Iowa Republican officials rally behind Trump at state GOP convention

Gov. Kim Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird and others at the state Republican convention on Saturday emphasized the need to defeat President Joe Biden in November and put former President Donald Trump back in the White House.

Republicans from across the state gathered at the Horizon Event Center in Clive for the state convention, where they chose delegates to send to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee July 15-18. It’s the final step in the presidential nominating process that began with the 2024 Iowa Republican caucuses.

Trump, the only major GOP presidential candidate remaining, secured an early and decisive win in the January Iowa Republican caucuses — the first-in-the-nation contest — where he beat his closest competitors Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley by a nearly 30-point margin.

While all the Republican elected and party officials at the state convention spoke in support of Trump, not all were supporters during the caucuses. Trump heavily criticized Reynolds for staying neutral during most of the 2024 caucus campaign season, and escalated his criticism when the Iowa governor endorsed DeSantis in November 2023.

In endorsing DeSantis, Reynolds said she believed the Florida governor had a better shot at winning against Biden in the general election than Trump — but she also repeatedly stated her plans to support whoever became the Republican nominee. At the convention, Reynolds said that she knows Republicans, if united, “can restore the greatness to this country.”

“We showed up, we listened and while we may have been on different sides (during the caucuses), I can tell you without a doubt, without hesitation, that we share a common goal,” Reynolds said. “And that is ending Joe Biden’s political career. I am proud to endorse President Donald Trump — He is a fighter, he is a leader.”

Reynolds first announced her endorsement of Trump in March, following Haley’s exit from the race.

Bird, who endorsed Trump in October 2023, shared a message for Trump at the convention: “Iowa has your back.”

“President Trump is depending on you to win Iowa big so he can focus on other states,” Bird said. “And you know what I told him? Don’t worry, we’re working hard here in Iowa, we have election integrity. We’ll take care of you.”

Both of the Republican statewide officials also criticized the Biden administration — and the recent threatened lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice over a law Reynolds signed making illegal immigration a state crime in Iowa. Bird characterized this law as a way for Iowa “to do the job the federal government won’t do” on enforcement of immigration laws.

“And now the Biden administration, they say they’re going to sue us,” Bird said. “Well I’ve got something to tell the Biden administration in response. Go pound sand.”

In a letter to Reynolds and Bird this week, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton wrote that the Iowa law violates the U.S. Constitution and conflicts with federal authority in enforcement of immigration laws. Boynton gave the Iowa officials until May 7 to respond to the request to prevent the law from going into effect before the federal department plans to take court action, but both Bird and Reynolds have indicated they do not plan to stop the law from moving forward.

Multiple Republican speakers praised Trump’s border policies at the convention, contrasting them with immigration law enforcement under Biden’s time in office. Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann called for Republicans to rally behind Trump, even if they have some differences of opinion.

If the possibility of four more years of Biden as president is “not enough to unify everyone in this room, there’s not much else I can say,” Kaufmann said.

“Every action I take from now until November, I’m going to ask myself one question: How does this help to put Donald Trump back in the White House?” Kaufmann said. “That’s all that matters.”