“It’s up to us stop socialism in its tracks,” she said.
In interviews this week before Haley’s arrival, many GOP voters spoke of Trump’s presidency as unfinished business. Not only were many uninterested in the candidates who would like to succeed him, but they also echoed Trump’s false assertion that the election was stolen, citing that as a reason he should run again.
Lurlin Hoelscher, a 78-year-old corn and soybean farmer, still had a red Trump bracelet encircling his wrist as he waved off questions about other potential GOP candidates after a stop by The Machine Shed in Urbandale for breakfast.
“He’s got to find somebody other than Pence for his running mate,” he said. “We need a strong woman who stands behind her convictions.”
“I like (Haley) but she doesn’t have as much backbone as she needs,” Neal said, citing what he described as her lack of “confidence” in Trump. He said he was unimpressed with Haley’s role as US ambassador to the United Nations: “Who gives a damn? You could put Attila the Hun in as an ambassador to the UN and what difference would it make?”
“There’s nobody to take his place,” Neal said of Trump.
Loyalty to Trump is a litmus test for GOP voters
Loyalty to Trump among the candidates-in-waiting is emerging as a key litmus test as they gingerly attempt to lay the groundwork for their candidacies if the former President chooses not to run in 2024. Trump’s return to the campaign trail — with an Ohio event this weekend, a planned trip to the border and “45 Fest” and fireworks bonanza scheduled for July 3 in Sarasota, Florida — is only heightening the anticipation among average voters that he will run again.
But her ability to win the allegiance of Trump’s base voters if she decides to run in 2024 has been complicated by her criticism of his role in the January 6 riot and his treatment of Pence.
On Thursday night, she warmly shared anecdotes about how she had collaborated with Trump as the ambassador to the UN, and she praised his forcefulness on the world stage.
Many GOP voters in Iowa said they had not followed Haley’s January 6 comments closely — and they were much more eager to rule out Pence as a potential successor, because of what they view as his disloyalty to Trump.
“She definitely has a path,” said Kim Schmett, who chairs the Westside Conservative Club, after a meeting of its members at The Machine Shed this week.
“But it’s such an abnormal year. … Clearly (Trump) is the huge question and everyone else is circling. Right now, my reading of the Iowa Republican Party is that it is massively pro-Trump.”
But if Trump decides not to run, Schmett predicted, Haley would be “highly forgivable” for what she said about Trump and January 6. “Because she was very much a key part of the administration. She was very supportive.”
“Mike Pence, he’s got a much harder position — and yet you couldn’t have found anybody more loyal the entire four years,” Schmett said.
But George Wood, an 81-year-old member of the club who recently saw Pompeo address the group, said he believes Haley has a steep challenge ahead as she tries to finesse her post-January 6 comments.
“Her problem in Iowa is with Trump supporters,” Wood said. “Things linger,” he said, adding that some candidates get “beat up for what they said 40 years ago that is inconsequential in today’s world.”
Wood said he was “wide open at this point,” including to the possibility of another Trump candidacy: “In my view, he did a great job for the country. He listened to the people, and we need that.”
Haley hustles for local candidates
In the short term, Haley is skirting questions about 2024 by stating that she is focused on reelecting GOP lawmakers in 2022 and attempting to restore a Republican majority in Congress. She has worked hard to build strong relationships over the years by offering her hand campaigning and raising money for Iowa lawmakers at both the state and federal levels.
After a turbulent year of demonstrations against racial injustice in policing and Black Lives Matter protests, she has used touch points in her own life as the daughter of immigrants from India to decry “cancel culture,” stating that America is not “a racist country.”
“I can’t believe the things I hear the left saying these days,” she said Thursday night. “The things they are teaching our kids, like critical race theory. It’s being taught to little kids who don’t see color.”
“They claim America is racist. Take it from me, the first female and minority governor of South Carolina: They are wrong,” she said to applause.
Alluding to the battle over voting rights, Haley highlighted how she had been demonized when she pushed for voter ID as governor of South Carolina and suggested that as an Indian American woman, she is offended when Democrats argue that voter ID laws make it harder for minorities to vote.
“It is wrong when Democrats say that minorities are incapable of going to the DMV and getting a picture ID. We are perfectly capable of getting a picture ID in the DMV,” Haley said. “We’re perfectly capable of picking the school our kids should go to. We are perfectly capable of doing all things when we have the opportunities in front of us. It is racist when the Democrats say that, and we should call them out every single time.”
Earlier this year, Haley announced her new political action committee, Stand for America, to focus on electing what she described as a “conservative force” to Congress that would stand as a “bulwark against the liberal agendas of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.”
Haley campaigned in 2020 for Iowa’s Sen. Joni Ernst, as well as Rep. Ashley Hinson — who defeated Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District — and GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who won the open seat in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.
She is resuming those efforts this week, raising money for Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, Miller-Meeks, Rep. Randy Feenstra and Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley. She held a roundtable Thursday with female legislators and other women interested in running for office with Republican Party of Iowa co-chair Linda Upmeyer, and will address Iowa’s Young Republicans on Friday.
Nationally, Haley has focused on shoring up the prospects of female officeholders in swing districts, noting that she wants to help maintain the gains that made 2020 the “year of the Republican woman.”
The thing she loves most about Iowa, she said Thursday, is that the state “loves to elect badass Republican women.”
David Kochel, a long time Iowa GOP strategist, pointed to the assets that Haley would bring to a future White House bid, noting that “Iowa Republicans and a lot of independent voters and Democrats value strong accomplished women in politics.”
“There’s no doubt, particularly in places where Republicans have struggled in the past few cycles in the suburbs, good women candidates have a high upside,” he said. “She was a successful governor, she has foreign policy experience and she had a very successful run in the Trump administration — all those things are to her credit.”
Haley’s challenge in the coming months and years will be whether she can get Iowa’s GOP voters to pay attention to those aspects of her biography as she and others try to get them focused on what the future might look like beyond Trump.
As she wrapped up her remarks Thursday, Haley argued that “Republicans are too nice” and that they keep getting “steamrolled and then whine and complain about it.”
“The days of being nice should be over,” she said. “That doesn’t mean we have to be disrespectful. I wear heels — it’s not for a fashion statement. I use it for kicking. But I always kick with a smile. We have to fight for America’s promise.”