The Latest Breaking News from Vander Plaats

In Iowa, evangelicals tell on themselves

Forget Jesus — modern evangelicals look at President Drink Bleach as their lord and savior

Salon · Jan 16, 2024

How Iowa evangelicals rallied around Trump’s ‘holy war’

He convinced his supporters that his legal problems are their own as he speeds forward with a Christian nationalist agenda

The Independent UK · Jan 15, 2024

Could Iowa be Ron DeSantis’s last stand?

Florida governor has done ‘everything right’ and his Iowa campaign is a ‘well-oiled machine’. But will it be enough? Eric Garcia and Gustaf Kilander take a look at the DeSantis campaign heading into the first-in-the-nation contest

The Independent UK · Jan 12, 2024

Iowa’s evangelical kingmaker says it would be ‘a big mistake’ to count Ron DeSantis out

Bob Vander Plaats tells The Independent that evangelicals in the state ‘break late’ on who they will support

The Independent UK · Aug 18, 2023

Vivek Ramaswamy's Hindu faith is front and center in his GOP presidential campaign

Vivek Ramaswamy, the 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur, is hovering among the top contenders as a Republican presidential candidate while being open about his Hindu faith

The Independent UK · Aug 6, 2023

Evangelical Christian voters in Iowa love Trump. Can another Republican win them over?

At the Family Leader summit in Des Moines, GOP presidential hopefuls will try to convince Iowa's influential evangelical voting bloc they have the conservative credentials to win the caucuses.

WEKU · Jul 14, 2023

DeSantis meets with Iowa influencer ahead of book release as 2024 hopefuls make moves

The release of Ron DeSantis’ new book Tuesday is sure to spark a fresh round of speculation about the Florida governor’s political future, furthering the widely held belief that — no matter what the Republican leader says publicly — he’ll soon become a candidate for president.

McClatchy Washington Bureau · Feb 24, 2023

DeSantis a willing warrior as conservatives lean into gender and sexual identity fights

Few fronts in America’s heated culture wars have been more active recently than the fight over sexuality and gender identity.

McClatchy Washington Bureau · Aug 5, 2022