Evolution of the Iowa GOP

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Republicans are experiencing tremendous electoral success in Iowa. How is Donald Trump's MAGA movement reshaping the party? We'll discuss that on this edition of Iowa Press.

Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

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The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

Elite Casino Resorts is rooted in Iowa. Elite's 1,600 employees are our company's greatest asset. A family run business, Elite supports volunteerism, encourages promotions from within and shares profits with our employees.

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating more than 50 years on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, November 15th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Dave Price. 

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[Price] Hi. Kay Henderson is off this week. Republicans nationally had a great 2024 general election. They won the presidency. They won control of both the U.S. House and Senate. In our state, Donald Trump won by his widest margin in three elections. Republicans maintain their trifecta control at the Statehouse. They have super majorities in both legislative chambers. And Iowa's federal delegation is entirely republican. So, this state is now even deeper politically red. To date, we're going to discuss how the Republican Party has grown and evolved and what's ahead. Our guests have experience in republican politics at different levels and at different times. Doug Gross is a Des Moines lawyer. He has served in numerous government and political positions including working for Governors Bob Ray and Terry Branstad. He was the 2002 republican nominee for Governor. That has been a few years.

[Gross] It has.

[Price] Also involved in both G.W. Bush's and Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns in Iowa. Welcome back to Iowa Press.

[Gross] Good to see you, Dave.

[Price] Making her debut here on the show, Kelley Koch. She has degrees in nursing and health care. She has worked her career as a medical professional and executive before she then pivoted to politics. She is currently Chair of the Republican Party of Dallas County. She was also an Iowa delegate to the Republican National Convention this year. Welcome to you. Thanks for being here.

[Koch] Thank you for inviting, Dave.

[Price] And on the panel this week, Stephen Gruber-Miller, Statehouse and Politics Reporter for the Des Moines Register. Hello. And Erin Murphy, Des Moines Bureau Chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids batting leadoff.

[Murphy] So, Dave set us up with what just happened this last election, very successful for republicans, especially here in Iowa. Get both of your reactions to this. Doug Gross, we'll start with you. Specifically to this election, how did that happen? Why were republicans so successful here?

[Gross] Well, first of all, Iowa is a one-party state and when you have super majorities in both chambers, you have all the federal delegation, as Dave mentioned, you have the governorship and by the kind of margins we saw this last election, it didn't just go to the Statehouse, if you look at the county races there are county supervisors that were democrats that got voted out and they don't understand what happened to them. So, it's effectively a one-party state right now. And the question is appropriate, how did that happen? Because we've been purple for my whole lifetime, which is by the way a long time. And a lot of it I think is frankly the political genius of Donald Trump. As much as I've had my differences with him on lots of things, what Donald Trump did is he took a couple of elements of the Republican Party and he added another one to it that made it a super majority. If you look at the Republican Party now it's composed of three elements. One, it's composed of sort of the rural working class. It's composed of the business class, the folks that care about economic growth. And it is composed of evangelical Christians. We had the latter two previously. We never had the first. We never had the rural working class like we have today. And Donald Trump, through his political skills frankly, brought them in, in such a huge way that Iowa is a one-party state.

[Murphy] Kelley, and we're going to dive later deeper into Dallas County specifically, but what were your thoughts of why republicans were so successful in Iowa?

[Koch] It was a lot of work but what was easy was the messaging. In health care, we always refer to the high touch. What touches the person? You can extrapolate that into the Republican Party. Every issue that a person touched was on the ballot, gas, groceries, crime, safety, the border, fentanyl coming into Iowa, all touched voters. And so, it was easy with messaging. And I'm talking about beyond the Republican Party, talking to no party independents, even some soft democrats. When they were voting and listening to the messaging, all of those issues resonated with them and it really pulled to the right easier to have results that way.

