DES MOINES — Vice President JD Vance passed a new milestone Tuesday in his still unconfirmed 2028 presidential bid: a campaign stop in Iowa, the state that will host the first contest to select the Republican Party’s next standard bearer.
Never mind that it was a rally for someone else, Rep. Zach Nunn, one of the embattled House Republicans for whom Vance will spend the coming months stumping in hopes of driving up GOP turnout in the midterms. Or that Vance, who has privately said he won’t make a decision about his 2028 plans until after the birth of his fourth child in July, is still months away from certainty about his political future.
In a rally inside the warehouse of a plant that manufactures semitruck grille guards, his Iowa seal was broken, as the ambitious, 41-year-old vice president directly addressed a few hundred Republicans in what may be the first of many such visits to the Hawkeye State.
“Please take a seat,” Vance told the audience standing to applaud as he walked onto a stage flanked by the cabs of 18-wheelers. “You give a politician a microphone, we got about three hours to go.”
His brief visit here comes as Vance attempts to project loyalty to President Donald Trump even as the administration remains involved in a war in Iran that Vance has privately signaled he was not eager to see the United States enter — and that has coincided with further sinking of both Trump’s and Vance’s approval ratings, a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos pollfound.
During his speech, Vance, a Marine veteran who served in the Iraq war, noted that Iowa had borne the brunt of the U.S. service members recently killed in the ongoing war with Iran. He met with Gold Star families on the airport tarmac before riding to the event venue.
Vance briefly choked up as he imagined the prospect of his own 6-year-old son, who was traveling with him Tuesday, joining the military and serving in a war someday and drew a standing ovation from the crowd when he discussed the importance of honoring those killed in action.
After being dispatched last month to lead negotiations with Iran in Pakistan, a difficult, high-profile assignment that did not result in a deal to end the war, Vance has turned his public focus back to domestic issues, championing his work to find instances of fraud against the federal government.
When Vance was tapped as Trump’s running mate in 2024, he was quickly deployed as the campaign’s Midwest whisperer, traveling Middle America armed with stories about his working-class background. But there was one notable destination in the region in which Vance spent little time: Iowa, where the political fortunes of presidential hopefuls can be made or dashed.
Trump had already dominated the state’s January caucus and forced his Republican rivals out of the field by the time he chose Vance as his running mate. While Vance attended a closed-door fundraiser in Des Moines that October, the state wasn’t a campaign destination for him as the Trump team was confident it would easily win the state that fall.
Vance has been slow to return, even as other ambitious Republicans, such as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, trekked here for widely attended conservative summits and dinners in 2025. On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has openly teased his own interest in another run for president, was the keynote speaker at a spring forum held by the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition.
A prominent conservative leader in Iowa tried to recruit Vance to one such event last year, inviting the vice president to speak at a large gathering of activists. Vance declined.
“There will be so much speculation if I do that,” Vance said at the time, letting out a laugh as he turned down the invitation, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. “I can’t do that.” The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private discussion.
Vance was not alone in the limelight of potential candidates Tuesday. His debut in the first-in-the-nation caucus state took place a few hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio — widely seen as a top contender for the presidential nomination if Vance doesn’t seek it — spent nearly an hour on camera fielding questions from reporters in the White House press briefing room.
Rubio defended the administration’s approach to Iran and talked about Trump’s preference for a diplomatic settlement, which he referred to as “the route that Steve and Jared have been working,” a reference to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff. He did not mention Vance.
Backstage at the manufacturing facility, the vice president spent time posing for photos with a few dozen Iowa political activists and donors before coming out to speak.
Three people with knowledge of the timing behind the White House deploying Vance said there was no special reason the vice president came here this week, as opposed to closer to the general election. The stop was merely next on the White House’s list of swing-state House districts for Vance to visit.
“Gotta go to Iowa eventually,” one of the people said of Vance, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House political strategy.
Nate Bradbury, 45, of Monroe, some 30 miles southeast of Des Moines, said he came to the event to see Vance in person after finding him to be “a very good speaker on TV.” He said he likes both Vance and Rubio as 2028 presidential candidates and will want to hear from all candidates even if Trump endorses someone.
“I always vote based off of my individual opinion, and it don’t matter who endorses who for me,” Bradbury said. “I do think the more candidates on the ballot or in the primaries is always a good thing.”
Nunn’s congressional race is among the most competitive in a growing list of what are expected to be difficult reelection fights for swing-district House Republicans. His race against Democratic state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott is one of several in Iowa this year expected to be too close for comfort for Republicans — and which Democrats see as possible pickups. That includes the open seats to succeed GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst, as well as Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s reelection.
“I think what Vance knows intuitively is that if they have a successful midterm, his chances at being the nominee to replace Trump are very high,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of the Family Leader, a conservative organization based in Iowa. “If the midterms are dismal, it’s probably going to be a wide-open caucus and primary cycle.”
Even six months before the 2028 contest will begin in earnest — and more than a year and a half before Iowa Republicans will caucus — there is already an appetite here to hear from the potential candidates themselves.
At Friday’s Faith & Freedom Coalition forum, an event that has historically drawn 600 or 700 attendees, nearly 1,200 turned out to hear a speech from Cruz, who has sought to distance himself from Vance on some matters of foreign policy, the influence of Israel skeptics such as Tucker Carlson, and more.
Steve Scheffler, president of the coalition and Iowa’s national committeeman to the Republican National Committee, said conservatives in the state are looking for someone who will “take it to the mat to the left” in 2028, but likely aren’t decided on who that should be.
“It could be, say Cruz, it could be Rubio,” Scheffler said. “It could be Vance. It could be a lot of other people.”
“I think if you took a poll, I think most of them would say yeah, they’d like to see two, three, four, five candidates run,” Scheffler continued. “I think there’s nothing wrong about a competitive presidential contest, because a lot of times that candidate comes out stronger.”
Kelley Koch, former chair of the Dallas County Republican Party, based just outside Des Moines, has remained involved as an activist in Iowa Republican politics, co-founding the local organization MAGA Nation last year. She and other activists in her sphere are fairly high on Vance.
“The mood is that he is the heir apparent,” Koch said. “He’s got a young vibe — younger, he’s edgier. He’s talking to all the younger platforms.”
But Rubio?
“I’ll be honest with you, Rubio is a star,” Koch said of the secretary of state, who was once dismissed by Trump’s die-hard MAGA base. “I really wasn’t a fan, but he has really done a remarkable job in all facets.”
Flashes of generational divides are already appearing in the nascent 2028 contest here. At the Friday forum, Cruz received roaring applause in the room when he went after Carlson for his criticism of Israel. Cruz has argued Carlson should not be seen as a legitimate voice within the conservative movement.
Scheffler said Cruz and his Carlson criticisms were “very, very well received.” But Koch, who was also in attendance, said she quickly got a disapproving text message from her Gen-Z son.
“That did not go well with the young people,” Koch said.
Steve Deace, a popular national conservative radio host based in Iowa, said he thinks “the odds are high” that he’ll back Vance ahead of the 2028 caucuses.
“I think with Charlie gone, he’s our best chance to reach the next generation of young men,” Deace said, referring to Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was killed last year, and who was a friend of Vance’s. “The ability to hold together the next generation of young men and to hold our coalition together — I think, I think by far, he’s our best option.”
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