Trump draws Iowa crowds with un-Iowa style
The day Donald Trump announced he would run for president, he held a rally at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines.
At the time, the woman who is now his Iowa campaign co-chair said he would have to tone down his celebrity persona to win Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said then that Trump would need to campaign heavily across the state in the vein of Rick Santorum, and that a top-seven finish could be considered a victory for him.
Political scientists said he would have to be willing to lay out detailed policy proposals.
Seven months later, Trump is positioned to potentially win the caucuses while largely defying conventional caucus wisdom.
Trump typically draws crowds so large that his smaller events with a few hundred people feel intimate by comparison. He hasn't done a single public event at the small-town diners or coffee shops that have typified the campaign trail of caucus years past. Question-and-answer sessions are rare, and overnight stays are even rarer. He eschews “Iowa nice” in favor of bombast. He boasts about his massive wealth, his success and always – always – he boasts about his place in the polls while rarely diving into the specifics of his policy proposals on the campaign trail.
Catch up on coverage atDesMoinesRegister.com/Caucus
“It’s worked for him, so why change it?” said David Redlawsk, a Rutgers political science professor who has studied the Iowa caucuses. Redlawsk said Trump's message is resonating “independent of the question of how he sends the message, whether it’s (at) Pizza Ranches or large scale events.”
Twenty-two percent of Republican caucusgoers list Trump as their first choice for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the most recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll. That's behind only Texas. Sen. Ted Cruz, who sits at 25 percent.
A Real Clear Politics rolling average of Iowa polls flips the two candidates, with Trump narrowly edging out Cruz, 27.9 percent to 26.4 percent.
So what is drawing Iowans – who prize the access their first-in-the-nation status usually affords them – to a billionaire businessman from the East Coast?
'He says what we’re all thinking'
“I know you look at me and I don’t look anything like Trump, but he’s exactly like me except for the money and the good looks,” Bob Burd, a 71-year-old Ankeny resident and part-time magician, said with a laugh as he waited on Trump to appear at a recent event in Urbandale.
“I don’t like beating around the bush,” he said. “I like to say what I feel. I think he has the same commitment to just telling it like it is. That’ll get you into a lot of trouble. It gets me into a lot of trouble. But that’s the way I like to see people.”
Trump's campaign style draws a stark contrast with other Republican candidates, past and present, who have become entangled in the controversial things they say. Many cite 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's comments about the "47 percent" of Americans dependent on government benefits as a game-changer. Trump, who has made similarly inflammatory remarks, has come out unscathed.
Tom McIntee, a 62-year-old attorney from Iowa City, said the controversial things Trump says "are the things people say outside of polite society when they're talking to their friends. And what it's doing is it's liberating people to be able to discuss these issues."
McIntee, who was awaiting Trump at a rally in Cedar Falls, pointed specifically to the issue of immigration.
Trump has drawn accusations of bigotry for his immigration policies, which include building a wall along the nation’s southern border, temporarily prohibiting Muslims from entering the United States and deporting undocumented immigrants.
But among the more than two dozen Iowans interviewed at Trump events for this article, those policies resonate, even if some concede the language Trump uses to describe them can be over the top. Many said immigration has become a major problem in this country, not just because they say it is costing Americans jobs and tax dollars, but because they see it as a threat to national security.
With the rise of the Islamic State, many said they fear an attack on U.S. soil. And they fear the federal government is not doing enough to keep terrorists from entering the country.
It’s a fear that Trump taps into at his rallies. At the Cedar Falls event, Trump recounted three instances in which undocumented immigrants are accused of murdering Americans.
“Boom. Boom. Boom,” he said slowly, recalling the three bullets an assailant used to kill Jamiel Shaw outside his home in Los Angeles. “A veteran. Sixty-five-year-old veteran. Raped, sodomized and killed by an illegal immigrant,” he later followed, referencing a separate incident.
Trump said admitting Syrian refugees could be like allowing a “Trojan horse” into the United States – giving a foreign army the opportunity to attack from within. He said the refugees are young, strong men with few women and children.
It’s a point that is categorically untrue according to The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which shows about half of Syrian refugees are women and about half are children 17 or younger. But Trump has repeated the line at numerous rallies, in a television interview and during the most recent Republican debate. Some of his supporters use it in affirming their desire for stricter immigration laws.