[Gruber-Miller] And Kelley, Doug was just talking about the expansion of the GOP to include more of these working-class voters, rural voters. We see this in some of the Obama/Trump counties that were sort of maybe heavier union membership, middle income, lower income Iowans who previously were going to democrats, starting to come over to the republicans. What are you seeing driving that? And do you think republicans can keep that up when Trump is no longer at the head of the party?

[Koch] Well, it's Trump's party, there's no doubt about it. And all of the America First policies that resonated down to Iowa, it's real. And here again, agri, CD3, through the entire CD3 district and then Dallas all were affected by that. President Trump --

[Murphy] And when you say, sorry, when you say CD3 you're talking about the third congressional district --

[Koch] Third congressional. Yep, thank you for that. Here's a billionaire President Trump, why was he so effective in connecting with the voters? He talked about the working class. He talked about the teachers, the nurses, the lawyers, he talked about all sorts of --

[Gross] Lawyers have never been considered working class before but I'm glad to be in that group.

[Koch] I have a law student that is a big Trump fan. But all through Iowa, I would travel -- my middle son is up in Dane County, Wisconsin, blue area up there, but the shift started to happen. People just could not go into the polling area and vote for four more years of this. And so, I think President Trump is in an absolutely remarkable position to change the shift. I think the woke agenda is dead. DEI is d-i-e-ing. It just didn't work for the average person. And the big issue that I hope we touch on, Dave, is the sleeper issue, voting issue of Title IX, girls sports, what happened in the locker rooms, what is happening with scholarships and President Trump actually identified that and parents in Iowa said, I just can't vote for something like that. So, it was remarkable.

[Gruber-Miller] Doug Gross, what do you think? Do you think the Republican Party can keep these voters without Trump at the top of the ticket in the future?

[Gross] It'll be tough because governance -- first of all, I think Trump will have trouble keeping them all. Basically, what you have now, the three groups I mentioned, you have the rural and working class, they're in first class and you have the business group and they're in business class and the evangelicals, they're in coach in Trump's Republican Party. And it's tough to keep them all satisfied at the same time. And you're seeing that with his appointments right now. The rural working class are with Trump so much because frankly he's going to break the china. He's going to change the system. They think that the coastal elites have looked down their nose at them for too long, they've been left out and they want to change the system. Well, you see that in appointments like RFK Jr. Appointments like those are as reflective and responsive to that kind of need. But then you've got the business class that is going to be really worried about things that are associated with economic growth. What are you going to do with tariffs? You've noticed the last group that is the economic group because that's the toughest to deal with for him right now. And then what are the evangelicals going to get? He promised that he would not go along with a nationwide ban on abortion. So, what are they really going to get out of this at the end of the day? So, I think it's going to be tough to keep it together.

[Price] When you talk about, Doug, his ability to connect with young men and especially if you're in your 20s, you essentially came of age when he got in the first time, so running in 2015, 2016. You start digging into those polls, he did well, especially with young white men. How did he connect that way, smart doing Joe Rogan's podcast for three hours, that is prime listening audience for that group, so how did he connect with it? And how does he keep them?

[Gross] Well, he connects with them with language, first of all. He speaks their language. As Kelley mentioned, these are folks that got so sort of left out of the cultural changes that are occurring in our country, they felt all the elites were looking down at them all the time. And Trump gave them voice. And not only did he give them voice, he said things that were even probably more radical than they were willing to say themselves. But that really connected him to them. Secondly, they also feel like they're left out economically, that the world has changed such that their kinds of jobs are not the kinds of jobs that are rewarded anymore. And he was promising making America great again and onshoring all these kinds of jobs that typically, frankly younger males occupy. So, he's got to perform on that, Dave, to keep them there.

[Price] Kelley, Erin is going to drill into Dallas here in a bit. But we specifically wanted you on this show because there was all of this talk before the election about women like you, suburban women were not going to go for Trump, he's had some issues in the past holding onto that electorate. It does not seem like that happened this time around. So, why did he connect -- we didn't see Dallas all of a sudden turn and go Harris or something -- so how did he win over these suburban women and republicans in general?

