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Trump Trolls Democrats by Counter-Programming Iowa Caucuses

Trump Trolls Democrats by Counter-Programming Iowa Caucuses

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump doesn’t want Democrats to grab all the attention as the Iowa caucuses near, and is looking to steal back some of the political limelight.

The Republican Party and the Trump campaign have planned days of counter-programming to the Democratic caucuses: Events spread all over the state, backed by cabinet secretaries and the president’s children and topped by a Thursday night rally headlined by the candidate himself.

Trump, who’s still undergoing an impeachment trial in the Senate, isn’t facing a viable primary threat. Traditionally, unchallenged incumbents often stand back and let the opposing party’s candidates battle among themselves for the nomination.

Trump has decided to put himself front and center. Earlier this month, he held a Milwaukee rally on the same day as the Democratic candidates’ seventh debate, in Des Moines, Iowa, giving politically oriented viewers a choice of what to watch.

His campaign also flew a banner over Des Moines in the hours before the debate.

Frank Seydel, from Ames, was among a handful of people that gathered at a local coffee shop for a Trump campaign gathering on Tuesday. The 75-year-old retired professor says the meetings are just as much about discussing ways to help Trump at the local level as they are an opportunity to connect and chat with other supporters of the president.

“For the last month and a half, in the Des Moines Register, there are articles all about the Democrat candidates, who’s leading,” Seydel said. “As a Republican I’m tired of that. Why don’t they take some of the attention away” from the Democrats?

Trump’s visit to the state will be brief, but Iowans will be encountering plenty of campaign surrogates before and after the rally.

On Thursday morning, Vice President Mike Pence will be in Sioux City for an “Evangelicals for Trump” event, then take a bus to Council Bluffs to campaign before joining the president at the Des Moines rally. On Monday, the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as well as Eric’s wife, Lara, and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, also Donald’s girlfriend, will be campaigning for the president in Iowa.

They will be joined by some 80 other surrogates, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, among others. The campaign has also scheduled a news conference Monday afternoon in West Des Moines.

Trump Trolls Democrats by Counter-Programming Iowa Caucuses

As of Tuesday, people had already started waiting in line for the rally at Drake University’s Knapp Center.

“We’re blanketed by surrogates at” this time of year all the time, said Connie Schmett, co-chairwoman of the Polk County Republican Party. “These tremendous rallies, it is unusual. It’s all people are talking about: Are you going to the rally?”

The effort is also designed to remind Iowa Republicans that they’re having a caucus, too. Low turnout could embarrass the Trump campaign, especially if the relatively few supporters of challengers Joe Walsh, a conservative radio host and former Illinois congressman, and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld show up.

Trump Trolls Democrats by Counter-Programming Iowa Caucuses

Trump lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016 to Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Schmett, sitting in her office with a photograph of President Ronald Reagan in Iowa hanging behind her, said Trump’s presence in the state as the caucus nears makes it easier for her to get people to go out in frigid temperatures for an incumbent.

Richard Goughnour, 89, co-chair of the Des Moines County Republicans, is among the president’s supporters in the county, a traditionally Democratic stronghold that Trump won in 2016. He says that his phone and his neighbors’ phones have been “ringing off the wall,” from Democrats trying to woo them back by saying, “Don’t elect that crook.”

So Goughnour, who owned and edited a newspaper in Mediapolis, Iowa, for many years, is joining in Trump’s counter-programming efforts. He’s putting together a watch party for the rally on Thursday night at a local tavern, where he’ll sell hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers.

(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Parker in Washington at mparker22@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Wendy Benjaminson, John Harney

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