Ten years after celebrating his caucus victory at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Sen. Ted Cruz returned to the Des Moines area Friday, fueling chatter about a potential 2028 presidential bid.
Cruz told the audience of conservative Christians that the Republican party is “winning historic victories” under President Donald Trump’s second administration. “We have won more victories than at any time since we have been alive,” he said, pointing to low immigration crossings at the southern border and a federal ruling on Friday banning abortion pills to be mailed to patients, a major victory for anti-abortion groups.
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The senator’s presence in Iowa is significant since it is where the first presidential nominating contests happen in the country, but he didn’t tease plans of running.
Instead he used his speech to address anti-Semitism and blamed Democrats for it.
“About 10 years ago, anti-Semitism began rising on the left and the Democrat Party leadership looked the other way and hoped it would go away,” Cruz said. “I truly believe this is an existential crisis and here’s why: Anti-semitism is a gateway drug to anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism.”
The senator called out two former Trump supporters: Tucker Carlson and former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have both become some of the president’s most vocal critics. He called them “self-appointed, outspoken influencers who are pushing anti-Ssemitism on the right” who have “lost their ever-loving minds.”
Cruz won the famed Iowa Republican Caucus in 2016, narrowly beating Donald Trump at the onset of an intense series of contests in which he would ultimately come in second to the eventual president. As a first-term, 45-year-old senator at the time, Cruz barnstormed the Hawkeye State by building out a massive field operation, visiting each of the state’s 99 counties and earning the endorsement of influential Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vaander Plaats.
The Texan was the first major Republican candidate to launch a presidential bid in 2015 and went on to win 11 states in the primaries. Cruz’s run catapulted him to national fame, buoyed by his close association with the Tea Party wing of the Republican grassroots base, appeal to evangelicals and a significant donor network.
A decade later, Cruz is now a bearded third-term senator with powerful insider status — chairing the Senate Commerce Committee — while retaining his grassroots connections, co-hosting the most popular podcast among politicians. Speaking to the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition in the suburb of Clive, Cruz did not discuss his 2016 victory in the state.
Cruz’s name is frequently discussed as a potential 2028 contender, alongside Trump Cabinet members including presumed frontrunners Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The upcoming presidential field will be the first without Trump since 2012. That presents an opportunity for the GOP to chart a course beyond the president who has thoroughly remade the party since his first term.
Friday’s visit was Cruz’s first to an early state — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada, which hold presidential nominating contests first in the primary calendar — since his Senate re-election in 2024. He was scheduled to appear at Iowa Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird’s annual Barn Bash outside of Des Moines in August but was unable to attend.
Leading up to the 2016 election, Cruz began making stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as early as 2013. He spoke at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s spring kickoff — the same annual event as Friday’s — in 2015, shortly after launching his presidential bid.