ROCK VALLEY, Iowa Waiting in line for the sign-up table at his Iowa Caucus precinct on Monday night, Donavan Wallenburg was asked by a reporter if hes a Trump supporter.
What gave it away? said the 43-year-old with a smirk, turning to reveal the back of his sweatshirt, which read: JESUS IS MY SAVIOR. TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT.
Wallenburg, who owns a trucking business, was hardly alone in his support of the former Republican president and 2024 primary frontrunner in this northwest Iowa community, about 15 miles from the South Dakota border in Sioux County.
Rock Valley, hometown of former University of South Dakota and current Miami Dolphins linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, is known for football, farming and Christian conservative politics, not necessarily in that order. Voters here helped Trump carry 51% of the statewide vote Monday in a record-setting Iowa Caucus performance for a Republican.
With a likely rematch looming in November against Democratic President Joe Biden, talk has turned to Trumps choice for a running mate. Wallenburg, sporting a red Trump 2024 baseball cap in the entranceto Rock Valley Community School, saidhis vice presidential preference would be South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Shes a proven leader, especially through COVID, Wallenburg said. Im a business owner here in Iowa, but there were a lot of times I wished I would have been in South Dakota under what she had going on. Shes also for farmers and the Second Amendment. Shes awesome.
South Dakotas governor, who served as a Trump surrogate on the Iowa campaign trail and endorsed him at a Rapid City event in September 2023, has not concealed her interest in joining the ticket.
Shes currently the betting favorite to get the nod from Trump, according to OddsChecker.com. Noem is listed ahead of businessman and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson; and former United Nations Ambassador and presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who finished third in Iowa behind Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Stefanik, the House GOP Conference Chairwoman, is scheduled to campaign with Trump in New Hampshire this week, fueling speculation about her vice presidential prospects and her desire to be part of the ticket.
I would be honored to serve in any capacity in a Trump administration, she said recently on NBCs Meet the Press.
Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Jan. 10 that he knew who his VP pick was going to be, though his campaign walked that statement back the following day. He didnt announce Mike Pence as a running mate until July of 2016, but there are indications that the 2024 pick could emerge earlier, potentially cutting short Noems second term as South Dakotas chief executive.
Shes clearly positioned herself as a national figure in Republican circles and one who is a Trump loyalist to boot, Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen, told News Watch. Given Trumps history, the number of Republicans he can reasonably choose from is a little lower than normal, because hes alienated or openly criticized many Republican officeholders. I would be surprised if Noem wasnt among the two or three finalists. From there, its a bit of a crap shoot.
The Rock Valley caucus site hosted three of the roughly 1,670 precincts sprinkled throughout Iowa in school gyms, cafeterias and church basements. The Republican format features caucus captains making speeches about their candidate before blank slips of paper are provided for everyone to write down votes.
The Trump caucus captain in Rock Valley was 57-year-old David Honse, a Gulf War veteran and father of seven who took the auditorium stage after the Pledge of Allegiance.
He praised Trumps White House policies in contrast to Bidens administration, particularly as they pertain to the southern border, more than 1,000 miles from northwest Iowa.
If you were to look around our nation right now, you could very easily understand and see that we are nowhere near as safe as we were in 2020, said Honse. The border is wide open. We are having trouble with rampant invasion in our southern states.
An Associated Press poll found that roughly 4 in 10 Iowa caucus-goers cited immigration as the most important issue facing America, with the economy second. The poll also found that about 9 in 10 caucus-goers said they backed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an increase from 2016.
In her State of the State Address, Noem talked about visiting South Dakota National Guard troops at the border in September 2023 and seeing the inhumanity of Bidens failed policies.
Honses speech was met with applause from an audience that mirrored the demographic profile of Sioux County, which is 86% white with nearly 20% of its residents 65 and older. Trump garnered 82.3% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election, making it Bidens second-worst Iowa county. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win here was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
After leaving the stage, Honse expressed his admiration for South Dakotas governor when asked about vice presidential options. He cited the states laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, a narrative that Noem has carefully crafted as part of her freedom-focused national brand.
I like the way that she was able to keep South Dakota open during COVID and her thoughts about how she has been very forthright in the freedoms of the citizens of her state, said Honse, who works for an agricultural wholesaler and is active in Rock Valleys American Legion.
I think that type of governance would be moved forward in her role as a vice president.
Some South Dakota conservatives have questioned the validity of Noems libertarian credentials, noting that she closed schools in the spring of 2020 and proposed laws seeking more authority for state and county health officials to shutter businesses that violated CDC guidelines.
Honse, who also thinks former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson would make a good VP choice, acknowledged a degree of nuance to pandemic policies when comparing Noems approach to that of Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, an ally of DeSantis in the primary race.
As a resident of Iowa, I do think that Noem did some things better than what our governor did, but that was a unique time for all parties involved, he said.
I think that we could have all done some things better and we could have done some things worse.
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