Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump very well could matter in Iowa.
At a rally in the Hawkeye State Tuesday, Palin delivered an embarrassingly incoherent and rambling speech endorsing the billionaire Republican. Few endorsements matter to any significant degree anymore, especially when the person giving the endorsement appears to be drunk while doing so, but somehow I suspect this one could make a difference for two reasons.
The first is momentum. With this endorsement, Trump has hijacked another media cycle. With less than two weeks before Iowans actually get to weigh-in on the Republican race, the momentum will at least appear to be in Trump’s court. To the extent some voters want to be on the winning team, that could benefit Trump to the detriment of [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore], who seemed to have the momentum in Iowa before Palin’s endorsement.
The second reason Palin’s endorsement might matter is that for some God-forsaken reason a contingent of self-defined evangelicals and conservatives still trust Palin. Even though Palin’s influence has steadily faded since she was plucked out of obscurity to be [crscore]John McCain[/crscore]’s running mate in 2008, Iowa may be a state where her influence still remains at least marginally significant.
A 2014 poll showed that 89 percent of Iowa Republicans who identified themselves as “very conservative” had a favorable impression of the former Alaska governor.
Maybe some of these “very conservative” and evangelical Iowans are trying to decide between Trump and Cruz. Others may be leaning toward Trump but are unsure whether they can trust Trump’s conservative or religious promises for the very good reason he is not conservative or particularly religious, despite his recent protestations to the contrary.
A Palin endorsement speaks to those voters and gives them the go ahead to trust Trump when he says the Bible is his favorite book and that he is super duper pro-life. That strikes me as important, especially if the race in Iowa turns out to be as close as polls indicate at the moment.
So, yes, most endorsements don’t matter all that much. But the particular time and place of this endorsement could make it an exception to the rule.