Andrew Harnik, Kena Betancur, Hal Yeager/Getty Images
15 Jul 2021Des Moines, IA
DES MOINES, Iowa — Possible GOP presidential candidates are already hitting the would-be campaign trail in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire nearly three years before the first caucus-goers and primary voters will make their decisions on who should represent the Republican Party in the upcoming 2024 presidential race.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will all speak here in Iowa’s capital at the Family Leadership Summit on Friday—an annual gathering of Christian conservatives that helped propel now former President Donald Trump to the front of the pack at the beginning of the 2016 primaries with his summer 2015 speech here. Trump will not be at this year’s event, but two of his closest confidantes in his administration—Pence, his vice president, and Pompeo, his CIA director-turned-Secretary of State—will be. Noem has also been close with Trump, appearing at a number of his rallies and employing Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as one of her top advisers.