[Koch] I am a suburban woman. Dallas County, I'm a little statistic, born and raised in Des Moines, Roosevelt, went to University of Iowa, 3.0 kids, suburban. Some of the things that Donald Trump has done in the past were completely irrelevant to me in my decision to vote and to lead and to make sure that he was successful. Many, and I'm talking about the entire eastern corridor of the suburbs, Grimes, Granger, Waukee, Urbandale, Clive, I'm south Dallas West Des Moines, all of those conservative and maybe even independent women that are raising families that are maybe now out, the kids are out, empty nest, all went back to the original messaging of what he was talking about. And so, he may have had issues in the past. I'm actually attracted to his personality. He's a fire brand and we needed something to shake up our country. And he is that. And he's not afraid, he's bold. Look at some of the young professionals that are being pulled towards Donald Trump. It's that. It's offering something in the future. I think he's going to break through some molds. His cabinet is reflecting that. He's not afraid. And the suburban women are following along with that.

[Price] Okay, now Erin wants to dig into Dallas County a little more.

[Murphy] I just hope that you could tell us a little bit more about what's going on there politically because it is becoming an interesting area of the state. As we talked about a little bit there's areas that are growing, expanding rapidly, there's young people moving into the area, it still does have some rural pockets also. What have you seen -- you're in your second term as county chair -- what have you seen happening in Dallas County that you would say projects to what is happening in our politics more largely?

[Koch] It has been a shock to see the growth. Four years ago, census was roughly 90,000, today 112,000 in our county. The interesting fact, I told this to Governor Reynolds last week before the election, that the population mean age was 59, it has dropped to 39. So, larger population but definitely younger. Why is that? Because it's the cool place to live. And what we have to look at is college kids that are around the state come back, they have been in the college situation, academics, and they bring their politics into Dallas County. So, we did a hyper analysis of the suburbs and we really had to prepare the voters, the way they're thinking, their age. But here again, they're coming into the suburbs and they really like the lifestyle. What we wanted to say is what Texas is saying, California, you can come on into our state, but leave your politics in California. We did something similar. You can come into Dallas County, but leave your politics maybe on the college campuses. I think the other thing that is really going to be interesting to see is the mean age will drive industry. You've got Top Flight Gold opening up, sports plex, more water parks, the restaurants and the entertainment scene is trending younger and will bring in that population and of course the schools.

[Gross] But it's really interesting for Dallas County, it's the highest income county in the state by a considerable margin. And so, the thought was that as people moved into those higher income levels they're trending more toward the democrats and less toward the republicans as republicans try to appeal to the working class, but that didn't happen, it didn't happen anywhere in the country this year. That's frankly why Trump won as much as he did because of suburban areas. And I think it's because we forget about, the democrats particularly forget about one fundamental truth about the United States, at the end of the day what truly unites us is our desire to improve things for our families. That is what unites all Americans, wherever they come from, whoever they are.

[Koch] Agree.

[Gross] So, those economic issues are so powerful. And inflation is an insidious tax on everybody. And history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. And this reminded me a lot of 1980 election when Ronald Reagan came in. We came off many years of Carter type inflation and people just, they saw it as --

[Price] Which was way, way, way higher than what we have now.

[Gross] And it feels just, this feels very similar to what happened in 1980.

[Gruber-Miller] Doug Gross, I'm curious to get your thoughts. In the last election cycle, and even a couple of years before that, we really heard more democrats on the campaign trail praising former republican Governor Bob Ray than we've heard republicans praising him. So, the democratic argument is the current iteration of the Republican Party doesn't look anything like Bob Ray's Republican Party. I'm curious to hear your thoughts about whether those Bob Ray republicans are still in the GOP?

