Pizza Ranch West Des Moines Iowa – Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy arrives at the Pizza Ranch restaurant in Storm Lake, Iowa for his gubernatorial campaign on November 22, 2023. | Kathryn Gamble for
EMETSBURG, Iowa – At Pizza Ranch, 50 “cowpokes,” a western-themed chain calls its customers, surround the breakfast buffet of pizzas and eat every slice of sausage within 10 minutes. Vivek Ramaswamy, who is paying for the privilege of using this casual restaurant as a campaign site in his bid to win the GOP primary.
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With more than 70 locations across the state (about one in each of the 99 counties), Pizza Ranch has become an unofficial White House contender circuit for the past five presidential cycles. On the day before Thanksgiving, Ramaswamy stopped at three pizza places within a 60-mile radius. For just $242.55, his campaign scored eight breakfast pizzas, four dessert pizzas, a drink and coffee – and an audience. . “I love these pizzerias,” I heard Ramaswamy say to the manager as he walked out.
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Don Miller, the 72-year-old GOP chairman who organized the stop for Ramaswamy, told me it’s no surprise why the candidate ended up at Pizza Ranch: “It’s easier to get a room.” And for the price of a pizza, you get free meeting space that can accommodate 30 to 50 people. And the delegates “familiar with it.”
Iowans gather at the Pizza Ranch restaurant in Pocahontas, Iowa for a rally by presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on November 22, 2023. | Kathryn Gamble for
In 2008, Mike Huckabee rose from an unknown candidate to the top spot on the House of Representatives. Oh, and many people attribute his success to the so-called “Pizza Ranch Project,” which he achieved. by staying in the area with the gospel. Candidates hoping to open the election for government officials have done the same. since then. In 2012, about 4.5 percent of Republican candidates’ events were hosted by Pizza Ranch, a number that has grown each cycle as the chain’s political importance has faded in the Trump era. Now, of the nearly 1,000 listings in the Des Moines Register Tracker, which includes only campaign listings that have been opened and announced, as of Jan. 5, 6.9 percent are in Pizza Ranches. Nine Republican presidential candidates, everyone from Ramaswamy to Texas pastor Ryan Binkley, have stopped at the pizza restaurant. (Only two candidates made it through this election cycle, but more on that later). “Can Mike Pence Win Pizza Ranch?” Surprised the Wall Street Journal editorial board in June, thinking that his “conservative and enlightened politics” would “do 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 pay off for candidates with unknown or unknown surnames. “No one knows Huckabee,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent evangelical leader in Iowa who went to high school with one of the restaurant’s founders. “My dad called it ‘Huckleberry’ until the day he died, and he called it Huckabee. But the Pizza Ranch strategy worked: We said, ‘Go buy pizza, buy soda, and invite people.’ “Maybe it will cost us. dollar. for $100.”
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In 2008, Mike Huckabee rose from a small-time governor of Arkansas to the top job in the Iowa House of Representatives, and many attributed his success to what’s known as the “pizza-raising strategy” that he employed by stopping in affluent districts. The gospel. . | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images (above); Jeff Chiu/AP
To stand at Pizza Ranch with a presidential candidate is to confront the corrupt, low-sodium politics of the GOP: This fall, I watched Pence argue with voters who were convinced that Joe Biden was a hologram.
But watching the candidate around the Pizza Ranch nearly 16 years after his arrival is to see something entirely different: The state is not just about our politics and the Iowa caucus, it is about the lives of Americans. A pizza parlor is not a public gathering place in a small town where things related to the earth are isolated. Donating to people like Pizza Ranch is now identified as a conservative political act, just like sleeping on Mike Lindell’s pillow makes you doubtless in the 2020 election, or carrying your merchandise in a New Yorker bag means you’re ready for Biden. The second phase. And in the primary election that Mr. Donald Trump holds as a day and only the name of the nation participates, accepting There is no way to win if there are too many people in the room.
Iowans gathered at the Pizza Ranch in Emmetsburg, Iowa to hear Ramaswamy speak on November 22, 2023. Standing at the Pizza Ranch with the presidential candidate was to confront the sodium-fueled debate under Republican politics. | Kathryn Gamble for
University Ave, Waukee, Ia 50263
Pizza Ranch is almost as old as the Iowa caucuses, making it perhaps the best prism through which to view the evolution of the nomination process, especially on the Republican side. Adrie Groeneweg founded the first restaurant in Hull, Iowa in 1981 at the age of 19, just five years after the first modern meeting in 1976.
Pizza Ranch’s offerings focus on the humblest and simplest of American classics. An Iowa joke by Casey DeSantis and others 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 is about the appeal of Central America, the idea of its culture. In 2004, Pizza Ranch issued a mission statement that wrapped itself in Christianity and declared itself as a place that would “glorify God by impacting the world.”
In 2004, Pizza Ranch issued a mission statement that wrapped itself in Christianity and declared itself as a place that would “glorify God by impacting the world.” | Kathryn Gamble for
As Pizza Ranch grew and big box stores and chains entered the old highways of the state, its mission was in part to respond to these social changes: to provide a place for local groups to meet. “It’s a center where they come to socialize and they have their meetings and some church groups have their meetings, maybe a Rotary club, a trade group or wherever you go,” said Chip Saltsman, a GOP operative, after the baseball game. “With a shadow of gray throughout the five hours, he told me in June. We sat in a pizzeria in Waukee, a suburb of Des Moines, while Pence, his long-time friend and presidential candidate when he ran the conference in Iowa, worked in the room. “And so it is kind of the center of everything.” No public building or national recognition is needed of the campaign or candidate.
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In 2007, Saltsman found himself targeting small communities across Iowa while his boss at the time, Huckabee, was campaigning for president, and after just two or three stops, the Pizza Ranch strategy hit home. “Every time we go to a small town, they always have Pizza Ranch,” Huckabee said recently. “They always have a small meeting room that can hold from 20 to 60 people. And if you buy pizza, you have to use the meeting room. And it’s the cheapest way to go where everyone knows where they are.”
The Des Moines Register caught on quickly and started the campaign on foot. Groeneweg also became openly political, donating $1,000 to his regular party. Huckabee would beat Mitt Romney by about 11,000 votes, an increase of more than 9 percent this year.
Rick Santorum grabs a pizza before speaking to a small group in a conference room at Pizza Ranch in Sheldon, Iowa, in January. 20., 2016. | Jerry Mennega/Zuma via Alamy
In the next presidential cycle, Huckabee’s strategy gained traction among other campaigns. Michele Bachmann, former representative of the Minnesota Republican Party, hit 12 pizza parlors in 20 days to visit at least 24 places, and this year Rick Santorum, who visited at least 14 places, will win.
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In January 2016, Donald Trump stopped force at Waukee Pizza Ranch, even though it is a national name. | Charlie Neibergall/AP
Four years later, everything changed when the Trump show arrived. He is not a Huckabee or a Santorum who wants to fill a room with 40 people. He has The Apprentice and I have a national title. However, in January 2016, he made a forced stop at the Waukee Pizza Ranch, the same place I saw Pence after his spring campaign launch. Why did he leave? He gave the store a predictable answer. “Do you know why?” Trump told reporters
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