CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The polls were closed in Iowa for less than 48 hours when South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott was shaking hands and posing for pictures with eastern Iowa Republicans at a Cedar Rapids country club in early June.
Scott, one of the many Republicans testing their presidential ambitions, hardly has the state to himself.
At least six GOP presidential prospects are planning Iowa visits this summer, forays that are advertised as promoting candidates and the state Republican organization ahead of the fall midterm elections. But in reality, the trips are about building relationships and learning the political geography in the state scheduled to launch the campaign for the party’s 2024 nomination.
While potential presidential candidates have dipped into Iowa for more than a year, the next round of visits marks a new phase of the ritual. With Iowa’s June 7 primary out of the way, Republicans eyeing the White House can step up their travel and not worry about stepping into the state’s intraparty rivalries.
“Now that it’s done, it’s full-bore,” state GOP Chairman Jeff Kauffman said. “It’s unfettered.”
Beyond Scott, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to visit late this month. She plans to campaign with as many Iowa congressional Republican candidates as she can in a little more than two days.
Haley — who is also the former governor of South Carolina, another early-voting state in the presidential calendar — plans to begin her trip in eastern Iowa on June 29 with first-term Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. She’ll also headline a state GOP fundraiser in Dubuque.
Working from the Mississippi Valley westward, she plans to keynote a fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds. Haley will also campaign with Zach Nunn, chosen to face two-term Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who is among the most vulnerable House members this year. Haley’s still-fluid schedule also includes attending Rep. Randy Feenstra’s annual fundraiser in GOP-heavy western Iowa.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who visited several times in 2021, is expected to speak at the county GOP dinner in Story County in central Iowa in the first week of July.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has visited Iowa more often than any GOP prospect, is working out details for a late-summer return, aides said, likely timed to the Iowa State Fair in August, a storied draw for would-be candidates.
Pompeo did endorse Nunn before the primary, a nod to their shared military experience, Pompeo aides said.
The plans also come in light of the Republican National Committee’s unanimous decision in April to open the 2024 presidential selection sequence in Iowa, a question still hanging over Iowa Democrats.
In 2020, a smartphone app designed to calculate and report the Democratic caucus results failed, prompting a telephone backlog that prevented the party from reporting final results for nearly a week after the Feb. 3 contest. The Associated Press announced it was unable to declare a winner after irregularities and inconsistencies marred the results.