“I think that these people coming in now, they’re terrorists,” said Esther Toney, a 71-year-old retired corrections officer from Collins, who attended a Trump rally in Ames.
“There’s no reason for them to come in here. And when you see thousands of young men and no women and children – if it had women and children coming in it’d be a different story. Maybe I’d say 'well you know maybe they’re oppressed.'”
Toney said she disagreed with the UN’s numbers, saying she had seen massive numbers of young men entering the country on news reports.
As she spoke, “Eye of the Tiger” began to blare over the sound system, indicating Trump’s imminent arrival on the stage behind her.
Inside a Trump rally
Temperatures dipped below zero and gusts of wind whipped their faces as dozens of Trump supporters, smiling and joking despite the cold, lined up outside the University of Iowa’s West Gym last week. They waited to be granted entry to that evening’s Trump rally by a team of Secret Service agents.
It’s one of 14 scheduled Trump events in Iowa this month leading up to Feb. 1. And although he maintains an aggressive national campaign schedule outside of Iowa, Trump is in the state less than many of his competitors. He makes up for it by drawing crowds considerably larger than his Republican rivals.
More than 1,000 joined him in Cedar Falls last week; about 150 were turned away after the building met capacity.
Michael Gershen, a 37-year-old small business owner from Oelwein, waited in the cold for more than hour to be first in line. “I had one toe that was pretty numb for maybe an hour after we got in,” he said afterward.
Some attendees are in it for the spectacle: Democrats, students or curious Republicans who want to see the celebrity in person, but who say they have no plans to vote for him.
But most, if they haven’t already committed to caucusing for Trump, say they are seriously considering it. Many are a reflection of the polls, saying they’re struggling to decide between Trump and Cruz.
For some, part of the thrill of a Trump event is the sense that anything might come out of the candidate’s mouth. But after an off-the-wall speech in Fort Dodge earlier this year, where he re-enacted fellow candidate Ben Carson trying to stab someone, Trump has toned down his rhetoric and stuck largely to script as caucus day nears.
He hits mostly the same talking points at each event, but in an order and manner that appears to be off-the-cuff and largely improvised. He talks without a teleprompter and occasionally references printed-out news stories and poll results that sit atop a podium.
Despite the large crowds, Trump manages to make the event feel intimate, in a way – almost always finding a person in the audience and speaking directly to them or responding to things that are shouted out to him. In Cedar Falls, it’s the university wrestling team that he met backstage ahead of the event.
“How’s your team doing, your wrestling team doing?” Trump calls out, to cheers from a group of young men in the stands. “Good? Huh? Good? Where are they? That’s a rough looking group over there. I love it. We need more of that stuff.”
From there, he touches on current events and recent media coverage of his campaign – often specifically calling out news organizations that he feels have been dishonest in their treatment of him. In Cedar Falls, he praises Time Magazine which featured a front-page story titled “How Trump won.”
It’s a newfound appreciation for the publication. At previous Iowa events Trump berated Time for not naming him Person of the Year.
Within four minutes of taking the stage, Trump has touted the size of his crowds, touted his place in the polls and begun to hit on his favorite punching bag, rival Republican Jeb Bush. He’ll return to his poll results twice more in his speech, which lasts about 37 minutes.
Trump will invariably direct the crowd’s attention to the risers that hold dozens of journalists, remarking on their dishonesty. He touches a number of other issues just enough to ensure the crowd knows he’s with them.
“Common Core, by the way, we’re taking it out, it’s gone,” he said, to a fresh round of applause. “We’re going to use local folks for that. Second Amendment, while we’re at it, 100 percent. So that’s up and Common Core is down.”
And then, almost as if to reward the folks who want to see their candidate deliver on an unspoken promise of showmanship, he pulls out a piece of paper, puts on his reading glasses, and reads every line to a song called "The Snake.”
The obscure 1960s R&B soul song tells the tale of a woman whose well-meaning plan to take in a wounded snake backfires when the snake rewards her hospitality by biting her anyway.
“We have no idea who we’re taking in,” Trump said. “And we better be careful.”
Superman
It’s that showmanship and must-win attitude that many Iowans interviewed for this story said they appreciate about Trump.
