Trump wins Henry County Caucus

MT. PLEASANT — Hundreds of Henry County Republicans swiftly made their preferences known as nearly 65% cast their ballots in favor of former President Donald Trump during the Republican Caucus Monday night.

Of the 672 caucus participants Henry County Republican Central Committee saw show up Monday evening, 436 voted for the former president. With less than a third of Trump’s votes, 123 votes put Ron DeSantis in second for the county.

Nikki Haley managed to claim third in the Henry County Caucus with just over 12% of the votes (82) followed by Vivek Ramaswamy with 27 votes. Ryan Binkley and “other” both received two votes.

Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson did not receive any votes in Henry County.

While some caucus gatherings across the state saw heated debated with multiple representatives speaking on behalf of their favored candidates, discussion and voting at the Mt. Pleasant precincts remained calm, cool, and collected.

In the caucus for residents of Mt. Pleasant’s Precinct 7, only one representative spoke on behalf of a candidate, DeSantis, and the remainder of candidates simply had a letter read on their behalf by the evening’s elected secretary, Lena Schrader.

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“Ron DeSantis is a fighter for freedom,” Christopher Arp told Precinct 7 as he read a prepared statement on DeSantis’ behalf.

After telling the room, filled to the brim with people, about DeSantis’ qualifications in education, military service, and government work experience, Arp asked Precinct 7 to reconsider before casting their ballots for Trump.

“For those of you still on the fence and deciding about to vote this evening, President Trump enacted conservative policies and put some great people on the Supreme Court, but he also promised to eliminate the debt, and added nearly 8 trillion to the national debt,” he said. “He promised to drain the swamp, but he wouldn’t fire bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci. Lastly, he’s mired in controversy and political prosecutions.”

The other candidate letters read made similar comments urging caucus participants to vote differently. Despite these words and the lack of a representative or letter on Trump’s behalf in Precinct 7’s caucus, 37 of the 72 participants in the room cast their ballots for Trump.

Even with a representative in the room, DeSantis only received 19 votes. Comparatively, Haley received 15 with only a letter read to Precinct 7.

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As the evening’s elected chair Sally Kinney informed the room, “The winner of the 2024 Seventh Precinct Caucus is Donald J. Trump,” applause and cheers filled the room.

The whole process from beginning prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to announcement of Trump as the winner took Precinct 7 less than 30 minutes and the other Mt. Pleasant precincts, also meeting at the First United Methodist Church in Mt. Pleasant, were not far behind.

According to reports of a Precinct 4 participant, their process was very similar with only one representative speaking on Trump’s behalf and only letters from other candidates.

In their similarly short caucus, Precinct 4 had a similar outcome resulting in 48 votes for Trump, 7 for Haley, and 7 for DeSantis.

The chair for Precinct 6 commented that a number of individuals spoke on behalf of a variety of candidates in their caucus. While this meant their caucus lasted the longest of precincts 4-7, the outcome did not vary much from other precincts or Iowa’s total caucus outcome.

Mt. Pleasant Precinct 6 reported 45 votes for Trump, 12 for Haley, and 10 for DeSantis.

The overall 436 votes from Henry County Republicans contributed to the overall 51% win for Trump in the Iowa caucuses as reported by the Associated Press.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com