Jeff Kaufman (file photo)
The chairman of the Iowa GOP says he’s confident Iowa’s Caucuses will be first in the nation in 2020. Ronna Romney McDaniel was elected as the new chair of the Republican National Committee yesterday.
Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, has already talked with her about Iowa’s role as the lead-off event in presidential elections.
“I said: ‘I hope we’ve proven to you as a state that we can handle this honor,'” Kaufmann said. “She said: ‘I was very impressed with what you’ve done.'”
The GOP’s new leader, however, comes from Michigan and politicians from that state — from both parties — have for years been clamoring for Michigan to have an earlier role in selecting presidential nominees. Kaufmann says it’s cheaper to run a campaign in Iowa than it is in Michigan, plus as of today there’s a Republican in the White House who has pledged to keep Iowa first.
“Anybody that is the head of the party got the nod from Donald Trump,” Kaufmann says, “and Donald Trump has spoke definitively.”
During several appearances in Iowa this past summer and fall, Trump promised to keep Iowa’s Caucuses “first-in-the-nation” if he were elected president — and Trump has already revealed his 2020 campaign slogan. National GOP leaders will appoint a commission soon to look at how best to arrange the events on the next presidential election calendar. Kaufmann says his goal is to get at an Iowan on that commission, along with advocates of keeping New Hampshire and South Carolina as the “early” states.
“So that’s kind of our next step,” Kaufmann says.
Romney McDaniel, by the way, is the niece of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. She is the second woman to lead the Republican National Committee. The first was Mary Louise Smith of Des Moines, who was RNC chairwoman from 1975 until 1977.