“I think a little bit what he does is bluster,” said Jeff Ortiz, a 59-year-old Ames resident who attended a recent Urbandale event. “I don’t believe that he believes everything that he says, because I also know that he has to work through the process in order to get a lot of the things he wants to do accomplished. So I’m a realist from that standpoint. But I also believe that he’s willing to at least put himself out there and challenge people to make significant changes to the ways that our government is run.”
Ortiz, who co-chairs the Story County Republicans, said he is not publicly supporting or endorsing any candidate, but includes Trump among his favorites.
“Republicans for too long have been willing to wilt before the cameras. To wilt before challenging questions from the mainstream media,” Ortiz said. “He’s not.”
Ortiz, who said he participated in some of the original Tea Party marches in Washington, D.C., said Republicans like him are tired of seeing their elected officials go to Washington and fail to deliver on promises.
Standing near him at the Urbandale rally is Gary Leffler, a 54-year-old West Des Moines resident who is between jobs. Leffler says he’s written off Cruz, in part, because of the way he “plays loose with the facts.”
He acknowledges that Trump also has been accused of misleading and lying to voters, but he’s willing to give Trump a pass in a way that he is unwilling to do for Cruz.
“Where he comes out way on top in my book is this: $20 trillion in debt,” Leffler said. “I don’t care if you’re evangelical. I don’t care. If we don’t fix our house financially, it doesn’t matter.”
Leffler said he’s still trying to decide between former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – who he says is the “shepherd” the American people need from a moral perspective – and Trump, who he thinks could solve the country’s other issues.
COMPARE CANDIDATES: See issue and stances for the presidential candidates
Follow Iowa Caucus news, photos, videos with Iowa Caucuses App:iPhone or iPad | Android
Redlawsk, the Rutgers professor, said he can see why voters are willing to accept Trump’s mistruths.
“He’s Donald Trump and he’s Superman and he’ll make it all happen. And I’m actually serious about that,” Redlawsk said. “It’s the entire way he projects himself. The absolute certainty that he can do this simply because he is who he is.
"It’s a certainty doomed to failure. No president can walk in and do whatever they want to do. The system’s not set up that way. But when you’re angry and frustrated … and worried about the future, certainty sounds pretty good. And nobody’s better at projecting that than Donald Trump. So what if he embellishes a little bit.”
But because so much of Trump’s persona is wrapped up in winning – “We’re going to win so much that you people are going to get sick and tired of winning,” he says often – Redlawsk said there’s a lot hinging on a victory in Iowa.
“If he’s not a winner, where does that leave him?" Redlawsk said. "I don’t know. But I bet it has some influence. The other side of the coin, then, if he wins Iowa and wins in New Hampshire, then the winner rhetoric is greatly reinforced.”
Trademark laugh
Trump regularly begins his rallies and campaign events by diving into the latest poll numbers. He routinely draws laughs when explaining why he’s so quick to discuss them:
“You know I’m a poll maven. I became like the all-time expert of polls,” he quipped in Cedar Rapids. “And people say, why does he always talk about polls? But these are the people that are number 12, number 9. Even the other candidates, one of them was number 13 (who asked) why do you always talk about polls? I say because I’m not number 13.”
About Donald Trump
Age: 69
Education: Bachelor's degree, economics, 1968, University of Pennsylvania.
Family: Wife: Melania Knauss; children: Donald, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany and Barron.
Elective office: None
Other career highlights:
Owns numerous luxury real estate properties, including hotels, skyscrapers and golf courses.
Owns the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.
Is a billionaire, and according to Forbes is the 121st-richest man in the United States.
Top three issues:
Immigration: Trump’s immigration plan calls for securing the nation’s borders by building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump has said he will pressure Mexico to pay for the wall. He would institute national e-verify systems and end birthright citizenship. He has also called for a temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the country.
Tax reform: Trump has proposed exempting individuals making less than $25,000 annually from income tax. He proposes reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to four and eliminating the marriage penalty and alternative minimum tax. Businesses of all sizes would pay no more than 15 percent in income tax, and no family would pay the estate tax.
U.S.-China trade reform: Trump has said he would lower the country’s corporate tax rate to keep jobs within the country and to strengthen the country’s negotiating position. He said he also plans to declare China a currency manipulator and force it to uphold intellectual property laws.