Standing before a 20-foot American flag in an evangelical church in Iowa, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made his first appearance as a presidential candidate.
“The tired dogmas of the past are inadequate for a vibrant future. We must look forward, not look backwards,” DeSantis said. “We must have the courage to lead, and we must have the strength to win, because the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
A few hundred supporters packed into Eternity Church in Clive, filling the seats of the small auditorium and standing along the grey cinderblock walls. Cheering drowned out the music when Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds welcomed DeSantis to the stage and as he took the podium.
It was the first public campaign event since DeSantis launched his presidential campaign last week in a Twitter event marred by technical difficulties.
Although this is his first swing through Iowa as an official presidential candidate, DeSantis has been a frequent visitor for several months. He sprinkled praise for Reynolds and Iowa’s Republican-led legislature throughout his speech, comparing Iowa’s political trajectory to Florida’s.
“I wish the elites in Washington, D.C., would take a page out of the Iowa playbook, but instead, they have ignored what works and they have continued to plunge this nation into the abyss,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis will be on the campaign trail Wednesday morning, holding four events across Iowa before traveling to New Hampshire. He will be back in Iowa Saturday for a fundraiser with U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst.
More:Where and when are presidential candidates visiting Iowa?
Ron DeSantis recites his Florida record, notes similarities with Iowa
Unlike many presidential contenders, DeSantis didn’t have to introduce himself to Iowans — his highly-anticipated candidacy comes after two high-profile terms as the governor of Florida, which has been at the vanguard of Republican policy-making in recent years.
Instead, DeSantis presented a lengthy, wide-ranging speech focused on policy, listing dozens of bills he signed into law and lambasting President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and the U.S.-Mexico border. He made frequent comparisons to Iowa, which has considered or passed many of the same conservative laws as Florida.
“In Florida, we didn’t lead with mere words. We followed up our words with deeds, and we have produced a record of accomplishment that we would put up against anybody in this country,” DeSantis said.
Reynolds praised DeSantis for signing a bill that bans most abortions after six weeks: “the same bill that I was proud to sign into law in 2018,” she said, her words swallowed by the crowd’s cheers. The Iowa Supreme Court is considering whether to lift a permanent injunction on that law and allow it to take effect.
DeSantis railed against “indoctrination” in schools — another theme echoed in Republican politics in Florida and Iowa alike.
As governor, DeSantis has signed legislation to ban instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation, to remove funding for diversity, equity and inclusion offices at state colleges, to restrict care for transgender individuals, and to prohibit the teaching of “critical race theory,” which argues that the U.S. still struggles with systemic racism.
Those efforts have led to an ongoing feud with Walt Disney World, the largest employer in Florida, and drawn ire from the NAACP and LGBTQ advocacy groups.
More:Is Ron DeSantis ready for Iowa prime time? What to watch in first presidential campaign trip
DeSantis framed those laws as victories for Florida and as the future of the Republican Party nationwide. Many Republican-led states, including Iowa, have already followed Florida’s lead and passed similar laws.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said in a statement that DeSantis “is running for president on the same agenda of taking away freedoms that he enacted in Florida — and ignoring the biggest economic issues that face the middle class.“
“One thing is certain: No matter who wins the Republican primary, it is absolutely clear that another MAGA presidency would be a disaster for Iowans,” Hart said.
DeSantis visit precedes Trump — again
Once again, DeSantis’ Iowa trip coincides with a visit from former President Donald Trump, his most formidable opponent for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump is set to arrive in Des Moines Wednesday night, his campaign said, before events on Thursday.
The Trump campaign sent an email touting Trump’s strength in the polls and criticizing DeSantis on issues ranging from Social Security to ethanol.
“With the Republican primary field continuing to expand, I have never been more confident that President Trump is the only person capable of steering our country off this path of destruction to a nation filled with prosperity,” Iowa Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink said in the email.
Attendees of DeSantis’ Tuesday kickoff said they prefer the Florida governor to the former president.
Dave Wisnieski, a 60-year-old Clive resident who attended the event, said DeSantis is his top choice for the GOP nomination. He’s ready to move on from Trump and sees DeSantis as the best alternative.
“His policies were good,” he said of Trump. “But with DeSantis, you get an adult that says all the right things and is very presidential.”
Derian Baugh, a 40-year-old Johnston, said he thinks Trump should be held accountable “for what happened with COVID-19 and the vaccine.”
“I think that DeSantis right now has a track record of getting things done, and what matters at the end of the day is putting points on the board and he clearly knows how to do that,” Baugh said.
Ron DeSantis enters the race with national attention, huge war chest
DeSantis comes to Iowa with significantly more name recognition and money in the bank than most presidential hopefuls.
National support for DeSantis peaked at about 30% earlier this year, according to data compiled by Real Clear Politics. He was running about 15 percentage points behind Trump at the time.
But the gap has widened since March. The Real Clear Politics rolling average of national polling puts Trump’s support at about 54% and DeSantis’ at about 21% — a 33-point margin.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted in March showed support for Trump was waning in Iowa. Meanwhile, DeSantis’ favorability numbers were on par with Trump’s: 80% of Iowa Republicans said they felt favorable toward Trump, compared with 74% who viewed DeSantis favorably.
Despite lagging in the polls, DeSantis has entered the race with millions in the bank. At the beginning of this month, political action committees aligned with DeSantis held tens of millions of dollars more than PACs aligned with Trump.
The DeSantis campaign raised $8.2 million in the first 24 hours after DeSantis entered the race last week.
However, some of DeSantis’s funding is under scrutiny.
A campaign watchdog organization Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, accusing DeSantis of violating fund-raising laws by shifting more than $80 million from his state spending committee into a federal one.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, accused DeSantis and his Friends of Ron DeSantis state political committee, of violating federal, unregulated “soft money” restrictions when they recently transferred funds to a new, Never Back Down federal account.
“We’re talking about funds from billionaires and corporate special interests who could exert massive influence over the candidate they are financing,” said Saurav Ghosh, with the CLC, which has also previously filed complaints against Trump.
“Laws banning these funds from being used to seek office are there for a reason — to prevent corruption, promote transparency and ensure that wealthy special interests can’t rig the system even further in their favor,” he added.
The complaint also alleges that DeSantis was effectively a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination well before his formal campaign kickoff last week. A pro-Trump super-PAC earlier this year made a similar claim in filing a spending complaint against DeSantis with the Florida Commission on Ethics.
The DeSantis campaign and his Never Back Down PAC did not immediately respond to questions about the complaint.
John Kennedy and Brianne Pfannenstiel contributed reporting to this story.
Katie Akin is a politics reporter for the Register. Reach her atkakin@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.
