WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2016
- Rep. Steve King can say “I told you so” after the outcome in the Iowa
caucuses. He warned back in January that corn growers and ethanol producers
risked a significant defeat for the industry if they publicly opposed Ted Cruz
over his position on the Renewable Fuel Standard, and Cruz still won the GOP
race.
Ethanol
foes wasted no time declaring that the Cruz victory Monday showed that
ethanol’s political clout was waning even in Iowa.
“I think a clear message coming out of Iowa is that whatever political
influence ethanol used to have in the state, those days are now over,” said George David Banks, executive
vice president of a free-market advocacy group, the American
Council for Capital Formation.
New York Times
correspondent Jonathan Martin tweeted that the anti-Cruz campaign, led by Gov.
Terry Branstad and the industry group run by his son, America’s Renewable
Future, “revealed how limited it (ethanol) is as a vote-driver. It's an
elites/industry issue. Voters are nationalized here.”
The spokesman for the
National Chicken Council, which has long been critical of biofuel mandates,
tweeted: “It Can Be Done: The anti-ethanol candidate wins in Iowa.”
Indeed, Cruz won by
winning or running strong in many, if not most, of the heaviest corn-growing
counties of the state. He dominated north-central Iowa and carried numerous
counties in the northwest and other regions. Donald Trump’s strength was on the
state’s western and eastern borders. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio carried the Des
Moines and Davenport areas and the home counties of Iowa State University and
the University of Iowa.
Even former Kansas Sen.
Bob Dole, who publicly supports Jeb Bush and is no Cruz fan, told Agri-Pulse that “you have to give him
(Cruz) credit for the way he organized in Iowa and got people to show up.”
Cruz
won five of Iowa’s top 10 corn-producing counties, based on 2014 production
data, and lost a sixth, Webster, by a mere three votes to Donald Trump. Among the Cruz counties was the
state’s top corn producer, Kossuth, which the Texas senator carried by 30
percent to 24 percent for Trump.
The Cruz win probably
won’t have much impact on congressional debates for the immediate future. The
RFS still enjoys fairly strong support in the Senate. But the outcome does show
that a candidate with a strong organization in the state and the right support
can touch the supposed third rail of Iowa politics -- the RFS -- and still win.
Industry
officials say they had no choice but to take on Cruz, who wants to phase out
the RFS. “We have to hold
candidates accountable for their positions,” said Jon Doggett, executive vice
president for the National Corn Growers Association. “Does it mean you’re going
to win every time? Hell, no.”
The Cruz win was a clear
rebuff to Branstad, who called in January for defeating Cruz, and the
governor's son, Eric, who leads the industry advocacy group America's Renewable
Future. The younger Branstad worked up to the last minute to stop Cruz, even
speaking in favor of Trump at a Des Moines-area precinct before the voting
began Monday night.
Industry advocates,
including Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pointed out that nearly three-quarters
of the more than 180,000 Republican voters in Iowa, a record turnout by a large
margin, chose a candidate who supports the RFS, in other words, someone besides
Cruz. Also, the No. 2 and No. 3 finishers on Monday -- Trump and Rubio -- both
received more votes than the two top vote-getters in 2012, Rick Santorum and
Mitt Romney.
“There’s no doubt that
this issue cost Ted Cruz votes,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the
Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. “Did he come out on top? Yes, he did. But did
the vast majority of Iowans support a pro-RFS candidate? Yes, they did.”
What can’t be
overlooked is the role King himself played. King, whose district stretches
across north-central and much of western Iowa, is very popular with the
conservative rural voters Cruz was targeting. And as Agri-Pulse has reported,
King connected Cruz with Dave
VanderGriend, CEO of the biofuels
technology company ICM Inc., who helped the candidate devise a policy that
would rely on overhauling federal fuel regulations to increase ethanol consumption.
King also was at the senator’s side as he was forced to field questions and
criticism about his policy.
Cruz’s
attempt to nuance his position probably helped win some rural support, said
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. “My guess is that the statements that he was making
late in the campaign about the blend wall and his support of higher blends
mollified at least some people.”
King told Agri-Pulse on
Tuesday that the industry should recognize that it lost its campaign against
Cruz and instead consider adopting his policy ideas. “Cooler heads need to
recognize that you can’t claim that you win if the other guy that the governor
targets to lose wins. That doesn’t work for anybody’s logic,” King said.
Cruz won 27.6 percent of
the vote, to 24.3 percent for Trump and 23.1 percent for Rubio. Former Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush, who was an early favorite of many in Iowa agribusiness, finished
sixth with less than 3 percent.
Hillary Clinton
won the Democratic race in Iowa by the slimmest of margins over Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders, according to the state party's final delegate count. Clinton
was awarded 700.6 state delegate equivalents. Sanders received 696.8. Both
candidates support the RFS.
#30
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