Reporters’ Roundtable

Kay Henderson

Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, were in Iowa this past week ahead of the second debate. We'll talk caucuses and other news with Iowa political reporters on this edition of Iowa Press.

 

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating 50 years of broadcast excellence on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, September 22nd edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

 

Kay Henderson

We are now less than four months away from the Iowa caucuses, and we can confirm that the Iowa Republican Party and the Iowa Democratic Party will hold in-person caucuses on the same night in January. We've assembled a group of reporters to talk about what's happening on the Iowa caucus campaign trail. They are Clay Masters, host and lead political reporter for Iowa Public Radio. Amanda Rooker, chief political reporter for KCCI TV in Des Moines. Brianne Pfannenstiel, chief political reporter for The Des Moines Register. And Erin Murphy, Des Moines bureau chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

Folks, thanks for being here. Let's start with something Donald Trump said on a different kind of press Meet the Press. He gave an interview last week and he said some things about abortion that have sort of roiled the campaign trail this week. Erin, you and I and everybody else on this table covered the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition event on Saturday of last week where this news had sort of been percolating.

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah, And what happened there is you mentioned those two things that sort of really put this debate about abortion policy front and center in the in the presidential primary for a good chunk of this past week between former President Trump's interview that you mentioned and the Faith and Freedom event where many of the candidates got asked about abortion policy and specifically at that event, we heard a lot of questions and discussion among the candidates about, you know, should the federal government establish a law nationwide or should it be left up to the states?

You're hearing more and more candidates coalesce around the idea of a 15 week national ban. Some expressed support for that, while others said that it should be left to the states. So it's kind of interesting to see that play out on this issue within the primary. And then there were references to the former president's interview, too, where he claimed, without details, as is kind of his style, that he has this grand plan that everybody's going to love, including people on the other side of the abortion debate.

So, you know, one of these issues that obviously is important to Republican voters and we heard a lot about it this week because of those two things.

 

Kay Henderson

Amanda, a couple of candidates took the stage, Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy, they were not asked about the abortion issue, but the others were.

 

Amanda Rooker

Right. And this, as Erin mentioned, has been an issue that Republicans have maybe struggled to find a winning message on. It's as you mentioned, there's a lot of different, you know, federal ban or state ban, 15 weeks, 6 weeks that Republicans have been all over the board on. Notably, Donald Trump was not in Iowa after kind of a wave of backlash over his comments, saying that he was going to bring both sides together, something that notably has not been done in over 50 years.

One candidate, Asa Hutchinson, actually on stage, although he did not mention Donald Trump by name, did criticize the former president, saying that, you know, there were no details to his plan. And, you know, is it even possible to bring both sides together? And notably, they were talking to an audience of Christian conservatives, people who don't necessarily want both sides to be together on this issue.

They want, you know, abortion bans and pro-life policies. And this was an opportunity for these candidates to try to court such an influential voting bloc in Iowa in 2016, we saw nearly two thirds of GOP caucus goers were Christian conservatives. And so as these candidates are looking to try to be the alternative to Donald Trump, they had an opportunity to make their pitch on abortion.

 

Clay Masters

And that's an important point to make there. The outsized role that evangelical Christians play in the Iowa caucuses compared to the overall Republican electorate in the primary and for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition town hall that was held there, it was like what evangelicals, I think, wanted to see. Think back to the Family Leadership Summit that Bob Vander Plaats, who was on this show.

Tucker Carlson was the person that moderated that and that turned into a show about Tucker Carlson's thoughts on Ukraine. And it was very much a foreign policy discussion when a lot of these we've gotten used to the kind of the social conservative culture war kind of conversation is taking place. And so this is like I mean, we used to talk about lanes a lot during the caucus cycles.

I don't see a whole lot of lanes right now with how it's looking. But these are the people that if somebody is going to take on Donald Trump and win the caucuses in the state, it's going to be in front of an audience like this.

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

And it's really interesting to see how they're responding to these messages. Right. You know, Steve Scheffler, who was on this show recently said evangelical Christians are not a monolith. They're weighing different issues as they go about making their choice for president. We saw issues like Ukraine, like federal spending policy was really important to them. But, you know, our polling shows at the Register that 80% of likely Republican caucus goers identify as pro-life.

