ORANGE CITY, Iowa — Republican voters in the conservative, northwest quadrant of the Hawkeye State gave up a Friday night to go shopping for a presidential candidate.
With less than 100 days to go until Iowa caucus-goers cast the first votes of the 2016 primary, and despite polls showing relatively stable leads by Ben Carson and Donald Trump, the majority of Republicans here are remarkably undecided and in search of a 2016 nominee. And so they filed into a college gymnasium here, 1,500 strong and undeterred by the chilly, driving rain, to see if they could find a match.
“Still shopping,” was the refrain of several voters Friday evening in Orange City, a Sioux County community of around 6,000, as they were leaving the Northwestern College gym after listening to stump speeches from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and 2012 Iowa caucus winner Rick Santorum. What are they looking for in a Republican nominee?
“Strength, truth, just somebody you can look at and you can just rely on by what they have to say and who they are. The quality of the person, more than anything,” said 37-year-old Tim Pottebaum, an undecided Republican who works as a research and development chemist.
“A person who is dedicated to reducing government is very important,” added design engineer Colin Breu, 39, an independent voter who is considering caucusing with the Republicans. “I think a conservative viewpoint that says, ‘Allow people to do what they need to do, without interfering,’ is extremely important.”
The event to rally local Republican activists and energize them for the election season ahead was held at Northwestern College, a Christian liberal arts university, and hosted by the Republican parties of Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola and Sioux counties. Republicans in this part of Iowa lean decidedly conservative, on social issues and otherwise, and their votes could prove pivotal to the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the 2016 primary season.
Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, leads the RealClearPolitics average of recent Iowa surveys of GOP voters, garnering 27.8 percent support, followed by Trump, the billionaire developer and reality television star, at 21 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, with 10.4 percent, has surged into third place; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is in fourth, with 9.6 percent. The competition is intensifying, and the voters are paying closer attention, as the Feb. 1 caucuses draw near.
That’s due in part to the depth of the candidate field and the fact that so many voters remain persuadable.
According to the Monmouth University poll conducted late last month, only 19 percent of likely Republican caucus goers have settled on a candidate. Of the remaining 81 percent: 43 percent have a “strong preference,” 19 percent have a “slight preference” and 18 percent are completely undecided. That means there are plenty of opportunities to advance, even for candidates who might appear to be insufficiently conservative. The key, Iowa Republicans say, is showing up.
“If candidates come and make their case — and you’ll see this — Iowa voters respect people who come and make their case,” Iowa Republican Party co-chairman Cody Hoefert told the Washington Examiner, explaining that he believes Mitt Romney would have made up the 35 votes he needed to beat Santorum in the 2012 caucuses if he would have spent just a little more time campaigning in northwest Iowa.
“Where candidates get into trouble is if they try to skip Iowa,” Hoefert said.
On Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after the mini cattle call with Christie, Fiorina, Rubio and Santorum ended in Orange City, 10 Republican candidates descended on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines to make their case to more than 2,000 Republican voters. Carson and Trump passed on the event. But the contenders who attended found a receptive audience open to being sold. That remains the case all over Iowa at this juncture of the campaign.
“I’ve got several that I like,” said Marylee Vanderpool, 71, of Indianola, a community of about 15,000 situated 20 miles south of Des Moines. “I’m not locked in yet.”
So who has piqued Vanderpool’s interest? Carson, Cruz and Rubio.
“I like Ben Carson because of his general demeanor. He takes his time, but people want him to spit out his answer. But he’s smart and he’s thinking about what he’s going to say and he’s speaking the truth all the time,” she said. Of Cruz, Vanderpool said: “He’s refreshing because of his background history.” And of Rubio, she said: “I just think he seems really presidential.”
Vanderpool said she still had yet to see all of the candidates in person — Rubio among them — prior to catching some of them during Saturday’s Growth and Opportunity Project event, sponsored by the Iowa GOP. That illustrates an important factor in trying to predict the outcome of the caucuses. As the candidates and voters engage each other more directly in the coming weeks, the polls could shift dramatically.
It’s happened before. In 2012, Santorum went from being an afterthought in the race to narrow winner after voters broke late in his favor. It’s a dynamic that candidates like Cruz are counting on. It is buoying the senator’s effort even though the data right now suggest that he has a big hill to climb to take command of this race.
“In every election cycle, there are candidates that shoot to the top and then fall down just as quickly,” Cruz told reporters, after addressing the crowd at the state fairgrounds on Saturday. “Our strategy has always been to build on a foundation of rock and not on sand, to play the long game, based on fundamentals and deep support from the grassroots”
