For all of the attention it receives, immigration as an issue that moves Republican voters could end up a big nothing-burger in Iowa in 2016.
It’s a long year until the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest of the Republican presidential primary. The campaign has only just begun. But in interviews with GOP chairmen in nine Iowa counties influential in Republican primaries, the verdict was that national security and foreign policy are driving the debate at this early stage and could prove decisive. Immigration is described as important to likely caucus-goers but is an issue on which they are split.
“The caucus-goers I’ve been talking to want someone who is going to have much more assertive leadership on the global stage,” said Tyler DeHaan, GOP chairman in central Iowa’s Dallas County.
That was the case over and over, with the county chairmen volunteering that two terms of President Obama have left Iowa Republicans are hungering for a “Reaganesque” approach to foreign policy and national security. They described the Obama approach as weak, dangerous and “leading from behind.” They blamed him for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the renewed threat of domestic terrorism and just about every other challenge the U.S. faces abroad.
In neighboring Polk County, Republican Chairman Will Rogers said he expects foreign policy and national security to be a much bigger issue than it was in the GOP’s 2012 presidential caucuses, which were won narrowly by former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. “I’m hearing a lot more people talk about it — what’s going on in terms of ISIS and Jihadists around the world,” Rogers said.
This week, the Washington Examiner spoke with top GOP officials in the Iowa counties of Black Hawk; Dallas; Johnson; Linn; Polk; Pottawattamie; Scott; Sioux and Woodbury. Collectively, they represent a politically diverse lot — socially conservative in northwestern Iowa counties like Sioux and Woodbury, more mainstream and pragmatic in heavily-populated central Iowa.
There were some interesting areas of agreement among the GOP chairmen that crossed the ideological boundaries separating the counties they live in.
Among Republican likely caucus-goers, the sitting and former governors who are considering a White House bid don’t begin the race with any sort of built-in advantage over the senators who are preparing to run. In fact, of the potential candidates who have intrigued GOP activists so far, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and California businesswoman Carly Fiorina, who ran for Senate in 2010, were mentioned just as much as anyone else.
That doesn’t mean caucus-goers won’t be influenced by a candidate’s level of experience or positions on the issues they care about most. But leadership and ideology, as defined by their approaches to key issues, matter much more to this crowd than whether they’re labeled “Establishment” or “Tea Party.” Mitt Romney’s near-victory in the 2012 GOP caucus is cited as example No. 1. Showing up early and often to court voters doesn’t hurt, either.
“They really look at the total package,” said Judy Davidson, Republican chairwoman in eastern Iowa’s Scott County.
Some of the shorthand conventional wisdom about Iowa is true. Successful Republican candidates are pro-life on abortion and oppose same-sex marriage. The socially conservative northwest quadrant of the state holds enough sway to preclude the rise of centrists on social policies. The county chairmen stressed in their interviews that caucus-goers are looking for fiscal conservatives who support smaller government and will focus on reducing the national debt.
But these Iowans, many of them with decades of experience in presidential caucuses, warned against assuming that GOP activists there are single-issue voters. They will examine the breadth of a candidate’s positions and judge him or her holistically. That approach extends to immigration, notable because of all of the attention Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, garners for his outspoken opposition to liberal immigration policies supported by many in his own party.
The chairmen agreed that the winner of the 2016 caucuses would almost certainly oppose “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and vow to enforce the border first before addressing other problems with the federal immigration system. Still, Iowa’s economy is fueled by agriculture, which requires the kind of seasonal labor that is often provided by low-wage immigrants — legal and illegal, making the issue more complicated and nuanced for the state than outsiders might realize.
Like their fellow Republicans in Washington and around the country, Iowans are split on immigration, leaving room for various candidates who might have a record of favoring comprehensive reform. Two Republican county chairmen from northwest Iowa, while stressing the existence of widespread support for more border security and an end to Obama’s executive action to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, offered a window into the thinking of GOP activists where they live.
“There is a lot of support to figure out how to have more workers here legally and monitor where they are,” Sioux County GOP Chairman Mark Lundberg said. “The question is, for conservatives up here, is there a way we can figure out how to have more people here working but push back against making them full citizens?”
“The first thing we do is secure the border and fix the system,” added Woodbury County GOP Chairman Brian Rosener. “We have to allow the legal immigration to work much faster, much smoother.”
