Vander Plaats said some evangelicals who support Trump in polls may not be locked in for the former president. While many Iowa Republicans appreciate Trump’s track record, they’re still “getting to know” the other contenders – and that process often lasts all caucus season.
“Iowa – historically, in the Iowa caucuses – breaks very late,” Vander Plaats said. “They did for Mike Huckabee, they did for Rick Santorum and they did for Ted Cruz. And I expect that will be the case again this year. So I still think not only is the evangelical community still very much in play, but I think Iowa caucusgoers in general (are) very much in play.”
In response to Vander Plaats’ announcement, Trump’s campaign highlighted the endorsements of 150 faith leaders ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
“The overwhelming support from Iowa’s faith leaders is a clear indication of President Trump’s unwavering commitment to the principles and values that are important to people of faith,” Pastor Dan McCoy, Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Urbandale said in a news release.
Earlier in November, Trump’s campaign released a poll to supporters and donors saying that Vander Plaats’ support of DeSantis would not hurt the former president’s lead in Iowa.
But DeSantis said that Iowa evangelicals trust and care about Vander Plaats’ view on the race, saying Iowans have told him about the faith leader’s work “engaging Iowa’s faith community in the key battles that matter.”
“His support tells Iowans they can trust me to fight and win for them,” DeSantis said in a news release. “We’re thrilled to have Bob and Darla on Team DeSantis and are thankful for their friendship as we’ve gotten to know them throughout this campaign. The road to America’s revival starts in Iowa, and we will get the job done.”
But some Iowa evangelicals say they sense that Republican voters are moving forward under the assumption that Trump will sweep in the caucuses.
At a September Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition event, Lisa Smith of Ottawa said seeing the field of GOP presidential candidates speak was “invigorating.” That feeling was shared with other Iowa Republicans she spoke to at the event – but that did not mean they were supporting Trump’s rivals.
“It still just seems like it’s overwhelmingly Trump,” Smith said. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, yes, I like whoever. You’d be a good vice president or you’d be good in the cabinet. In fact, my friend just said that tone of the people out there and I was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s not what you say.’ But it is like that right now, and it still is just such a good thing to be able to hear that there are other people like you around.”
Candidates say Republicans need nuance on federal abortion approach
Despite Trump’s popularity, one of the areas where Trump is at odds with many evangelical Republicans is on the issue of abortion. While Trump has criticized Reynolds for months because she said she would remain neutral to encourage all candidates to campaign in Iowa, she fired back in September after he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake” in a “Meet the Press” interview.
Trump has pointed to abortion as one of the central reasons for Republican losses in the 2022 midterms, and called for GOP candidates to take a different approach to the issue.
Reynolds replied on social media that “it’s never a ‘terrible thing’ to protect innocent life,” saying she was proud to sign a measure into law in Iowa following a special session this year.
More than half – 52% — of likely Iowa caucusgoers said they disagreed with Trump calling a six-week abortion ban a “terrible mistake” The October Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll found 36% said they agreed with his comment and 12% were not sure.
Trump is not the only candidate calling for Republicans to change their approach to talking about abortion on the campaign trail. Haley has faced criticism from some evangelicals over her campaign position on a federal abortion ban, a policy goal she does not believe can be realistically accomplished by Republicans.
At the Thanksgiving Forum Friday, Haley said Republicans need to focus their energy on finding areas where a consensus can be reached – banning of late-term abortions, advocating for maternal support and encouraging adoption services.
“If you’re going to pass a federal law, you have to have a majority in the House, you have to have 60 Senate votes, you have to have the signature of a president,” Haley and we haven’t had 60 Republicans in over 100 years. We may have 45 pro-life senators. So we can’t bear abortions on the Republican side any more than the Democrats can ban these state laws. So if we’re focused on how do we save as many babies as possible, then let’s come together and say, ‘What can we do?’”
On the campaign trail, DeSantis has touted Florida’s so-called “fetal heartbeat” ban as one of the “promises kept” to his Republican supporters as governor. Speaking at a July forum, DeSantis said that America needs to develop a “culture of life” – and that as president, he would support governors like Reynolds and others in passing state abortion bans.
He said opposed the language used by some that banning abortion is too divisive of an issue for Republicans to win. But he said that candidates who were not willing to take on controversial issues were “not dependable.”
“It’s been written about how I lost a lot of really big supporters, some of them just aren’t pro-life, some of them think it’s a political liability,” he said. “… We stood up, we did what was right. Yeah, we lost some support as a result of that. But if I had a chance to do it again, I do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, another 2024 GOP presidential candidate, also signed into law a six-week abortion ban in April. But on the campaign trail, Burgum has advocated for leaving abortion in states’ hands, and not attempting to pass a federal ban. Burgum has said that as a supporter of “local control,” he would not pass a federal ban but leave abortion law up to each individual state, as it has been since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Ramaswamy has also said he would support state bans over of a federal abortion law.
Despite disagreements with Trump’s statements on six-week abortion bans, many Iowa Republicans credit Trump with the shift in U.S. abortion law since 2022, as he appointed the U.S. Supreme Court justices who made the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Cleon Babcock, a Des Moines resident, said at a September event that abortion is one of his top issues, as his birth mother could have been encouraged to get an abortion. While he said he liked what candidates like Haley had to say about abortion, he believed Trump is still the strongest candidate.