And so this is absolutely something that they're weighing. And so it's really interesting to see the candidates kind of, you know, figure out how to talk about this. It's not something that they have a unified message on like some of these other issues. And so there's a real kind of split in the party about, you know, a federal ban versus state policy and things like that.

And the first person to address that group, the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, was Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who signed a six week abortion ban. And before we talk more about Governor Reynolds, she shared some tough news this week. Her husband, Kevin, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is beginning treatment. And I think I speak for everyone at this table when we all are looking forward to the day when we can write a story saying he has been given the all clear and is cancer free.

 

Kay Henderson

But back to what she said there. She was cheered for her signature on what is essentially a six week abortion ban. And Trump specifically criticized rival Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, for signing a bill that's nearly identical to the one that Kim Reynolds signed. And so you've had a lot of discussion about that over the last week, Brianne.

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

That’s exactly right. I mean, I think one of one of the things Donald Trump said that really has caught fire is calling that six week ban, quote, terrible. And so that's something that Iowa Republicans are really proud of. They're really proud of having gotten that six week ban through the legislature. As you mentioned, Governor Reynolds signed it at one of these big gatherings where there were, you know, a couple thousand evangelical Iowans cheering for it, giving her a standing ovation for that.

So that's really kind of rankled, you know, folks here on the ground. Another thing that that he said was, again, you know, kind of doubling down on this idea that Republicans can't win by talking about abortion in a general election. And he's blamed that issue for, you know, subpar results in the midterms. And that really gets under a lot of evangelical leaders’ skin here.

 

Kay Henderson

And Erin, I spoke with Governor DeSantis this past Monday, and he told our Radio Iowa listeners that essentially Trump's comments bring into question his pro-life credentials, if you will. Is that the case that you're finding that people are now questioning or getting a little shaky in their support of President Trump?

 

Erin Murphy

That's the perfect question. And I don't know that we have seen that yet. And whether we even will. Obviously, this is an issue that is important to Iowa Republicans. But then at the end of the day, we always talk about is it a needle moving issue, Is it a lever-pulling issue? And, you know, when we go to things other than the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the Family Leader events and you ask people what their most important issues are.

Abortion isn't always in the pro-life view and phrase. It isn't always in the top three. The most common ones I hear are immigration, you know, border security and the economy. So I don't know that this hurts Donald Trump in the primary. And we always talk about the people who support Trump are going to support him no matter what.

And we have evidence of that. Even within the last week when he was here in Iowa and two of the people who continue to show support for him out of the Iowa legislature are Shannon Latham, who ran the six week bill here in Iowa that you described, and Luana Stoltenberg, who is one of the more fervent supporters of.

 

Kay Henderson

She supports the...

 

Erin Murphy

She wants to life at conception.

 

Kay Henderson

...complete ban on abortion.

 

Erin Murphy

Exactly.

 

Clay Masters

And she was at the event that was held in Maquoketa for former President Donald Trump, who was here earlier this week. And yeah, she was on there talking about her support. She did not. During his remarks in Maquoketa, which happened before Dubuque. He did not bring up abortion there, but it did come up. But I do want to go back.

I mean, I talked to a handful of people in the audience and it doesn't matter what he says. They see him as an embattled former president running again. People are still saying the same thing they said to me eight years ago when he was first running that they like that he says it like it is and their opinion and that he's like one of us, whatever that means.

So people are passionate about him still. And I talk to people, you know, do you remember who you caucused for eight years ago? And I heard Rand Paul, I heard Ted Cruz, I heard Ben Carson. This time around they’re, they know that they're going for the former president in the caucuses.

 

Amanda Rooker

Oh, well, I was just going to say another thing when we talked about how people have been struggling. Right. Republican candidates have been struggling on the messaging. A lot of it is around what federal action they would take. It's hard to point as a governor that you've signed a six week abortion ban, but how would you actually do that at a federal level?

