The former vice-presidential
candidate Sarah Palin praised Donald J. Trump’s experience in the
private sector in announcing her support for him.
By REUTERS on Publish Date January 19, 2016.
Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times.
AMES, Iowa — Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.
“Are
you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said
with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you
ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the
United States — Donald Trump.”
Her
support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came
the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he
hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1
caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running
neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.
The
endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding
multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance
in the nation’s first nominating contest.
As
Mrs. Palin announced her backing, Mr. Trump stood wearing a satisfied
smile as she scolded mainstream Republicans as sellouts and praised how
Mr. Trump had shaken up the party. “He’s been going rogue left and
right,” Mrs. Palin said of Mr. Trump, using one of her signature
phrases. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil
off this idea of the system.”
It
is not clear that Mrs. Palin’s blessing will have a major impact on Mr.
Trump’s long-term prospects. But in Iowa, where Mrs. Palin spent years
developing a network of supporters, it could be helpful. Mr. Trump has
faced questions about whether his campaign’s organizing muscle can draw
the voters to match his poll numbers come caucus night.
“Over
the years Palin has actually cultivated a number of relationships in
Iowa,” said Craig Robinson, the former political director of the
Republican Party of Iowa and publisher of the website The Iowa Republican. “There are the Tea Party
activists who still think she’s great and a breath of fresh air, but
she also did a good job of courting Republican donors in the state,” he
added.
Other
conservatives said that Mrs. Palin serves as a particularly effective
shield against Mr. Cruz, who has assiduously courted Iowa’s evangelical
voters.
“Palin’s
brand among evangelicals is as gold as the faucets in Trump Tower,”
said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Endorsements
alone don’t guarantee victory, but Palin’s embrace of Trump may turn
the fight over the evangelical vote into a war for the soul of the
party,” he said.
Mrs.
Palin could amplify the news media-circus aspects of Mr. Trump’s
candidacy: She too is a reality television star accustomed to playing to
the cameras and often accused of emphasizing flash over substance.
And
while Mr. Trump has already shown the ability to garner wall-to-wall
cable-news coverage, Mrs. Palin’s involvement in his campaign could help
him deprive Mr. Cruz of attention in the homestretch to the caucuses.
As
rumors circulated that the endorsement was about to happen, Mr. Cruz
offered praise for his former political ally after an aide to the
senator mocked the pending endorsement earlier Tuesday. “I love Sarah Palin,”
the senator told reporters in New Hampshire. “Sarah Palin is fantastic.
Without her friendship and support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate today.
So regardless of what Sarah decides to do in 2016, I will always remain a
big, big fan of Sarah Palin.”
As
word of Mrs. Palin’s endorsement trickled through the Hansen
Agriculture Student Learning Center at Iowa State University, the
reaction from supporters of Mr. Trump who braved snow and frigid
temperatures to see the candidate was mixed. Backers of Mr. Trump filled
a warehouse-style building with a dirt floor that is sometimes used for
tractor shows, but most said that it was the candidate that they cared
about, not his new endorsement.
“I’m not here to see her,” said Rich Hoffmann, 41, of Ankeny. “Some people it will matter to, but it doesn’t to me.”
Mrs. Palin and Mr. Trump are not strangers. The two shared pizza
along with Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, in May 2011, when Mrs. Palin was
considering a presidential run of her own and was making a bus tour
around the country. (Mr. Trump was mocked at the time for using a knife
and fork on his slice.)
They also share a trusted operative: Mr. Trump’s national political director, Michael Glassner, was chief of staff to Mrs. Palin’s political action committee.
And
like Mr. Trump, Mrs. Palin has maverick tendencies. The mantra of her
final weeks of the 2008 campaign was “going rogue,” as she defied
instructions from aides to Senator John McCain of Arizona, the party’s
presidential nominee.
Little-known
before Mr. McCain picked her as his running mate, Mrs. Palin ultimately
eclipsed him in popularity and polls show her maintaining strong
support among Republicans. She has endured as a coveted endorser with an
impressive fund-raising list. After the loss in 2008, she declined to
finish her term in Alaska, and went on to become a television star and a
Fox News commentator.
The
endorsement of Mr. Trump puts Mrs. Palin back in the center of the
media maelstrom, and allows her to rehabilitate her political image,
which had diminished in the last year as her contract with Fox News
ended.
Mrs.
Palin endorsed several of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals in their
statewide races, including Mr. Cruz during his Senate bid in Texas and
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Mr. Cruz, after his 2012 primary victory
over the incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, said he would
not have made it to the Senate without Mrs. Palin’s backing.
\
For
Mr. Trump, who is trying to accrue other endorsements in the coming
weeks, the backing of high-profile Republicans could dent the
outsider-to-politics aura that has been elemental to his success in the
polls before the voting has begun. But the support of Mrs. Palin, a
darling of the Tea Party insurgency, could help inoculate him from such
attacks.
The
endorsement comes as Mr. Cruz is facing increasing scrutiny in Iowa for
his opposition to federal ethanol mandates, highlighted by the
criticism from Governor Branstad, whose son works for a group promoting
ethanol, the corn-based fuel that is a crucial Iowa industry.
“Ted
Cruz is ahead right now. What we’re trying to do is educate the people
in the state of Iowa,” Mr. Branstad told reporters at the Renewable
Fuels Summit in Altoona. “He is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels.
He actually introduced a bill in 2013 to immediately eliminate the
Renewable Fuel Standard.”
“He’s heavily financed by Big Oil,” the governor added. “I think it would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him.”
The
remark was highly unusual for Mr. Branstad, an establishment Republican
who nonetheless has stayed out of his party’s presidential primaries in
the past.
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