Thirteen Republican presidential candidates attended the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines Friday night.
While most of the evening’s focus was the sparring between GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, stuck to his hardline conservative social policies including stating he would reinstitute a ban on military service by transgender Americans.
According to a FiveThirtyEight poll released this past week, Trump leads with 52.4 percent, over DeSantis with 15.5 percent and the rest of the current GOP field at under 10 percent in the race for the party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention scheduled to be held July 15-18, 2024, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
Each candidate was slotted 10 minutes to speak at the Republican party fundraiser, after which at the 10 minute mark the microphone was to be turned off. The speaking order for the event was in order save for Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who skipped the fundraiser as he focuses on New Hampshire:
- Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
- Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
- U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
- Businessman Perry Johnson
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum
- Former Vice President Mike Pence
- Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd
- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
- Businessman Ryan Binkley
- Conservative talk radio host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder
- Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy
- Former President Donald Trump
In his remarks to the more than 1,200 people in the huge ballroom the former vice president said:
“We can embrace our role as leader of the free world to confront Russian aggression and Chinese provocations with a new military fitted to the challenges in the 21st century. And we can end the political correctness at the Pentagon, including reinstituting a ban on transgender personnel in the United States military.”
That brought cheers from the audience.
Story courtesy of the Washington Blade via the National LGBTQ Media Association. The National LGBTQ Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: https://nationallgbtmediaassociation.com/