(Left) Former President Donald Trump addresses the crowd during a 2024 election campaign event in Columbia, S.C., on Jan. 28, 2023. (Right) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to guests at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on Nov. 19, 2022. Logan Cyrus, Scott Olson/Getty Images
As 2024’s Iowa GOP caucus slowly approaches, two likely frontrunners are preparing to talk past each other from across the Hawkeye State.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump will hold competing events on May 13 in Iowa.
Trump will hold a “Make America Great Again” rally at Lauridsen Amphitheater, Water Works Park, in Des Moines, the state’s capital.
“I am heading to Des Moines this Saturday to rally with the Great People of Iowa! Unlike Joe Biden, I protected Iowa’s First-in-the-Nation Caucuses, and always will,” Trump said in a May 8 Truth Social post.
The Democratic Party has revised its caucus and primary schedule for 2024, making South Carolina its first-in-the-nation contest.
South Carolina was the first primary election won by current President Joe Biden in 2020.
Democratic presidential candidate former vice President Joe Biden speaks to the audience during a town hall in Greenwood, S.C., on Nov. 21, 2019. Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Pete Buttigieg won the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus but lost the popular vote to Bernie Sanders. Sanders won the subsequent New Hampshire and Nevada primaries before Biden finally claimed South Carolina at the end of February.
In his Truth Social post, Trump said he “did more for Iowa than anyone else in history—and will again!”
The former commander-in-chief is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. on May 13. The event itself kicks off at 2 p.m.
DeSantis will appear at Rep. Randy Feenstra’s (R-Iowa) Iowa Family Picnic at Sioux Center, in the state’s northwest corner.
“In Iowa, like Florida, freedom is valued, parents’ rights are protected, and faith comes first,” he said when the event was announced in April.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, another 2024 contender, and former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 entrant, have also appeared at the picnic in past years.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event in the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, in Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 17, 2023. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
That same day, DeSantis will speak at an evening fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa in Cedar Rapids, almost three hundred miles east of Sioux Center.
Head to Head
Trump declared his candidacy in November 2022 shortly after the midterms.
DeSantis, by contrast, hasn’t formally thrown his hat in the ring, though he is expected to do so in the next few days or weeks.
He has said he would decide after the Florida legislative session that ended May 5.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (right) waves to journalists as his wife Casey (left) looks one after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the latter's official residence in Tokyo on April 24, 2023. KIMIMASA MAYAMA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
One of the final acts of that body was to alter the state’s “resign-to-run” law, clearing a key hurdle for the self-branded “anti-woke” state executive in his prospective bid for the presidency.
He has also traveled internationally, visiting Japan and Israel.
During his visit to Israel, he signed a law to curb anti-Semitism in the state.
While some argue the law is needed and appropriate because of an uptick of anti-Semitic flyering and expression in Florida, others claim the law is too restrictive of free speech.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Waco Regional Airport on March 25, 2023 in Waco, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Trump held his first big 2024 rally in Waco, Texas, on March 25—a venue that some characterized as controversial because it came three decades after the Branch Davidian compound siege in 1994.
Local Trump fans who spoke with Epoch Times reporter Janice Hisle rejected that comparison.
Nathan Worcester
Author
Nathan Worcester covers national politics for The Epoch Times and has also focused on energy and the environment. Nathan has written about everything from fusion energy and ESG to national and international politics. He lives and works in Chicago. Nathan can be reached at [email protected].
