The absence of Melania Trump has been very evident on the campaign trail.
With Trump in Iowa this weekend for the big rivalry game, someone flew a banner of the stadium that asked, "Where's Melania?"
With its early primary presence, Iowa always gets a lot of attention leading up to its caucus date, January 15, 2024.
All of the presidential hopefuls attended the state fair, and several of them came out for the big Iowa-Iowa State football game this weekend, including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
A DeSantis Super PAC sponsored a tailgate party, and DeSantis watched the game with Governor Kim Reynolds in the stands. Reynolds, who has not endorsed any candidate, is choosing to stay neutral and has been heavily criticized by Trump for not endorsing him after Trump endorsed Reynolds during her election.
Trump went to fraternity row, grilled some burgers, and tossed out some footballs to fans, then watched the game from a private suite.
I am not going to say this is a problem for Donald Trump just yet, but it could become one.
Melania has not campaigned with him, nor has she been in court.
To that point, it was not a surprise to see someone fly a banner over the game when Trump was in attendance asking where the former first lady was.
This is a big contrast between Trump and DeSantis, with Casey always by Ron's side, while Melania continues to stay hidden at home.
Melania's team has made statements on several occasions to address this, saying that she is staying home with Barron to protect him from the outside noise, but it is not a reflection of a lack of support for her husband in any way.
In May, Melania Trump told Fox News:
"He has my support, and we look forward to restoring hope for the future and leading America with love and strength."
"My husband achieved tremendous success in his first administration, and he can lead us toward greatness and prosperity once again."
That may work for now, but as we get closer to this election, if Melania is not out there with Trump, I think it could be an issue for him.
Do I think it will cost him the primary? Absolutely not, but it will create some drama and additional questions during a general election that could hurt him with women and family-oriented voters.
Having said that, if I were in DeSantis' camp, I would be working on ways to subtly attack this to raise the question of Trump's marriage now being on the rocks.
From Trump's standpoint, he simply needs to get Melania to start making appearances with him to shut down this narrative.
