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As former Republican President Donald Trump reportedly weighs the contours of a 2024 campaign, a majority of Iowa Republicans say they hope he launches a third White House run.
According to a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll, 57% of Iowa Republicans hope Trump decides to run for president in 2024. Another 33% hope he does not, and 10% are not sure.
But a minority of Iowans overall say they want Trump, 76, in the race. Among all Iowans, just 32% are hoping for another Trump campaign, while 57% hope he does not run. Another 11% are not sure.
Nick Hosch, a Dubuque Republican and poll respondent, said he’s eager to see Trump run again, arguing that Trump’s four years in the White House haven’t changed who he is.
“He’s not a politician. He’s a businessperson,” said Hosch, 55. “There’s too many politicians in Washington, DC. This country’s a business.”
He likes Trump’s tough stance on securing the nation’s Southern border, and he believes Democratic President Joe Biden’s leadership has been “way off base.”
“Gas prices are just the beginning,” he said. “I mean, a year ago it cost me 50 bucks to fill up with fuel. The other day it cost me 100.”
Selzer & Co. conducted the poll of 811 Iowa adults, including 597 likely voters, July 10-13. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for questions asked of all Iowans and 4 percentage points for questions asked of likely voters.
According to news reports, Trump’s decision is more a matter of when to launch a 2024 campaign, not if he should.
Some Republican operatives believe he should wait to make an announcement until after the November midterm elections to avoid taking the focus off Biden, whose approval ratings have plummeted amid rising inflation and soaring gas prices. But aides and allies have said an announcement could come as early as this summer.
Unlike Biden, Trump has fared well in Iowa in the past, placing second in the 2016 presidential caucuses and carrying the state in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections. Today, he garners more support in Iowa for another presidential bid than Biden, his 2020 rival, the poll shows.
Just 23% of Iowans say they hope Biden, 79, runs for president again, while 67% say they hope he does not. Nine percent are not sure.
Unlike Trump, Biden fails to garner a majority of support from within his own party for another campaign. Among Democrats, just 37% say he should run again, while 52% say they hope he does not.
Biden’s approval rating in Iowa has hit a new low at 27%. At the same time, the share of Iowans who believe the country is on the wrong track has surpassed even what it was during the 2008 Great Recession. Today, 84% of Iowans believe things in the nation are on the wrong track. Just 10% say they believe things are headed in the right direction.
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But even as Trump mulls a campaign rollout, other would-be GOP contenders have been flooding the state, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Iowa Republicans again plan to hold their heralded first-in-the-nation caucuses, and the early visits indicate Trump would likely face at least some opposition.
Glenna Bents is among the 33% of Iowa Republicans who hope Trump does not seek the party’s nomination.
“If he’s a political leader, then I must not be a political follower,” she said.
Bents, a 75-year-old Ames resident and poll respondent, said she approves of the job Iowa Republicans such as U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and Gov. Kim Reynolds are doing. But she doesn’t appreciate Trump’s “vulgarness” and is looking for someone with diplomacy, manners and respect.
If Trump is the party’s eventual nominee, she said, “I would have to do quite a bit of soul searching” before voting for him in the general election.
The share of Iowa Republicans who say they feel more allegiance to Trump than to the Republican Party has fallen from 26% in November 2021 to 21% today. Seventy percent now say they feel more allegiance to the Republican Party — up from 61% in 2021.
Brett Funk, a 32-year-old Sheffield resident and poll respondent, said he would like to see Trump run again, but only because he sees him as beatable.
“I’m a Democrat, and I think that Democrats wouldn’t have a problem beating him again,” he said.
Sheffield, who works as a carpenter, said he caucused for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential caucuses, but he didn’t vote in the general election because he “just kind of gave up on our political system.”
He said he thinks things in the country have gotten off on the wrong track, pointing to a declining economy and tight housing market, saying he disapproves of the job Biden has done as president.
“The flip side of that is if Joe Biden’s running against him still — I don’t know,” Funk said of a potential Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. “I don’t see a positive direction for either one of those two.”
The Iowa Poll, conducted July 10-13, 2022, for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 811 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cellphone numbers supplied by Dynata. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent American Community Survey estimates.
Questions based on the sample of 811 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Questions based on the subsample of 597 likely voters in the 2022 general election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.4 percentage points or 4.0 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.
Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to the Register and Mediacom is prohibited.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.