Former President Donald Trump is passing up on the opportunity this week to address a gathering of Christian conservative voters in Iowa, opening the door for his rivals to make inroads with the crucial caucus constituency.
Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of The Family Leader, announced on Twitter Tuesday that he learned Mr. Trump “will NOT attend” the group’s “Principle over Politics” summit Friday in Des Moines.
That will shift the focus to other 2024 contenders set to address the crowd: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Gov. Kim Reynold of Iowa and former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson also are among the featured guests.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steve Cheung said the ex-president had a scheduling conflict.
“President Trump was in Iowa last week and will be back next week,” Mr. Cheung said before taking a shot at Mr. Trump’s chief competitor, Mr. DeSantis. “Unfortunately there is a scheduling conflict, and the president will be in Florida this weekend headlining the premier national young voter conference with Turning Point Action conference while DeSantis is nowhere to be found.”
Mr. Trump’s decision to skip the Iowa event — billed as the “Midwest’s largest gathering of Christians seeking cultural transformation in the family, church, government and more” — carries some risk.
The lion’s share of caucusgoers are religious conservatives.
Mr. Trump learned that lesson in 2016 after he finished second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses where 64% of voters identified as born-again or evangelical Christian voters.
Mr. Trump went on to win the trust of those voters when he vowed to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and followed through on that promise after winning The White House.
The Trump nominations helped flip the court’s ideological makeup and paved the way for the overturning of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 case that made abortion a right nationally.
Questions, though, still abound about Mr. Trump’s relationship with the religious right.
His decision to blame the party’s 2022 midterm struggles on candidates running too far to the right on abortion, criticism of fetal heartbeat laws, including in Iowa, and his reluctance to support a strict federal abortion ban have cast doubts on his ability to keep those voters in his corner.
Mr. Vander Plaats told The Washington Times this year that those decisions could lose Mr. Trump support among pro-life conservatives, presenting an opening for his rivals to present themselves as allies without the former president’s drama.
Yet Mr. Trump received a hero’s welcome last month from the hundreds of Christian conservatives who turned out for the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington.
Speaking on the anniversary of the overturning of Roe, Mr. Trump said he was “proud to be the most pro-life president in American history.”
The 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses will be held on Jan. 15.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.