Trump seems to be the only candidate that can say, Hey, I've taken federal action on this because I've appointed three Supreme Court justices. He mentioned that again in Dubuque, although also blaming midterm losses on abortion, that when I talk to Christian conservatives and evangelicals, they say, you know, hey, he's responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade. And that's I'm sold. That's enough I need to see.

 

Kay Henderson

Brianne, that rally in Dubuque was the first that he's had in a while here in Iowa. What was the significance of those two events, the rally in Maquoketa and the rally in Dubuque?

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

Well, these events come after he's gotten some negative press for not campaigning in in Iowa too frequently or elsewhere. Really, he's just not as present as some of these other candidates. And clearly, you know, it's working well enough for him. Right. He's up 23 points in the Register's Iowa poll. But, you know, he's gotten some negative press about maybe phoning it in and taking for granted the fact that he could win this this race.

And so he's come back. His campaign has indicated they plan to be back and in a more frequent schedule over the next couple of months to try and lock this up. Right. They want to put the nail in the DeSantis coffin, as it were. They really want to be able to show that that nobody in Iowa is coming within striking distance of him.

They want to be able to win pretty decisively. So it's interesting to see the campaign strategy reflect that. And again, I'm talking to two big numbers of people in Dubuque.

 

Erin Murphy

And we should clarify that. And I know Brianne knows this, but that when Donald Trump talks about picking up the pace and campaigning in Iowa more regularly, that's a relative description. It is more frequent compared to his pace. It's still far behind the pace of candidates like Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, etc., etc..

 

Kay Henderson

Well, Amanda, let's talk about the pace of the campaign. Has it picked up?

 

Amanda Rooker

Well, that's a tough one. We're talking about this cycle that in many ways unprecedented is a buzz word that we hate throwing out because every week is unprecedented. But this just seems like such a slower cycle than maybe what we've seen in past years on the campaign trail. Although I want to talk about that. Picking up the pace for Trump, I think he's made seven visits to the state this year, now eight with Maquoketa and Dubuque, like you mentioned, that's the start of a five trip swing through the state that he's going to be make for him.

That's picking up the pace. But these numbers that we're looking at in statewide polls range from 20 to 30 points up that Trump has, and that hasn't moved a ton since he started in this race. We’re less than four months to the caucuses and there hasn't been a lot of movement. And so I think we're seeing some of the other candidates really drill in on Iowa thinking that, hey, Iowans haven't decided yet who their alternative is.

So I have four months left to convince Iowans to coalesce around me. So you have Ron DeSantis, who is one of the only ones doing a 99 county tour, and he is stopping in six counties a day. He is bringing coalitions together, bringing pastors together. You have Ramaswamy who's done near 70 events, maybe more in the state.

None of that showed up in the polls yet, but their point, at least to me, has over and over again, you know, it's not too late yet. We're going to see a late break and I'm going to be the one that Iowans are going to break for.

 

Kay Henderson

And Clay, in Maquoketa, Trump brought up 2016 and his disappointment that it was second place here for him.

 

Clay Masters

Yeah. And I mean, trivia with people who don't pay close attention to this. Who did he come in second to in 2016? Texas Senator Ted Cruz. He was bringing that up again. And I remember eight years ago him being frustrated that he was tied in the polls. And the Moines Register Iowa poll with the senator from Texas. And he did.

He brought it up again. He was talking about it. And if you remember, there was a kerfuffle that happened with Ted Cruz saying that Ben Carson had dropped out and that I don't even remember all the details of it, but he was trying to use that as a way to say that there was, you know, that the results were flawed.

And he was not necessarily saying it the exact same way that he did eight years ago after he came in second. But if you can tell that it still bothers him to an extent that he had to come in second eight years ago. And he's saying, you know, look at all the things that I did for you when I was president and I'll do more of that.

And it'll be I mean, I don't need to go over the entire speech again, but he's definitely bringing it up again.

 

Kay Henderson

Well, let me get in the way back machine then. In 2012 and in 2016, the years leading up to that, we had these big, huge, important televised debates featuring the candidates. And somebody would rise to the top based on a performance, you know, like President Scott Walker early in the campaign. But then they'd fizzle out. Someone else would rise to the top.

We have a debate coming up this Wednesday of next week. Brianne, what are you expecting, if anything?

