DES MOINES — Gov. Terry Branstad (R-Iowa) said in an interview Monday he is unlikely to run for seventh term in 2018 and already preparing to support his deputy, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, in the Republican gubernatorial primary.
While not formally ruling out another bid, Branstad said he “wouldn’t bet” on another statewide campaign.
Branstad, 68, was briefly hospitalized last month after falling ill at a ribbon-cutting event.
“I’m feeling good,” Branstad said. “I was dehydrated and I’d been sick all week and I shouldn’t have come to work — and my wife told me that. But I’m a workaholic.”
Branstad, who was elected to a sixth non-consecutive term last year, previously had heart surgery in 2000 and 2010 to keep open partially blocked arteries.
Reynolds, 55, has been an energetic presence in Iowa politics in recent years and friendly with the state’s business establishment and conservative leaders. She is also close -- personally and politically -- to Sen. Joni Ernst (R), who was elected to the U.S. Senate last year. Both previously represented the same state Senate district.
“I’ve had the great honor and opportunity to serve the people of Iowa, and I want to do this job and do it well,” Branstad said. “Kim Reynolds would be the best choice to be the next governor.”
If Branstad serves through the end of this year, he will become the longest-serving governor in U.S. history, eclipsing George Clinton, who served 21 years as governor of New York during and after the Revolutionary War.
“I need to serve through December 14 or 15 of this year to break his record, so I’m on the way already, I just have to continue to serve one year into this term,” he said.
For now, Branstad, a folksy politician, is keeping close watch on the run-up to Iowa presidential caucuses and counseling visiting contenders on the state’s political map.
Branstad is scheduled to meet Monday with Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), a likely 2016 contender, who will speak Monday evening to a Republican group in suburban Dallas County near Des Moines. Several of Branstad’s associates, including his former chief of staff Jeff Boeyink and political adviser Phil Valenziano, have joined Christie’s political team.
The latest poll of Iowa Republicans, conducted by Bloomberg Politics and the Des Moines Register newspaper, showed Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), boosted by his breakout speech at a conservative event here last month, narrowly leading the field with 15 percent.
Branstad said Walker, who spent part of his childhood in Iowa, could be formidable. “Remember, I raised $150,000 for him,” he said with a chuckle. “People like him here; he’s got real potential. And he rides a motorcycle, just like [former Wisconsin governor] Tommy Thompson did.”
He added: “He has some of same attributes of Joni Ernst, appealing to the anti-establishment people” and more moderate voters.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who will speak at an agriculture summit in Des Moines next month, is another Republican on his radar. Branstad said he and Bush have spoken by phone, where they reminisced on Bush’s campaigning in Iowa on behalf of his father, George H.W. Bush, ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucuses, which the elder Bush won.
“He spent a lot of time here along with his brothers,” Branstad said. “I remember seeing every member of his family. They went to all of Iowa’s 99 counties.”
When Jeb Bush tapped David Kochel, a veteran Iowa-based operative to serve as his potential campaign manager, Branstad called Kochel to congratulate him on “a significant opportunity.”
“Bush is not going to ignore Iowa,” he said.
But Branstad said he will remain neutral in a race that is shaping up to be fiercely contested by candidates from all wings of the Republican Party. “It’s a wide-open situation,” Branstad said.
Left unmentioned: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is near the top of early polling in the state and campaigned here Friday and Saturday. Branstad has clashed with Paul's libertarian allies and worked to purge them from the state GOP leadership.
Branstad is using his political capital to influence the process by downplaying the Iowa Straw Poll, a party fundraiser that has been held in Ames since the 1970s and has since become a political carnival that has drawn controversy for asking campaigns to purchase tickets to showcase their organizational strength.
Branstad said the straw poll, while useful for raising money, should not be central during the coming Iowa campaign, nor should candidates feel pressured to devote resources and staff to it.
Branstad shrugged when asked whether he had any suggestions for a straw-poll venue, which has yet to be selected by the state party as it considers moving it from its traditional site, the Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State University.
“It could be in Ames, Des Moines or Marshalltown,” he said. “The most important thing is to get to all of the counties and share your vision for the country.”
Branstad said the scene on the Republican side is more frenzied than it is among Democrats, where Hillary Rodham Clinton remains the front-runner for the presidential nomination. He said he is bored by “what looks like a coronation for Clinton.”
“When Vice President Biden comes to Des Moines this Thursday, I’m going to ask him to get in,” Branstad said.