Pizza Ranch West Des Moines – Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy arrives at the Pizza Ranch restaurant in Storm Lake, Iowa for his town hall on November 22, 2023 | Kathryn Gamble because
EMMETSBURG, Iowa — Inside Pizza Ranch, 50 “cowpokes,” as the Western-themed chain calls its customers, surround the breakfast pizza buffet and devour every slice of sausage within 10 minutes. The bill for that spread was footed by Vivek Ramaswamy, who was paying for the right to use the sleepy restaurant as a campaign stop in his long-shot bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
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With more than 70 locations across the state (about one in 99 states), Pizza Ranch has become an unofficial constituency for White House candidates over the past five cycles. The day before Thanksgiving, Ramaswamy had planned to stop at three pizza farms over 60 miles. For just $242.55, the campaign earned him eight breakfast pizzas, four dessert pizzas, drinks and coffee — and a captive audience for his talk and Q&A. “I love these pizza farms,” I heard Ramaswamy tell the manager as he left.
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Don Miller, the 72-year-old local GOP chairman who organized Ramaswamy’s stop, told me why candidates stop at Pizza Ranch: “It’s an easy place to get a room.” And for the price of a pizza, you get a free meeting space that can fit anywhere from 30-50 people. Members of Parliament are “used to it”.
Iowans gather at the Pizza Ranch restaurant in Pocahontas, Iowa for a town hall by presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on November 22, 2023. | Kathryn Gamble because
In 2008, Mike Huckabee went from little-known governor to front-runner in the Iowa caucuses, and many attribute his success to what is known as the “Pizza Ranch Strategy” he adopted by standing in evangelical-rich areas. Candidates for the by-election in the provincial parliament did the same. In 2012, about 4.5 percent of the Republican candidates’ events were held at Pizza Ranch, a number that has marked all cycles, as the importance of political sales has faded in the Trump era. Now, of the nearly 1,000 events on the Des Moines Register’s tracker, which includes only open and publicly announced campaign events, since Jan. 5, 6.9 percent were at Pizza Ranches. Nine GOP presidential candidates, everyone from Ramaswamy to Texas pastor Ryan Binkley, have stopped at the pizza farm. (Only two candidates jumped the chain this election cycle, but more on that later). “Can Mike Pence win Pizza Ranch?” asked the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in June, thinking his “gentlemanly politics” would “play well” in “small-town Iowa.”
Nearly two decades after Huckabee started the trend, candidates like Ramaswamy are still using the Pizza Ranch strategy, and it can work for strangers or those with unusual last names. “Nobody knew Huckabee’s,” Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa who went to high school with one of the restaurant’s founders, told me. “Dad called him ‘Huckleberry’ until the day he died.” And he fought for Huckabee. But the Pizza Ranch strategy worked: We said, “Let’s buy pizza, buy soda, invite people.” It probably cost us $50 to $100.”
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In 2008, Mike Huckabee went from a little-known governor of Arkansas to a top position in the Iowa caucuses, and many attribute his success to what is known as the “Pizza Ranch Strategy” he adopted by standing in evangelical-rich areas. . . | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (above); Jeff Chiu/AP
Standing at a pizza parlor with a presidential candidate to confront the dirty, sodium-laden politics of the GOP: This fall, I watched Pence wrestle with a voter who was convinced Joe Biden was a hologram.
But watching the candidates on the Pizza Ranch circuit nearly 16 years after its debut is watching something else entirely: the politicization of not just our Iowa politics and caucuses, but American life. Pizzerias are no longer common meeting places in small towns where worldly concerns are put aside. Endorsements like Pizza Ranch are now codified as a strong political act, like sleeping on one of Mike Lindell’s pillows marks you as a 2020 candidate, or carrying your stuff in a New Yorker bag means you’re ready for a second biden term. . And in the first place where Donald Trump puts out the sun and only the names of the country pass, getting a lot of people in the room is no longer how you win a congressional election.
Iowans gather at Pizza Ranch in Emmetsburg, Iowa to hear Ramaswamy speak on November 22, 2023. Standing at Pizza Ranch with a presidential candidate means coming face-to-face with his dirty, full-blown GOP politics sodium. | Kathryn Gamble because
The Iowa Pizza Chain That Explains How Our Politics…
Pizza Ranch is as old as the Iowa caucuses, making it perhaps the best lens through which to view the evolution of the nominating process, especially on the Republican side. Adrie Groeneweg, then 19, founded the first restaurant in Hull, Iowa, in 1981, just five years after the trendy clubs began in 1976.
Pizza Ranch’s offerings appeal to the basic and simple of American palates. The joke on the Iowa campaign trail, as Casey DeSantis and others have said, goes like this: The best fried chicken comes from a pizza place (Pizza Ranch) and the best pizza comes from a gas station (Casey’s). If the pizza chain appeals to Central American diners, so does its cultural leanings. In 2004, Pizza Ranch issued a mission statement wrapped in Christian language, declaring that it is a place that exists to “glorify God by touching the whole world.”
In 2004, Pizza Ranch issued a mission statement wrapped in Christian language, declaring that it is a place that exists to “glorify God by touching the whole world.” | Kathryn Gamble because
As Pizza Ranch grew and big box and chain stores crowded out old highways in rural parts of the county, its mission responded in part to these social changes: To provide people with a place where local groups could meet. “This is a facility where they sit and have their meetings and other church groups have their meetings, maybe the Rotary Club, business groups or wherever you go after a Little League baseball game,” Chip Saltsman, CEO of the GOP and eternal. the fifth o’clock shadow, he told me in June. We were sitting at Pizza Ranch in Waukee, a suburb of Des Moines, while Pence, his old friend who was running for president at the time in Iowa, was working the room. “And so it’s kind of the center of everything.” A campaign or a candidate does not need hype or national fame.
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In 2007, Saltsman found himself hitting small communities across Iowa while his then-boss Huckabee was campaigning for president, and after two or three stops, the idea for Pizza Ranch came to them. “Every time we went to a small town, they always had a pizza farm,” Huckabee said recently. And they always had a small meeting room that could fit anywhere from 20 to 60 people. And if you bought a pizza, you have to use the meeting room. And it was a very accessible way to get to a place where everybody knows where it is.”
The Des Moines Register was quickly caught off guard and began a campaign to track stops at the facility. Groeneweg also went public with politics, donating $1,000 to a regular customer. Huckabee would end up defeating Mitt Romney by nearly 11,000 votes, just over 9 percent that year.
Rick Santorum takes a bite of pizza before speaking to a small group in a conference room at Pizza Ranch in Sheldon, Iowa, January 20, 2016. | Jerry Mennenga/Zuma via Alamy
During the next presidential cycle, Huckabee’s tactics were used as a strategy among other campaigns. Michele Bachmann, former Republican representative from Minnesota, visited 12 pizza farms in 20 days, on her way to visit at least 24 places. But it was Rick Santorum, who visited at least 14 places, who would win the election that year.
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In January 2016, Donald Trump suspended the bond at Waukee Pizza Ranch, despite the country’s name recognition. | Charlie Neibergall / AP
Four years later, everything changed when The Trump Show arrived. He was no Huckabee or Santorum to fill a room of 40 people. He had a learned and national reputation. However, in January 2016, he made an obligatory stop at Waukee Pizza Ranch, the same place Pence saw after his campaign launch last summer. Why did he leave; It provided a predictable trading response. “Do you know why?” Trump told a reporter
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