Embattled Trump turns focus on Iowa

—Donald Trump began a fall press Wednesday to lock in thousands of Republican caucusgoers in early-voting Iowa, where the former president faces sky-high expectations in his campaign for a White House comeback.

Having campaigned far less often in Iowa than many of his 2024 rivals, Trump was making his first of five Iowa visits planned through the end of October. The visits are aimed at converting what polls in Iowa show as a commanding lead into committed supporters and volunteers as Trump’s campaign tries to secure a massive victory that would deny his rivals momentum and effectively end the primary on caucus day.

“In less than four months from now, we’re going to win the Iowa caucuses in a historic landslide,” Trump predicted as he addressed a crowd of more than 1,000 people in small-town Maquoketa and urged them to bring friends to the Jan. 15 caucuses.

On display was his team’s promised commitment to better organize in Iowa than it did in 2016, when Trump finished a close second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Supporters from across northeast Iowa had lined up outside the expo building at the Jackson County fairgrounds hours before Trump’s arrival. His campaign aimed to collect signed cards from the crowd pledging to back him in the Jan. 15 caucuses. While the cards do not bind voters to a candidate, they give campaigns valuable contacts to get out the vote and recruit volunteers and precinct leaders.

Tables inside the hall promoted the number to sign up for campaign text messages and screens displayed the caucus schedule and how to participate.

Trump addressed his 2016 loss at the start of his speech, blaming his previous campaign team.

“They didn’t do the caucus thing too well and I learned a lot,” Trump acknowledged, adding: “I don’t like second, though.”

Maquoketa is a small town of about 6,000 in the middle of several rural counties in the heart of the swath of eastern Iowa. In 2016, the region flipped from Democratic President Barack Obama to Trump.

At a second event in Dubuque, Trump laced into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he has long treated as his chief target, as he touted the efforts of his administration to help Iowa farmers and crack down on illegal immigration. At one point, Trump recited a poem he sometimes reads about a woman who invites a sick, frozen snake into her home, only to be bitten.

“That’s what’s happening in our country,” he said.