Big hurdle for Trump rivals in Iowa: A party realigned

Nikki Haley has made Steph Herold feel excited about a presidential candidate “for the first time in a long time.”

The former South Carolina governor speaks to Ms. Herold’s concerns about fiscal responsibility and military preparedness. She brings years of political experience to the job. Perhaps most important, she “doesn’t dis or talk badly about people.”  

A retired graphic designer and lifelong Republican voter, Ms. Herold comes from a long line of Iowa conservatives: Her father, Bob Van Vooren, was Ronald Reagan’s state campaign chair. Over the past two decades, she voted for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. And in 2016 and 2020, she voted for Donald Trump. 

“That’s not something I like to tell people,” she says, laughing nervously from her home in a West Des Moines suburb, where she’s babysitting her granddaughter. A Haley sign sticks out of her snowy front yard. “I was never a Trump supporter; he just happened to be our candidate. For the life of me, I’m not even sure how he made it through.” 

Iowa GOP caucus victories used to be built on voters like Ms. Herold. That all changed, however, in 2016, when “we saw one of the biggest realignments in American political history,” says New Hampshire GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett. With his unconventional populist campaign, Mr. Trump upended years of Republican orthodoxy and expedited a great scrambling of the two parties’ electorates, bringing a flood tide of white, working-class voters – a onetime staple of the Democratic Party – into the Republican fold.

These voters have given Mr. Trump a powerful base of support in Iowa. Just days before Monday’s vote, a new Suffolk poll finds Ms. Haley has moved into second place, but is still running more than 30 points behind the former president. Notably, Mr. Trump’s strongest support comes from Iowans with a high school diploma or less, whereas Ms. Haley performs best among those with advanced degrees, like Ms. Herold.

This divide along education lines gives Mr. Trump a distinct advantage, since there are more voters without college degrees than with. (It also helps explain why the race is much closer in New Hampshire, which has a higher percentage of college-educated voters.) 

But while the GOP will likely never go back to being the party it once was, it also won’t be the “party of Trump” forever. And every four years, parties redefine themselves, in one way or another. Mr. Trump’s dominance among working-class voters, which surveys suggest may now be extending to some voters of color, could shape the party’s identity in an even more populist mold this cycle. Or higher-educated, previously reluctant Trump voters – tired of the drama, or frustrated by new abortion restrictions, or worried about winning in the November general election – could start to nudge things in a different direction. 

“Parties ebb and flow, and I think that’s good. You have to change with the times,” says Ms. Herold. “I look at myself: From 19-year-old me, goodness gracious, I’ve changed – and that’s good.” 

Willie Glosser’s shift

During the final days of the campaign here in Iowa, hundreds of voters have been tracking snow into pubs and event halls to see Ms. Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is competing with her for second place in the polls. Many say they’re specifically looking for a Republican who isn’t Mr. Trump.

But their numbers pale in comparison with the thousands of Trump supporters lining up in freezing temperatures for hours ahead of his rallies.

“I don’t think there’s anything that could happen to keep Trump from being the Republicans’ nominee,” says Willie Glosser, a subcontractor who lives in Indianola, a city south of Des Moines, and is married with 10 children. Both Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley seem like strong candidates, he allows, “but neither of them are Trump.” 

Before 2016, Mr. Glosser, who never attended college, didn’t really pay close attention to politics. He voted in most presidential elections, mostly for Republicans, “but not all the time.” He watched with only mild interest as Mr. Trump launched his first run for president. Soon, however, he found himself all in.  

Mr. Glosser had always wondered about government corruption and had concerns about what was happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. All of that “got illuminated” when Mr. Trump came on the scene. Mr. Glosser started attending Trump rallies and watching debates for the first time. He even hosted candidate forums for school board and sheriff at his house. 

“Trump not only says he fights for the little guy – I believe we saw it,” says Mr. Glosser, who voted for Mr. Trump in the 2016 and 2020 general elections and plans to attend his first caucus on Monday. “He had the ability to make us feel important to him.” 

In 1992, when Democrat Bill Clinton ousted Republican George H.W. Bush from the White House, 55% of voters whose education ended with high school identified as Democrats, while the GOP was home to more college graduates. Three decades later, those numbers have reversed. Fifty-one percent of the Democratic electorate nationwide in 2022 held either a college or postgraduate degree, compared with just 37% of Republicans. 

“I think [Mr. Trump] has awakened a new portion of people out there who have never been a part of the process and felt neglected,” says Ms. Herold, who’s wearing a sweatshirt from her alma mater, Iowa State (“Go Cyclones!” she says). “They have felt like, ‘Nobody cares about us,’ and for some reason they think Trump does.”

Balancing act for Haley

Ms. Haley’s candidacy is staked on the hope that strong support from college graduates, along with some Trump-weary voters from the party’s working-class base, will make for a winning combination. But it’s a difficult balancing act.

At an event Thursday in Ankeny, a suburb north of Des Moines where the median household income is over $100,000 and 98% of residents have a college degree, Ms. Haley delivered the same careful stump speech that she’s laid out across the Hawkeye State (though mostly in Des Moines and its suburbs). 

“I think President Trump was the right president at the right time to break the things that we needed,” said Ms. Haley, to roughly 200 voters in an event space strung with bistro lights. “I agree with a lot of his policies, but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.”

Some in the room of well-dressed Iowans (men in button-down shirts and sweaters with elbow patches, women carrying Louis Vuitton bags) nodded in agreement. More than half the people in the room raised their hand when asked if they were seeing Ms. Haley for the first time.

Critics have accused Ms. Haley, as well as Mr. DeSantis, of being unwilling to attack Mr. Trump forcefully enough. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who exited the GOP presidential field this week, said flatly that any candidate too afraid to call Mr. Trump “unfit” to be president was “unfit themselves.” He was also caught on a hot mic predicting that Ms. Haley will “get smoked.” 

But to Mr. Bartlett, the New Hampshire strategist, the former United Nations ambassador needs a broad strategy to have any hope of capturing a majority in today’s GOP.

“In order to [win],” he says, “Nikki Haley is going to need everyone.”