WASHINGTON — Advisers to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are talking to Republican operatives about joining his team to work in Iowa, the latest sign of preparation for his expected presidential bid.
DeSantis wasn’t personally involved in the interviews and no formal job offers have been made, according to people familiar with the discussions. But the news coincided with DeSantis’s debut swing through Iowa, just days before former President Donald Trump makes his first trip to the state as a declared 2024 candidate.
On his much-scrutizined Iowa swing, DeSantis had in-person meetings Friday with pastors and congressional and state lawmakers — some of whom have gotten calls from Trump seeking to lock in early support and stave off signs of cracks in his appeal.
Trump’s demands for immediate endorsements irked some Republicans, who prefer a slow courting before they hold the GOP’s first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest. Among those who have agreed to support him are Muscatine’s Mark Cisneros, who became the Iowa House’s first Latino member in 2020, and Jeff Reichman, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel from the Keokuk area.
Spokespeople for DeSantis and Trump didn’t immediately comment.
Trump kicks off in Iowa on Monday with an event in Davenport, the same largely blue-collar Mississippi River town DeSantis visited on Friday.
DeSantis has hinted at White House aspirations without spelling them out. In a closed-door meeting with Iowa GOP legislators, he didn’t mention the words “president” or “Trump” or “endorsement,” according to people in the room.
“He is just getting warmed up,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said on stage Friday in Davenport at one of DeSantis’s two events, which are officially part of a book tour. “This guy is a man on a mission.”
Reynolds, a Republican who was reelected to second term in November, was at his side throughout most of the day, flying with DeSantis between the Quad Cities and Des Moines.
DeSantis’s audience in the state capital drew several prominent Iowa Republicans, including lawmakers, business leaders and political operatives. It also included activists who have been firmly in Trump’s camp such as Gary Leffler, known for riding an antique tractor decorated with Trump insignia at political events, and Nick Van Patten, the former chairman of Polk County, Iowa’s largest county.
Republicans at DeSantis’s events privately speculated that Reynolds could be a potential running mate and said they were studying their rapport as DeSantis delivered a similar stump-like routine at each stop.
DeSantis told The Des Moines audience “they called Kim and I a lot of names” when the two governors called for schools to be open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID Kim and DeathSantis,” Reynolds said, to laughter.
A March 5-8 Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that 74% of the state’s Republicans say their feelings about DeSantis are favorable, while 20% say they don’t know enough about him to have an opinion. Only 1% said that about Trump in the poll.
“People have been very, very nice,” DeSantis told the crowd at the Iowa State Fairgrounds shortly before leaving for Nevada, another early state in the nominating calendar. “Very obvious that people pay attention to these issues up here in a really significant way.”
