White House campaigning has begun in earnest as GOP presidential hopefuls descend on Iowa to make their case to voters.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley will be in the Hawkeye State on Friday, and former President Donald Trump has teased a visit in the middle of the month. It's familiar ground for Iowa, which for decades has held the nation's first party caucuses each year.
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“We’ve got a trickle of possible and a couple of actual candidates coming through already,” said Drake University professor Dennis Goldford, who has been at the Des Moines-based school since 1985. “In that sense, it’s sort of a normal, early trickle.”
DeSantis is making his first visit to Iowa, stopping in Des Moines and Davenport on Friday where he'll be joined by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA). The Florida governor has not announced his candidacy for the White House but consistently polls as the biggest GOP threat to Trump.
He'll be joined that day by Haley, who will also be in the state and will speak with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). Haley is the only major Republican to challenge Trump so far and has said it's time for a "new generation of leaders" who will "look forward."
Meanwhile, Trump says he'll visit the state "very soon," with more visits coming ahead of the election. Iowa's caucus is scheduled for Jan. 22, 2024, followed eight days later by New Hampshire.
Interviewees for this story said Trump remains the GOP candidate to beat this election cycle, with one describing him as a "10,000-pound gorilla" and another saying he's "the elephant in the room."
"It's more of a trickle than a flood because on the Republican side, you could argue there is a quasi-incumbent," Goldford added. "There is a single, dominant figure. You can contrast that on the Republican side to 2016, in which there was a flood of candidates because there was no obvious next in line. That's a major difference."
A few other potential candidates have stopped by as well. Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke on parents' rights in Cedar Rapids, while Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) spoke on optimism and unity in Des Moines. Declared candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stopped by Iowa last Thursday, just one day after announcing his long-shot presidential bid.
But polls consistently show Trump and DeSantis as the top two. The pair are beginning to spar, with Trump going hard after the man he once endorsed and DeSantis mostly avoiding direct conflict.
Trump has created a five-point plan to attack DeSantis, calling him "DeSanctus" and a "RINO Globalist" in recent social media posts.
In response, DeSantis has mostly pointed at election results.
"[Trump] used to say how great of a governor I was," DeSantis told Fox News. "Then I win a big victory, and all of a sudden, you know, he had different opinions. So you can take that for what it’s worth.”
DeSantis is now polling in second place after former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary, per the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.
The Florida governor's buzz is promising, but there's still a long way to go, argues 22-year Iowa native Rachel Paine Caufield.
"He's got a challenge in front of him in that his base is very similar to Trump's," said Caufield, also a professor at Drake University. "He has to see if there's a lane for someone who is Trumpish but perhaps for a new generation."
Caufield compared DeSantis in 2023 to former Republican Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush of Florida in 2016. Both appeared promising early but quickly faded as Trump ate up the nominating contest.
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At least one Iowa demographic Caufield knows well is thinking about moving on from Trump's domination of the GOP.
"My students are nearly universally looking for the next generation of Republican leadership. They're curious about other candidates," she said. "But it's Iowa. People reserve judgment until they've had a chance to meet these folks and get a sense of who they are."