Inside a DeSantis rally in Cedar Rapids

Maybe a Republican could win without Iowa. But why would they want to?

On May 31, just days after formally announcing his run for the Republican presidential nomination, Ron Desantis spoke at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids. 

Hawkeye Downs is a speedway and expo center on the southwest side of town. It’s adjacent to an auto parts store that sits on acres of junked cars. Gun shows are held there, as well as weekly auto races. At every race, a veteran is honored with a certificate and a post on the Hawkeye Downs Facebook page. On the last day of May, it was hot and dusty. The building was a dingy echo chamber draped in flags.

It’s a different part of town from where Democratic candidates tend to hold rallies and events. Democratic hopefuls are usually found at schools and at event centers in the part of town where charming local shops occupy history buildings. But that was in the last cycle. In 2022, Democratic National Committee voted to take away Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and state Republicans passed a bill banning the mail-in caucus plan.  Iowa Democrats say they’ll ignore the law and continue on as always. But with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West as the only flailing challengers to Biden’s re-election bid, there is no need for Democrats to come to Iowa this time.

And maybe a Republican could win without Iowa, but why would you want to? Glad-handing farmers and veterans, chowing down on ears of corn, flipping pork over a grill, with bales of hay in the background — it’s the kind of salt-of-the-earth portrayals of the rolled-up shirt-sleeved depictions of beer-swilling, flag-humping goodness that politicians love.

But something is changing. Donald Trump’s rallies in the state used to draw huge crowds at large outdoor venues. But now, after canceling one rally, the former president is meeting with supporters in more scaled-down spaces. And absent from those rallies are the state’s top Republican politicians — the governor, both senators, and all four congressional representatives. 

Trump’s polling is still high. And the press is dismissive of any challenger. But it’s a long 18 months until the election. No one knows what will happen. In Iowa, Republican leaders are trying to break free of the gravitational pull of the Trump universe but don’t know how to do it without angering the former president, whose erratic temperament, platform of vitriol, and enormous popularity have made him a political landmine.

The DeSantis campaign doesn’t respond to my email asking for a press credential. It could be an oversight, but in 2020 my face did once appear in an attack ad targeted at a Democratic senate candidate, and I spent the last year writing a profile of Casey DeSantis. I get myself a regular ticket to the rally.

I think I can sneak in without seeing anyone I know. But after parking, I see some parents from my kids' school walking toward the event. The man checking me in looks up at me and smiles, “Oh, Lyz Lenz! I know you.”  The woman who peers into my bag immediately spots my weed gummies, which I forgot to remove. She laughs and points to them. “I have that medicine, too.”

It’s a reminder of how close we all are here in this red state. How we cannot escape the grudges, grievances, and fear that drive our politics — but we still agree on some things. Like weed gummies. 

When I sit down, the women next to me begin chatting. We have friends in common and we spend some time talking about churches and neighborhoods. They snap a selfie together but don’t post it to social media. They tell me they don’t like being public about their political beliefs. “People will attack you. There’s something wrong with everyone,” one woman says.

I agree with this. I explain that I left Facebook in 2020 because people were attacking me over Covid. They nod. I didn't tell them it was anti-vaccine people, specifically some of the parents at my kids’ school and people I knew from church. I’m trying to understand, so I listen as they talk about how they still like Trump, but they want someone who can be effective. DeSantis, while lacking the tractor-beam pull of the Trump crowd, seems effective. Everyone I talk to says they like how he handled the pandemic. Later, DeSantis will deliver a line about how he promoted “freedom over Fauci-ism,” and it will draw huge applause.

Listening to people as a neighbor is different from talking to them as a journalist. And I find myself slipping between both roles. I do know the people around me. I can spot the kid who ran for city council, now so much older than when I first met him, and the woman who led Bible study at the church I briefly attended a decade ago. But I’m also here to work; to observe and understand. I think sometimes it would be easier to be a national journalist dropping in occasionally. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the lady who told people I was a paid GOP operative. But I also know that my local ties mean I hear different conversations.

Behind me, a stringer for a national newspaper talks to two men about why they are at the rally. I only half-hear some of their answers about lowering taxes and concerns about public schools. After she leaves, I hear them talk in more explicit terms about their fears over trans people and bathrooms. Things they wouldn’t say out loud to a mainstream journalist. And they are here because they think that DeSantis believes everything they believe, but will actually get laws and policies passed. 

A lot of the media coverage of DeSantis talks about his wooden affect and stiff demeanor. But in the chairs at Hawkeye Downs, it was easy to see how that translated into the appearance of competence and efficacy. He’s not erratic. He’s not unpredictable. His speeches read like shitposts about the “woke mind virus” and how schools are for “education, not indoctrination.” But they’re interspersed with statistics and stories and specific policies he’s passed. He even jokingly suggests that Iowa, like Florida, should eliminate income tax. Everyone applauds.

He quips that he sometimes hears people in politics say, “Iowa is the Florida of the North,” but after visiting he believes that “Florida is the Iowa of the South.”

His biggest applause line was when spoke about sending 50 immigrants from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard. It was a political stunt that drew sharp criticism, but DeSantis looks cheerful and the crowd laughs. A Fox News poll from 2022 showed that the majority of Florida voters supported sending immigrants to sanctuary cities. 

DeSantis, like the former president, has found a way to tap into the politics of resentment and vitriol. And he wears the criticism like a Boy Scout badge. When his wife Casey speaks, she says that she only worries when the press isn’t attacking her husband. She worries that if they aren’t attacking him, he’s not doing his job. The crowd applauds. 

For DeSantis, every mocking tweet, every late-night TV joke is evidence that the world is against the good people of America, the people who love their god, guns, and flags. The jabs are proof positive that the woke mob is out of control, and that those who refuse to compromise are the real heroes, the warriors we need. And he’s there, with his family by his side. His children, his wife – the props of his campaign – are who he is fighting for, the ones being protected from Disney, public schools, “transgenderism,” and China.

People cheer and applaud. It’s noisier than the Evangelical church I was in a few weeks ago for a baptism — and a lot of the same people are there.

I leave watching DeSantis move through the crowd. He doesn’t do a press gaggle here. But he’s done them often in Florida. I text the reporter Kimberly Leonard, who tells me this is an effective way for DeSantis to control the narrative. Afterward, I go to my favorite bar, where they ask me how I’ve been. When I say where I spent my day, the bartender makes me a stiff drink. “There’s something wrong with everyone,” one of the servers says. And I nod and agree. 

Further Reading:

• I like this Walter Shapiro essay on how we don’t know what will happen in 2024. Comments dismissive of DeSantis often seem to echo comments that were dismissive of Trump in 2015. And then, when he won, people wondered how we got here. 

• In December, I wrote an in-depth analysis on why the Iowa caucuses (for Democrats) are dead. I know the Iowa Democrats are still fighting to get it back. But my opinion is that, it’s gone. Here is what I wrote then.