West Des Moines, IA
Just a few days ago, Bryan Moon didn’t need to go candidate shopping.
Moon, a Des Moines native who works as vice president of a marketing firm in town, was leaning strongly toward supporting Donald Trump. He describes himself as a “closet Trump supporter” and said he was planning to caucus for the outspoken businessman.
“I liked that he would bring the experience of being a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company and assumed that he could get good people around him, cause you need that when you’re building a company,” Moon said Wednesday. Trump, he continued, could “get the economy on track and get our jobs back from China. And build a wall.”
And yet here he was at Wellman’s Pub in West Des Moines one night before the Fox News debate and five days before the Iowa caucuses at a rally for Marco Rubio. What changed?
“Now I’m seeing what his true temperament is – I obviously don’t know him personally – but I’ve seen him say and do some things that I disagree with but haven’t been deal-killers,” Moon says. “But the last few hours – over the last day when he decided he wasn’t going to debate with the rest of the candidates – that really was the last straw.”
“I thought we were due for a CEO in our country,” Moon said. “But Trump to me, with these actions, says: ‘It’s all about me.’ We already have a narcissistic president in the Oval Office. We don’t need another one.”
Do other Iowans view Trump’s decision the same way? At least some of them do.
“If he’s bailing tomorrow, I take that as a slap in the face as an Iowan,” says Lori Wilson-Voss, a government worker from nearby Huxley, Iowa. Trump wasn’t on her short list – she likes Rubio and Ted Cruz – but she believes he hasn’t done himself any favors. “This last thing with Megyn Kelly? If you can’t handle Megyn Kelly then what are you going to do with leaders of this country? You can’t just not show up.”
“I was Marco all the way for a long time and then I kind of moved to Trump because he just had the crowds and the enthusiasm,” says Bruce Voss, her husband and an independent small business owner. “The one thing that drew me to Trump is he does not have a big-dollar donor behind him.”
Rubio’s role in the Gang of Eight made Voss question Rubio’s judgment and he moved to Trump with the hope that he would bring a business mentality to the White House. “Work hard, make good decisions, build your company – that’s kind of what drew me to him as a politician. I like him, but he’s not a conservative.”
From these conversations and several others, it’s clear that at least some Iowans disapprove of Trump’s decision to skip the debate. But it’s a small sample from a pool at a rally for another candidate, so it’s far from clear these views are representative.
Trump has led nine of the last ten polls taken in Iowa, with leads as large as 11 points in two of them. He leads the RealClearPolitics average in Iowa by 5.8 points and has to be considered the favorite going into the caucuses next Monday.
Beyond that, there is reason to believe that Trump could be underperforming in those polls; his numbers could be much higher if he is able to turn out many first-time caucusgoers. Trump’s crowds dwarf the crowds of his rivals and with every day Trump has been at or near the top of the polls, previously skeptical voters have at least become open to the idea of Trump as the Republican nominee. And it may be the case that most Iowa voters won’t care whether he participates in the Fox News debate Thursday.
But Trump’s erratic behavior has given some Iowa voters pause as they make final decisions about whom they will support in next week’s caucuses. His ostensible reason for skipping the debate – a five-month old feud with Megyn Kelly – seems odd and whimsical. And while so those descriptors fit so much of what Trump has done during his run for the Republican nomination, the risks he is taking so close to the caucuses raise questions about whether his ostensible reason for skipping the debate is the real one.
