DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Vice President JD Vance, making his first trip to Iowa since taking office, promoted the administration's tax and tariff policies while framing the GOP as being on the side of working-class voters as he campaigned in the state where Republicans in less than two years will cast the initial votes to pick their party’s next presidential nominee.
Standing before hundreds of supporters at a steel manufacturing facility, Vance repeatedly
drew a contrast between Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn and his Democratic challenger, telling the crowd that Nunn and the Trump administration were “fighting for you instead of fighting against you” as he attacked Democrats on issues of immigration and fraud.
“This is not a normal election. This is not a normal political environment,” said Vance, who is seen as one of the GOP’s strongest potential candidates for president in 2028. “This is a contest between a party that wants to take all of your money and give it to illegal aliens and a contest between gentlemen like Zach Nunn who fight every single day for you.”
Nunn faces a competitive race to keep his Des Moines-area seat in the November midterms. Vance frequently heaped praise on Nunn, calling him “one of those guys who does the right thing, not just when the cameras are on, but when the cameras are off, too.”
The visit to Iowa offered Vance an opportunity to test his reception before Iowa’s voters, whose leadoff caucuses give them an outsize role in determining the next presidential nominee. Campaigning for a local congressman in his role as vice president provided him with a chance to make an impression on Iowa Republicans, seasoned evaluators of those who seek the nation’s highest office, before the campaign begins in earnest.
Vance’s appearance comes days after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is also considered a possible 2028 candidate, spoke to a group of evangelical Christians who are influential in Iowa’s GOP contest.
Jimmy Centers, a Des Moines-based Republican political consultant, said that the 2028 contest is “light-years away” but that the Republicans who hear Vance speak on Tuesday will be evaluating how he might measure up in an election for the White House.
“I certainly think, as of right now, Vice President Vance would probably be a straw-poll winner of Iowa Republicans for 2028. But I don’t think anyone is saying, ‘We won’t consider anybody else,’” Centers said.
Vance, who has not said whether he will run for president in 2028, appeared with Nunn at Ex-Guard Industries in Des Moines.
The vice president’s visit follows a trip Trump made in January to tout the administration’s tax cuts, part of a string of stops they’re making this year on economic issues before midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
But Vance’s visit comes when his own political prospects — and the message he delivered on the economy — have been complicated by the war in Iran.
The vice president, who has long been skeptical of foreign military interventions, has seemed a reluctant defender of the 9-week-old war, for which Trump has struggled to find an off-ramp. Iowans, like much of the rest of the country, are grappling with higher gas prices because of the conflict. But the state’s farmers are also feeling the pinch of high fertilizer costs from the war and have been hurt by tariffs Trump has imposed.
Vance made a nod to those cost struggles in his remarks, saying that he's aware of the rising price of fertilizer and noted: “We got a little blip.” Nonetheless, he said the administration is “working on it.”
While Iowa’s farmers have steadfastly supported the president, they have been looking to the White House for assurances that the current troubles won’t last.
Vance, who met with Iowa Gold Star families just before his public remarks, also became emotional as he discussed the sacrifices made by fallen U.S. soldiers and their families. He talked about wondering how he would react if his 6-year-old son, Vivek, who accompanied him Tuesday, told him later in life that he wanted to enlist, saying he would be “so proud of him” but also “so terrified.”
“Every time that a person gives the ultimate sacrifice to the United States of America ... there’s a whole crew of people who love them the same way that we all love every single member of our family,” he said, adding that “part of how we earn that incredible sacrifice” is “by making this country’s politics and government worthy of the people who put on the uniform and will never see their loved ones again.”
Earlier Tuesday, Vance, who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president, stopped first in Cincinnati to vote in Ohio’s primary elections and told reporters he was voting for Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor’s race. Asked about U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, who’s running in a special election to serve out the remainder of Vance’s term, Vance said he thinks Husted’s “going to do a great job” and has been “good for Ohio.”
His 6-year-old son, meanwhile, filled out a ballot for children, which the vice president showed to the poll workers when he cast his own ballot. “He voted for the Easter bunny over the tooth fairy,” he said of his son.
Before arriving in Iowa, Vance also appeared in Oklahoma City to hold a fundraiser in his role as finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
Kim Schmett, a longtime Iowa GOP activist, said the presidential cycle starts “deceptively slow.”
He said Trump’s Make America Great Again political movement “is very alive and going here” in Iowa, which would benefit Vance — as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also thought to be a potential candidate.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of MAGA support,” he said. “And Vice President Vance and Marco Rubio seem to be the recipients of where that is going at the moment.”
But Schmett cautioned, “It’s awfully, awfully early in the process.”
On the Democratic side, at least half a dozen presidential prospects have been making visits to the states with the earliest presidential primary contests, including recent visits to Iowa by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
Meanwhile, potential Republican presidential candidates “are treading very lightly,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant, who worked on Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“I think Republicans are going to be very reluctant to get in Trump’s way until Trump gives the green light for the campaign to start,” Conant said.
That means much of the groundwork to meet with donors or activists or recruit political staffers might happen slowly and subtly – for now.
After the midterms? Conant said: “It’ll be irresistible.”
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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report from Washington.