[Gross] I worked for Bob Ray. I worked for Terry Branstad too. Back in the '70s it was the Ray faction versus the Branstad faction, by the way, which is interesting. The party has changed dramatically since those times, there's no question about that. Bob Ray was a moderate. Today there is very little room in the Republican Party for moderates. The interesting thing is there's really not room in the Democratic Party for moderates either because the democrats, the smaller they get, the more extreme they get on the left. And that is really harming their ability to come back as a party. So yeah, a lot of the people that I worked with frankly a number of them are not members of the Republican Party anymore. It's really interesting. And when you talk to them you hear a lot of negative things about republicans. So, it has changed dramatically. And in return for losing a few of those, the Republican Party has gathered all the working-class folks. You go to rural Iowa and you shoot a cannon you can't hit a democrat. Nobody would admit to being one if they were. So, it has just changed dramatically. That has been both economic and cultural reasons for that.

[Price] So, to continue that thought, doesn't it make more sense politically then for republicans to hold onto a chunk of the Bob Ray folks, broaden it with these new MAGA, isn't that a better way to dominate politics rather than go back to appeal to those Bob Ray type people?

[Gross] That's exactly what they have decided to do. Clearly with Trump they have decided that it's - I give Jeff Kaufmann a lot of credit for this in strengthening the Republican Party in Iowa, it's incredibly strong right now because of people like Kelley and others that are at the grassroots level have really fired up and focused and thoroughly understand the impact of having the working-class people to add to your coalition. It adds to your numbers a lot more than a few moderates do. And as a result, that's why they're the majority party and I don't see that changing, Dave.

[Price] Kelley, you brought a different perspective to this because your career was in health care. So, you're not -- like Doug started essentially as a kid, as a 20 something.

[Gross] What do you mean? I'm still a kid.

[Price] You were in your 20s when you worked for -- yeah, your wife would say that, yes -- but you started when you were in your 20s working for Governor Ray.

[Gross] I was 26, yeah.

[Price] You had a whole other life before you got into politics. So, what was that transition like? Did you have to build street cred with folks to be like hey I get it, here's what we're doing? Because you seem to typify where the party may be going by broadening who is involved.

[Koch] And the attraction for me was no doubt Donald Trump, no doubt.

[Price] So, were you active at all before Trump came around?

[Koch] A little bit. Big fan of Governor Reynolds and followed her closely as she moved up the ranks. What she did in our state is remarkable. And at the time my kids were Roosevelt High School, University of Iowa, watching her policies were really fitting who I was. The opportunity to make a difference and jump ship and actually do a grassroot leadership was a huge challenge. Dallas County used to be the sleepy agri county and all of a sudden in health care, you put paddles on somebody to resuscitate and wake them up, there was a moment that if you remember Governor Reynolds did the rebuttal to Joe Biden's State of the Union and I remember her calling me and saying, how would you like to host the State of the Union watch party? And I said, game on, let's do it. How much time do I have? 48 hours. And so, Dallas, that was a moment, that was a catalyst. And we rallied 430 people at the West Des Moines Marriott to watch her speech and then she came in. But that was a moment that Dallas said, we're here, and it's game on. And Dallas is one of the fastest growing counties in the Midwest per capita. The suburbs are exploding. And of course, Waukee is really the big one.

[Murphy] Speaking of, let me ask you about Governor Kim Reynolds. In the caucus cycle that we just went through, she endorsed Governor DeSantis, she has since expressed strong support for President-elect Trump, she was at his victory party in Mar-a-Lago. We do know from history that President Trump can hold grudges. Do you have any concern of how President Trump will view Governor Reynolds? And does that hurt her, maybe more specifically, more importantly, with Iowa voters, with those Donald Trump voters in Iowa? Does her endorsement of Governor DeSantis in the caucuses hurt her possibly re-election bid two years from now?

