At the Iowa State Fair, a subdued response from voters after years of intense politics

DES MOINES, Iowa — Politics has long been a staple of the Iowa State Fair, a mandatory stop for White House hopefuls, even during a midterm cycle. But this year the turbulent weather seemed to outdo the more subdued political atmosphere.

The big names to grace the fair this year were two of the more moderate potential candidates in an otherwise raucous field of possible 2024 contenders: Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Most of the action typically comes in the summer, immediately preceding the party primaries. The summer of 2023 is expected to be the big draw, and next year’s state fair could lose some of its juice if Democrats decide to shuffle their early-state calendar after the debacle that was Iowa’s 2020 Democratic caucuses.

But sharp pols often don’t wait until just months before the actual Iowa caucuses to start laying groundwork with Iowa voters.

In 2014, Sen. Ted Cruz drew a large crowd for his speech at the Des Moines Register Soapbox stand — and roughly 18 months later he bested then-candidate Donald Trump in the first of the 2016 contests. And prior to the Democrats’ 2020 nominating battle, longtime Texas Democrat Julian Castro, Rep. Eric Swalwell and Andrew Yang all attended there in 2018 there.

“I was very surprised that more ambitious national Republicans didn’t make a trip out,” said Pat Rynard, managing editor of the long-running Iowa politics site Iowa Starting Line. “This right now seems like the safe time to do so, before Trump announces a run, since after that you risk upsetting his supporters by looking like you’re going to challenge him.”

Top Iowa Republicans graced the fair, but didn’t drum up big crowds, and the famous Register soapbox was hardly the draw that it’s been in past midterm cycles, Rynard said.

Shortly after Pence toured the fair last Friday, attendees took shelter from a torrential downpour that included golf-ball-size hail; they seemed more excited about the ice cold beer advertised at the Steer ’n’ Stein than about the politics of the moment.

“I haven’t really been keeping up, I’m kind of checked out after the last five years,” said Jenn DeVries, a 34-year-old from New Virginia, Iowa, who votes Democrat. “It’s just all of the drama that’s just happened in the last hour of six years, between COVID and the politics and ... people’s rights being taken away. It’s just a very volatile time that we're in.”

But the Supreme Court decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade has energized DeVries to head back to the polls and vote this November. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

It could be written off as “Midwest nice,” but even for an off-year at an epicenter of American politics, the mood reflected a certain exhaustion with the nonstop insanity of political events dating back to when Trump descended a golden escalator in Manhattan.

The relative political malaise might be reflected by the big-name politicos who graced the fair this summer — Hogan, who said at the Reagan Library that he was speaking to the “exhausted majority” — and Pence, with his typically scripted talks and overly sincere demeanor.

“I would probably vote for Pence, as long as it’s a normal Republican,” said Greg Gent, a 58-year-old independent from Wellman, Iowa. “I like following the [U.S.] Constitution, he went out on a limb to follow the Constitution, so I respect that,” Gent said, referring to Pence’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

His wife, Georgia Gent, said she chooses who to support based on the candidates themselves, not based on party, and told Yahoo News she favored Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2020.

She said she likes Pence better “now that he’s not vice president. I think he’s being more honest and open. I thought he was supposed to be a good person. And then while he was the vice president, I was questioning his morals. But now I feel like he's being able to be more honest. He’s kind of more open.”

It could be that the Gents and others gathered under the roof of the Steer ’n’ Stein don’t reflect the driving forces in modern politics. (Gent hinted at this when he said he worried that primary voters typically select “radicals” who then face trouble winning the general election.)

And for now, national trends seem to reflect the rise of political extremism as a permanent fixture. An NBC News poll released over the weekend found Trump maintaining his grip on the party, and an increased likelihood he would win the Republican nomination in 2024.

The telltale signs of Trump’s previous cultural dominance, which looked unshakable for many years, were largely missing from the state fair — specifically anyone wearing red MAGA hats or other MAGA gear.

But Trump’s hold on the party’s staunchest supporters seems firm as ever, and the nationalist populism at the core of Trump’s “America First” turn in the party also seems to be cemented.

The time of Republicans capitulating to Democrats is long gone, Owen Greenough, a 59-year-old Republican from Des Moines, said as a thunderclap popped outside that was so strong it sent a gust of air through the outdoor bar, to cheers from the fairgoers.

Greenough said he caucused for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016, but soon came around to supporting Trump. He likes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible alternative to Trump in 2024 and also Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, but said the party can’t go back to the weakness of establishment Republicans.

Trump “laid [out] the playbook on how you play politics. Too many Republicans want to get along to get along. And I’m tired of that,” Greenough said. “You know, we gotta play like, we gotta play by the rules of the left now.”