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

Well, it could be another year like that, right? But in a different way. Donald Trump is not attending these debates. He's indicated he doesn't plan to attend this one as well. And so we're really seeing a fight for second place at this point. You know, people are really clustered kind of in that second tier, you know, 20, 30 points behind Donald Trump.

And so it's really a fight for relevance there. Who is his primary challenger. And so in the first debate, we saw Vivek Ramaswamy have a moment right here. You know, commanded a lot of attention. He was in a lot of the back and forth debates. And so he got a lot of notice and not people who hadn't really heard of him before.

And I think we saw more people at his events after the fact. He was in the news pretty consistently for the week after that. Somebody like Nikki Haley, I think, had a good debate night. You know, people said that she kind of shone there. And so there is the potential for movement, right, for people to gain attention. You know, is it going to be enough to catapult them up above Donald Trump?

Maybe not at this point, but it is shaking up that race for second place.

 

Clay Masters

Well, and that's the problem with polling right now, is that, you know, if there's a surge for somebody in the polls, it's like, okay, that's nowhere near 2012 or 2016. When you saw like in 2012, Michelle Bachmann have a moment or in 2016 when Ben Carson had a moment. I mean, it's still very low in the polling. But at the same time, to the last two cycles, I remember talking to people right up to the last few weeks of the caucus campaign, still trying to figure it out, still trying to work it out.

And I think if there are you know, we've a lot of time said there's three tickets out of Iowa. If there are two tickets out of Iowa, that second ticket is something that we're going to see people competing for.

 

Kay Henderson

Well, Erin, what has to happen for a breakthrough performance here and what would a breakthrough performance mean? Does it mean winning or does it mean coming in a close second?

 

Erin Murphy

I think the latter is it is an open question and open for debate. But it's a perfect dovetail off of what Clay was just saying because there is, there's obviously two tiers here. There's Donald Trump and there's everyone else. And I have been saying that you don't have to win Iowa. That's never been the case, that Iowa hasn't picked the eventual candidate, and I don't know how many cycles, but it hasn't been in the last two or three for Republicans.

Ted Cruz was not the eventual nominee. Rick Santorum was not the eventual nominee.

 

Clay Masters

Mike Huckabee.

 

Erin Murphy

Mike Huckabee was not the eventual nominee. And we can go back a few more. I think so that's and that gets to the three ticket things. Iowa's job is not to pick the winner. It's to to whittle away at the bottom. Now, you can't just stay at five, six, seven, 8% here either and finish second at 9% in Iowa.

That's not going to be good enough. Now, if someone can, to the points that have been made around this table today, coalesce that group and take a leap. And I think Donald Trump can win this thing at 23%. Say I'm just those numbers out here. And if someone finishes second at 18, 19%, that's going to be seen across the country by, wow, look at this person that's shooting out of the pack.

Maybe that's someone. And then the next few states will give that person a closer look. And maybe they make this a competitive race going forward.

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

In particular, particularly in a state like Iowa, where there is so much love for Donald Trump among Iowa Republicans and particularly Republican caucus goers, if he has a substandard showing. Right. If they're able to cut into his lead and bring him down from where he started, I think that's meaningful. But again, we're talking about needing to really move the needle in ways that we have not yet seen.

 

Amanda Rooker

And it's been right. Nikki Haley was the second person to jump into the race in like February or early March. I mean, it's been a while since then and we have not seen any movement. Trump has maintained this massive lead, but I didn't I talked to both Nikki Haley and DeSantis last weekend, and both of them told me, although they won't say, you know, they say, you know, it's not insurmountable.

And we plan on coming in first. But both of them said their goal is to exceed expectations in Iowa and that they think that that is going to color how they perform in New Hampshire and how they perform in South Carolina. So both of them who right now have been polling, you know, DeSantis has been in second place so far.

But, you know, behind Trump, Nikki Haley, someone who's kind of seen having a moment a little bit in Iowa right now in third is they want to be, you know, they want to exceed expectations.

 

Erin Murphy

And I do think that can still happen. I'm not saying it will. I do think that can still happen because we still go to events and people still have lists. Right. That we're still not hearing. I have my candidate. I'm set to go. We're still hearing I have three or four or five people. I'm thinking so that can happen.

