Asa Hutchinson, tilting in front of a Trump-branded windmill, continues to hold on

Asa Hutchinson sat under the fluorescent lights of a windowless conference room near the main convention hall of the Prairie Meadows Casino and Hotel in Altoona, Iowa, on Thursday and explained why there was a mission to the madness of his 2024 campaign for president.

Former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey had dropped out of the race the day before, following other big names to the exit, such as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Vice President Mike Pence, as well as not so big names like the Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, and a conservative commentator, Larry Elder.

But as Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, waited his turn to speak at a summit on renewable fuels, he said he only found more motivation in those other departures.

“My vote makes the difference,” he said. “I’m the only one campaigning for president in Iowa who has said I’m not going to promise a pardon to Donald Trump. And if my voice is not there, no one will hear the alternative vision.”

“How the hell are you going to beat Donald Trump,” he added, “if someone doesn’t sound the alarm that we could all go up in flames if we have the wrong nominee?”

Mr. Hutchinson, a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and a former member of Congress, has one more thing to add to that bulging resume: the Don Quixote of the Republican primaries from 2024.

The windmill he has tilted at, Mr. Trump, has shown no more interest in him than the lifeless behemoths of Miguel de Cervantes have in that other persistent knight. But Trump’s stiff march toward the Republican nomination is what keeps Mr. Hutchinson going, on long drives with his two staffers, through snowstorms that grounded other candidates, to events where only a handful of people showed up, all of whom perhaps caucus on Monday for Mr. Hutchinson, he believes, as long as he can make his pitch.

“I’m not blind to the challenges and the fact that this is an uphill climb,” he said earnestly. “I know where I stand today and I know what my goals are for next Monday. When it’s done, we’ll evaluate it.”

The money he raised paid the filing costs of candidates in Colorado, Michigan, Texas and Oklahoma. He’s skipping South Carolina — there’s no point in competing there, he said — but he’s prepared to take on Florida because Mr. Trump may be on trial in Washington near the March 19 primary. accusation of crimes arising from his attempts to overturn the election. 2020 presidential election.

“Voters will get a lot more information about the risk of a Trump candidacy after March 4,” he said, referring to Trump’s trial, which will begin a day before Super Tuesday, although even Mr. Hutchinson conceded that the date of the process would probably shift.

For now, Mr. Hutchinson’s campaign defines the life of the country. He had raised the entire $1.2 million through September and spent $924,015 of it, a pittance compared to the pockets of other candidates. He has cut one television commercial, he said. It hasn’t been aired much.

Where others fly, he drives – long distances. Aides say he is known to have driven the more than eight hours from Arkansas to Des Moines alone in his own car. Travel is done in the cheapest SUVs offered at the rental counters. When a flight from Chicago to Des Moines was canceled last fall, he picked up three strangers, collected their money to rent a car and drove to Iowa for his planned events.

But he has booked a flight to New Hampshire on Tuesday after hoping for a better-than-expected showing in Iowa on Monday.

“You are the media, so tell me what the expectations are for me,” he said.

“One, two percent?” his interlocutor ventured.

“Okay,” he said. “So those are the expectations I have to live up to.”

For a man determined to sound the alarm and save the republic, he has kept expectations remarkably low.

While he says his vote matters, the story he tells to illustrate the impact he’s made isn’t exactly that idea: Last June, he said, he ventured to Columbus, Georgia, for that country’s Republican convention state, so full of The Trump-supporting delegates who left behind Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, still felt the wrath of Trump’s most ardent followers, who were angry at Mr. Kemp for refusing to concede the narrow victory by President Biden to undo that in 2020.

Mr. Hutchinson charged into Mr. Trump in his calm manner, happy to brave the crowd. Then a man wearing a red MAGA hat rushed up to him afterward, “and he said, ‘You didn’t quite convince me, but at least now I like you,'” Mr. Hutchinson recalled with a smile.

With that, he left for his speech, wading through the fair’s hallway, with industry booths promoting ethanol production and carbon dioxide pipelines, candy bars in bowls to entice conventioneers, and Fleetwood Mac blasting through the sound system.

The audience, perhaps three-quarters full, listened respectfully. When he told the crowd that he was the only Republican candidate who refused to pardon Trump, there was a clap.

That guy, William Sherman, a retiree from the Beaverdale neighborhood of Des Moines, was more than happy to share his feelings.

“What he said made sense,” Mr. Sherman said. But he wouldn’t advocate for Mr. Hutchinson: “I’m a Democrat.”