IOWA: As Republican candidates for president attempted to position themselves as Donald Trump alternatives in Iowa on Sunday, few even mentioned his name and the new federal indictment he faces was completely ignored.

Seven GOP candidates were invited to speak at Iowa Representative Ashley Hinson's fundraising barbecue at a Cedar Rapids racecourse. Over the course of two hours, each candidate took the stage in front of about 800 party activists in the state that holds the first-round primary.

But even the candidate who has advised the former president to withdraw from the race acted as if Trump's indictment on federal charges accusing him of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election had never happened in their pitches to oppose him for the 2024 nomination.

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Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas and a vocal opponent of Trump, focused solely on the Republican outrage over the Department of Justice, which many conservative activists claim was politically biassed in its investigation of Trump. Federal charges against the former president were also brought in June, accusing him of improperly storing sensitive documents in his Florida home and thwarting efforts to retrieve them.

Hutchinson The only changes made on Sunday were to the Department of Justice, and in a line that received a lot of cheers from GOP candidates, they pledged to name a new leader for the organisation.

"And yes, I would get a new attorney general who would enforce the rule of law in a way that is fair for our country," Hutchinson said, drawing a polite round of applause from the audience.

Even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has warned that Republicans will lose next year if they look back and keep repeating Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, only came close to saying, "The time for excuses is over."

The Republican primary voters in Iowa still think highly of Trump. Trump was far ahead of his closest rival in a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Iowa Republican caucus attendees, which was conducted before the indictment became public on Friday. Except for DeSantis, none of the other candidates received support above ten percent.

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Nevertheless, the poll suggested that Trump's standing in Iowa might be a little weaker than it is nationwide.

Republican strategists have cautioned against directly criticising Trump during the early stages of the campaign, claiming that doing so tends to enrage supporters who view the accusations against him as political persecution while remaining receptive to other candidates.

"Think of everything he's been through," said Rosie Rekers, an interior decorator from Waverly, Iowa, who was present at the Hinson event. "We must move past that," someone said.

DeSantis, North Dakota, and Hutchinson Conservative radio host Larry Elder, governor Doug Burgum, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy all made arguments for their candidatures without mentioning Trump.

On Sunday, only two candidates specifically mentioned Trump.

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Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who held the position under Trump, made reference to him in a story about a report she sent him that served as an example of her annoyance with member countries that supported US policy but received foreign aid.

Perry Johnson, a businessman from Michigan, was the only other candidate to mention Trump, first by pointing out that the former president had spent more money on campaign contributions than he had received.
The former president was indicted by a grand jury in New York last spring after allegations that he falsified documents related to payments made to a porn star. Johnson, who received little support in the New York Times poll, noted that he had pledged to pardon Trump at the time.

"I think it's unfair that we start picking on our candidates and letting the Democrats decide who should be running," Johnson said.