I don't know that it will. And to bring its point, it has to happen in a much bigger way than we've seen it yet.

 

Kay Henderson

A lot of a lot of ink and broadcast time on the national level being spilled about Governor Kim Reynolds endorsing, Brianne. We don't have an update, do we?

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

We don't have an update at this point, right. You know, Governor Kim Reynolds, obviously, as you mentioned earlier, has a lot on her plate right now. And so, you know, she she's been out she has continued to invite all of the candidates to to her events. You know, she hosted the fireside chats at the state fair. But interestingly, she's not having a cattle call for her annual fundraiser.

She is not inviting any of the candidates to speak there. She has a different political guest. And so that was interesting to me. And so, you know, again, people are going to be looking at how she interacts with these folks and and how she engages with them. She sat with Ron DeSantis at the Cy-Hawk game. She did not interact with Donald Trump while he was there.

And so people are reading into that and trying to decide again, she's probably having some of these same political calculations as well. Can an endorsement move the needle? Can it impact this race in a meaningful way?

 

Kay Henderson

Clay, Iowa Democrats made a decision last weekend to hold their in-person caucuses on...?

 

Clay Masters

January 15th, which for those of you paying attention at home, that's the same day that the Iowa Republicans are going to hold the caucuses. One difference here is that we still don't know how the presidential preference portion of the caucuses will take place. We need another half hour to go through all of the ins and outs of what's happened with the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee, a committee within a committee that sets the calendar.

But they are moving forward with January 15th. That's when they will do the party business. That's when they talk about platform. Maybe some people will get up and talk about who they support. But again, we still don't know how the presidential preference portion of this is going to work.

 

Kay Henderson

We still don't know if there's a candidate in Iowa's third Congressional District, which is the one that has the closest voter registration margin.

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah, it's as toss up as they come in Iowa and it's getting late. And I know that sounds silly for me to say more than a year out from the general election, But when you look historically in Iowa at this point in previous cycles, the challengers have been in already. So it's pretty striking that we don't have a challenger to Zach Nunn yet.

 

Clay Masters

The chair of the Iowa Democratic Party actually wrote a letter to the DNC saying, you know, give us more money because we have competitive seats.

 

Amanda Rooker

Well, yes. And part of that is right now there is obviously an outsized role that Republicans are playing in Iowa right now, where spotlight and attention is on them. Democrats in the state suffered a really devastating loss back in the midterms here. So they need outside support potentially to try to come up against this wave of attention on Republicans.

They're already kind of in a fight with national Democrats over their own caucus date. So to try to find, you know, really strong candidates that can win potentially winnable districts, you know, they're trying to make that argument, it seems, to the DNC.

 

Erin Murphy

And really quickly, the Democrats, the congressional committee has said they will put resources in the third, not necessarily the first or second yet. They have pledged the third. We just need a candidate.

 

Kay Henderson

A minute left, folks. Does anyone at this table have reporting that would suggest that a potential government shutdown would have an effect on the 2024 election? Brianne?

 

Brianne Pfannenstiel

You know, people have short memories. And so something that happened today, it's hard to say exactly how it's going to affect the ‘24 elections. But, you know, things have been a roller coaster in the US House of Representatives. And so we'll see how that progresses.

 

Erin Murphy

We do know they're generally unpopular and the party in control will get blamed for them. So that's for Republicans to decide. But whether it matters in an election that's more than a year from now, it's it's hard to predict that that would happen.

 

Kay Henderson

And Chuck Grassley on this program last week said that there's a political cost and there's pressure from the public and then the government gets reopened, which costs money, extra money, and the people agitating for change don't get what they may want. And he's been there for every government shutdown. The first one was in 1976.

 

Erin Murphy

And real quick. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

 

Kay Henderson

We are out of time, Erin. We'll have to.

 

Erin Murphy

I'll save it for the next time.

 

Kay Henderson

Save this discussion for the next reporters roundtable on Iowa Press. You can watch every one of these episodes online at radio, not at Radio Iowa dot com but Iowa PBS dot com. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching.

 

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