Editorial: Iowa must reject Trump

If Donald Trump walks away with the Iowa Caucuses, by all odds he will be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. That would set up a rematch with President Joe Biden, which is a big gamble for the GOP considering that Trump is credibly accused of being the biggest fraud in American political history.

Iowa Republicans say they are shopping around. Trump clearly held hearts and minds firmly during the Lincoln Dinner last week. Candidate Will Hurd of Texas was booed off stage when he stated the obvious: Trump is running for president to avoid prison.

Polls indicate that Trump leads his next closest rival, Ron DeSantis of Florida, by at least 20 percentage points — and DeSantis appears to be waning. The rest of the candidates are muddling around without traction. After he was indicted, again, this time for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, most of the Republican challengers called it a political prosecution. This despite the fact that we witnessed Trump directing the Jan. 6 insurrection live on television, and we heard the phone call when Trump demanded that the Georgia Secretary of State fabricate enough votes (about 11,000) for Trump to win.

Biden beat Trump soundly, in the popular vote and the electoral college. Biden will beat him again, because independent voters can smell a loser. A New York Times/Siena College Poll this week found Trump and Biden in a dead heat. That may be, for now. The latest indictment has just been unsealed and awaits digestion. More are in the works, including in Georgia where Trump cannot pardon himself if he were re-elected.

The economy keeps improving. Unemployment is low and wages are up. Inflation is falling while investments in manufacturing are ballooning — a great sign for improved productivity. People are beginning to feel some relief, and are starting to see the fruits of big infrastructure investments in key swing states. Democrats will come home to Biden in the face of Trump. Independent voters are so beyond the Trump whining, and will come to appreciate the depths of his deceit even more fully as the court cases unfold.

Iowa Republicans have perfectly reasonable alternatives, any of whom could beat Biden when Trump cannot. If they want to reclaim the White House and control the Senate, they do not want Trump on top of the ticket. Of those who were not Trump lackeys, Hurd and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas emerge as having the guts to confront the truth. Hurd is a former CIA agent and congressman who won and held onto a purple district along the border. Hutchinson is a former governor and US attorney who plays well with evangelicals and Main Street Republicans. Tim Scott of South Carolina could muster the courage at some point to become a real contender. Any of them could beat Biden.

Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll, a court found. His business was guilty of criminal charges. His former accountant went to prison for it. Is this the candidate Iowa Republicans want going into an election where they could complete a trifecta of winning the House, the Senate and the White House?

Republicans lost the 2018 midterms because of Trump. They lost in 2020. They blew taking over the Senate in 2022, and barely won the House because of Trump. If Iowa Republicans want to win national elections, they need somebody other than Trump leading the charge.

They can believe it is all a witch hunt. Former prosecutor Hutchinson, for one, thinks the indictments (election tampering and stealing classified documents) look pretty solid. So does Trump’s former White House counsel. Iowa Republicans can believe Trump just got bum advice, when his own attorney general told him that his stolen-election theories were ludicrous. They believe they can run into a headwind of an improving economy with Biden at the helm. They can believe in Trump and lose again.

Or, they can agree on somebody else. There are not three tickets out of Iowa if Trump wins by 20 points. The nomination will be decided that caucus night. New Hampshire and South Carolina will be perfunctory. It is up to Iowans to save the Republican Party from another sure defeat. Democrats would love nothing more than to see Donald Trump as the nominee even if he somehow is able to skirt further convictions. Imagine the campaign while Trump fights off federal and state prosecutors along with civil complaints. He already has blown most of his political fundraising on paying for lawyers. He is wounded and staggering. Iowa Republicans can excise the problem but it appears that Trump only gains party support as his revolting offenses come back to haunt. If Trump were to place second in Iowa, that may well finally bury him and allow the Republican Party to reclaim its integrity.