“Right now I would say Trump has the better chance,” he said. “But I’m never closed minded. And that’s what events like this tonight are all about.”
Republicans highlight their support for Israel, decry pro-Palestinian activists
Though candidates have differing ideas on the best approach to abortion, all Republican presidential candidates have pledged their support for Israel in their war in the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Since the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in control of Gaza escalated, Haley has seen a surge of interest both in national and Iowa polls, with supporters saying her experience at the United Nations makes her uniquely positioned to take on international conflicts.
Haley has long emphasized her national security credentials on the campaign trail – and has called for the U.S. to give Israel “with whatever they need whenever they need it” in their conflict against Hamas.
It’s a message she repeated while speaking at the Family Leader’s Thanksgiving forum. Haley said that the state of Israel is important to her from a religious perspective – but that supporting Israel should be important to Americans from any religious background because standing with Israel “exclusively advances the interests of American citizens here in the homeland.”
She said that Israel is a crucial ally for the U.S. in the Middle East, she said, calling it a “bright spot in a tough neighborhood.”
“What I want America to know, it’s never been that Israel needs America,” she said. “It’s always been America needs Israel. And we have to remember now. I’ll just say: God help us if we don’t get this right. We need to give Israel whatever she needs, whenever she needs it. No questions asked.”
In the most recent Iowa Poll, 22% of likely GOP caucusgoers said Haley would do the best job at handling the Israel-Hamas war as president. She was a distant second behind Trump, who 52% of poll respondents said would be the best candidate to manage the conflict.
On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly told Iowans he was the best U.S. president for the state of Israel in decades. He pointed to actions like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, supporting the Abraham Accords and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“Just a short time ago, we did the historic Abraham accords, and today we have the exact opposite – a major attack on Israel,” Trump said in Iowa Oct. 7. “What a difference the president makes.”
While he highlighted his record as president on supporting Israel, Trump has also said he would take measures against participants in the protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Many protesters are calling for a ceasefire, with more than 13,000 Palestinians killed since Oct. 7 and international organizations including the United Nations saying Israel is committing human rights abuses in Gaza.
Trump told Iowans in October that if reelected, he would reinstate a travel ban on “terror-plagued countries,” primarily Middle Eastern countries with Muslim populations, as well as banning Palestinian refugees from entering the country.
Other candidates including DeSantis have also called for rejecting Palestinian refugees. At a Creston event, the Florida governor said he would oppose any Biden effort to accept Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Gaza.
“If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic,” he said at the October event. “None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist. None of the Arab states are willing to take, you know, any of them. The Arab states should be taking them if you have refugees — you don’t fly people and import them into the United States of America.”
Both DeSantis and Trump have also expressed that they would support revoking visas from international students attending U.S. colleges and universities who participate in pro-Palestinian protests.
Ramaswamy is the only candidate who has expressed some pushback to the U.S.’s full support of Israel. Before the Oct. 7 attack, the Ohio entrepreneur said that he would consider stopping American aid to Israel in the future, though he added “never until Israel told us that they were ready for it.”
At a tailgate fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ramaswamy called for Israel to not launch a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, and for the U.S. to not support this response.
“Some people will ask, ‘is that anti-Israel?’ No, no, no,” Ramaswamy said. “This is the most pro-Israel thing we can do, as a friend, to say, ‘learn the lessons from the mistakes we made 20 years ago in this country,’ to make sure that we — together — don’t repeat them again.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson criticized Ramaswamy’s comments at the event, saying that the U.S.’s experience in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks will allow the country to better aid its ally. Hutchinson served under former President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks, and said his experience would allow him to better navigate international conflicts as president.
“It’s been raised by one candidate that we ought to debate what is the real reason that we want to go after Hamas,” Hutchinson said. “… This is a challenging time, we need to have leadership that understands that we can’t keep the other nations out of that conflict.”
Most Republican candidates are united on issues important to Iowa evangelicals, like abortion, “parental rights” and supporting Israel. But many Iowa Republicans say that while they like all of the GOP candidates running in 2024, Trump is still their top choice.
Mary Lockwood of Lena, Iowa said while she is still considering other candidates, seeing Trump speak in Dubuque Sept. 20 helped persuade her that he was the candidate who would best represent her religious and political beliefs as president.
“Even though I don’t agree with everything he says sometimes, he really pulled it together – especially talking about how close we are to World War III, about late-term abortions and gender mutilation surgeries happening in some of these states … it really made me more of a supporter.”
While the Iowa caucuses begin of the presidential nominating cycle, some Republicans say Iowa will be the most decisive contest in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination. Most campaigns have announced investing their resources in Iowa in the final months before Jan. 15, 2024. DeSantis opened a new campaign headquarters in Urbandale Saturday and has visited 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Haley announced endorsements from 72 Iowa elected officials, community and business leaders. Ramaswamy is renting an apartment in Des Moines.
Vander Plaats said the Iowa caucuses will be the gauge for whether there’s any appetite for a different nominee than Trump among Republicans nationwide.
“If Trump wins Iowa, I think he becomes your nominee,” Vander Plaats said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to stop him. If one of these others rises up to be the alternative to Trump, and they win the Iowa caucuses, I think now America’s gonna see game on. And they’re going to have to make a choice, of who do they want to be their nominee? So they got Iowa is very crucial in this go-around.”
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence.
