Education After earning his undergraduate degree, Vander Plaats became a high school teacher and basketball coach. He was principal at Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn High School and later
Sheldon High School. Vander Plaats served as president of Opportunities Unlimited before moving on in the same role with MVP Leadership, Inc.
Elections In
2002, Vander Plaats unsuccessfully ran for the Iowa GOP
gubernatorial nomination, losing to Doug Gross. Vander Plaats was a candidate for the
2006 Iowa Republican gubernatorial nomination, competing against Iowa Congressman
Jim Nussle. As the race progressed, he withdrew his candidacy for governor in favor of being Nussle's running mate in the
general election. Calls by GOP party higher-ups for Vander Plaats to get out of the race were reportedly due to Vander Plaats reporting only $459,000 cash on hand compared to Nussle's $2.5 million. The Republican ticket of Nussle–Vander Plaats lost the election to the
Democratic ticket of
Culver/
Judge. On January 26, 2009, Vander Plaats announced the formation of a 2010 gubernatorial campaign committee with state Representative
Jodi Tymeson as chair and former state Auditor Dick Johnson as co-chair of the committee. In the
Iowa gubernatorial election of 2010, incumbent
Democratic governor
Chet Culver ran for re-election. The Republican candidates were Vander Plaats, state representative
Rod Roberts, and former governor
Terry Branstad. In the Republican primary on June 8, 2010, Vander Plaats lost to Branstad, receiving 40 percent of the vote compared to 50 percent for Branstad. Roberts was third with 9 percent of the vote.
Political activism Vander Plaats served as the Iowa state chair of Republican presidential candidate and former
Arkansas governor
Mike Huckabee's 2008 failed
presidential campaign. On many occasions, Huckabee called Vander Plaats the "next Governor of Iowa," suggesting that Vander Plaats would run for governor again in 2010. In 2010, Vander Plaats successfully led the campaign against the
retention of three members of the
Iowa Supreme Court who had voted to overturn Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act in
Varnum v. Brien. In November 2010, Vander Plaats became president and chief executive officer of an umbrella group called
The Family Leader, a group that includes the Iowa Family Policy Center, Marriage Matters, and a political action committee. Through the new group, the socially conservative organizations planned to play a more influential role in the 2012 Iowa caucus campaigns than in 2007 and 2008, including offering an endorsement for the first time. In December 2011, Vander Plaats endorsed
Rick Santorum for president.
ABC News reported that Vander Plaats had solicited up to a million dollars from Santorum and other candidates in exchange for his endorsement, that he and Santorum had discussed the subject of money when negotiating the endorsement, and that he had tried to get
Michele Bachmann of
Minnesota to drop out of the race. The Family Leader denied the report. Santorum won the
2012 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. In 2015, Vander Plaats endorsed
Ted Cruz for President, saying Cruz was the "most consistent and principled conservative who has the ability to not only win Iowa but I believe to win the (Republican) nomination." Cruz won the
2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. In 2018, he published an opinion piece in
The New York Times titled "Cruelty at the Border Is Not Justice" in which he characterized the
Trump administration family separation policy as "unconscionable" and "inexcusable." A July 2023 article by
The Wall Street Journal revealed that Vander Plaats "wants someone other than Trump" as the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election. On November 21, 2023, Vander Plaats announced his endorsement of Florida governor
Ron DeSantis. DeSantis lost the
2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. The Family Leader's IRS 990 form filed in 2020 revealed he was paid $190,000 as head of his organization. The next highest-paid employee earned less than half of that amount. ==Personal life==