[Koch] I have a strong opinion about that so I'm really glad you asked me about that. So, when she endorsed DeSantis, the caucuses are that, you get an opportunity. We spent a lot of time with the candidates. Some of us were saying, it's time for them to go home so that we can have our life. We were with them a lot. And Governor DeSantis and his wife Casey, I love them, I liked them better in Florida. But what a great Governor and Casey is adorable, love her. Governor Reynolds I really believe she identified with Governor DeSantis. Florida, Iowa, couple, they have kids, great moms.

[Price] Their spouses dealing with cancer.

[Koch] That's right. But I spent time with Governor Reynolds and I talked to her. In Milwaukee she was with the Iowa delegation --

[Murphy] At the Republican National Convention.

[Koch] In Milwaukee, one hundred percent behind President Trump. Loyal --

[Murphy] Will the voters in Iowa see it that way?

[Koch] Yes, because part of my leadership is to lead them to her. And once Milwaukee was over, then we hit the campaign trail and my big charge was getting Zach Nunn across the finish line in the suburbs. And we worked hard and so did she. And when President Trump was in Dallas County, I asked him, what could I do one person in Dallas County? And he said, bring me the House, all four congressional seats, bring me the House. It reminded me of Dorothy, bring me back the broom, right?

[Gross] You found the yellow brick road.

[Koch] I had to produce -- I felt the pressure, there's no doubt. And Governor Reynolds also supported me, Dallas, that we will not let him down. She has been a champion. And we are united. I completely agree with Doug, we're stronger than ever. And I'm hoping for really big things in 2025.

[Gruber-Miller] So, we've just got a couple of minutes left and I'm curious, you mentioned stronger than ever, you mentioned delivering on things -- we'll go to both of you, but start with Doug -- with the biggest super majority in the Iowa legislature since its modern size --

[Gross] I don't recall one this large --

[Gruber-Miller] -- basically since 1970, what issues do republicans actually need to deliver on here at the state level to maintain that support from voters?

[Gross] Well, they have laid out for themselves an agenda that focuses on property tax reform as their number one issue and that is a tough issue for a couple of reasons. One is it costs state money usually to reform property taxes at the local level because you don't just eliminate all of the local services. So, I think that is going to be very difficult, particularly I think because of the softness of the farm economy and the changes in federal funding you're going to see a real budget squeeze at the state level coming up here in the next few years. So, dealing with the budget, dealing with property taxes at the same time will be their biggest challenge.

[Gruber-Miller] Kelley, what do you think republicans need to do on issues to keep voters on their side?

[Koch] Yeah, I think it's remarkable. I am a big fan of Elon Musk and Vivek. They've got quite the deal going on. They put a PowerPoint up and revealed some of the absolutely outrageous waste. And then you turn your head and you look at Governor Reynolds, she started last session eliminating waste, cutting back, consolidating departments and she has been very vocal about that. It's a challenging job but she's not done. And me on the grassroot in Dallas, we want her to consolidate. We don't want five different departments doing one. But it's a challenge. I think if she runs again, and we're hopeful, I sure hope she will, that that will continue and consolidate and make us leaner, meaner and more streamlined, just like President Trump is going to do.

[Price] We have fifteen seconds left. Do you both think Governor Reynolds is running again?

[Gross] I do.

[Koch] I'm hopeful. In fact, I'd like to talk to her.

[Gross] I do --

[Price] You probably just did.

[Gross] We should say for republicans the off year of a presidential year can be a tough year. So, watch '26. It could be tough.

[Price] All right, Kelley and Doug, thank you much. If you missed any of this show or if you want to go back and look at any of the previous episodes, you can watch them all online any time at iowapbs.org/iowapress. Kay Henderson will be back and rested in this chair next week. Until then, for everybody here at Iowa PBS, I'm Dave Price. Thanks for joining us.

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Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

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The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

Elite Casino Resorts is rooted in Iowa. Elite's 1,600 employees are our company's greatest asset. A family run business, Elite supports volunteerism, encourages promotions from within and shares profits with our employees.

(music)

Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.