DES MOINES, Iowa — When Kim Reynolds, the Republican governor of Iowa, stopped by a donor retreat that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida held last year, no one paid it much mind.

When she sat earlier this year with DeSantis onstage, at another donor gathering down the road from Donald Trump’s residence, people began to notice. When she appeared with DeSantis not once, not twice, but at all three of his first visits to her state this year, eyebrows arched. And by the time Reynolds appeared Thursday alongside Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife, alarms inside the Trump headquarters were blaring.

Reynolds has said — including privately, to Trump — that she does not plan to formally endorse a candidate in the presidential race, in keeping with a tradition that the Iowa governor stays on the sidelines, keeping the playing field level for the first GOP nominating contest.

But through her words and deeds, Reynolds seems to be softening the ground in Iowa for DeSantis.

And there is no politician in Iowa with greater sway than Reynolds, 63, who has overseen her party’s swelling state legislative majorities with an approval rating among Republicans near 90%. Republicans say she can command attention and shape the landscape even without making a formal endorsement.

Reynolds is said to have tired of Trump, according to people familiar with her thinking and her response. Still, she sided with Trump after his most recent indictment, lashing out at the Biden administration and saying it was a “sad day for America.”

When DeSantis was asked by a local television interviewer on his first trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate if he’d consider Reynolds for a potential Cabinet post, he offered a surprisingly expansive answer, suggestive of something even more lofty: “I mean, I think Kim could be considered for just about anything that a president would pick.”

At times, she has had the look of a running mate.

Appearing with DeSantis at three of his four visits to Iowa this year, and now with his wife as well, Reynolds has extolled Florida’s achievements under his leadership and connected his state’s successes to Iowa’s.

There has been no recent independent polling in Iowa.

In national surveys, Trump leads DeSantis by a wide margin.

Meanwhile, state Republicans announced Saturday that the party’s presidential nominating caucuses will be held Jan. 15, on the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., putting the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away.

White House candidates have campaigned in Iowa since last winter, but there has been some uncertainty about the date for the caucuses that have by tradition kicked off the Republican selection process for a nominee. What’s changed is the Democratic National Committee’s election calendar, dropping Iowa as its first contest.

The Iowa Republican Party’s state central committee voted unanimously for the third Monday in January — a date that is earlier by several weeks than the past three caucuses, though not as early as 2008, when they were held just three days into the new year.

Iowa Democrats had been waiting for the GOP to set a date as they try to adjust to new DNC rules on their primary order.

Democrats have proposed holding a caucus on the same day as the GOP contest and allowing participants to vote for president via mail-in ballot. But Iowa Democrats have said they may not immediately release the results.

That could allow the state party to still hold the first-in-the-nation caucus without defying a new election-year calendar endorsed by President Joe Biden and approved by the DNC that calls for South Carolina to replace Iowa in the lead-off spot and kick off primary voting Feb. 3.

Caucuses, unlike primary elections, are contests planned, financed and carried out by the parties, not state election officials.

The Iowa announcement allows New Hampshire, which has not set a primary election date yet, to protect its first-in-the-nation status, which is codified in state law that requires that contest to be held at least seven days ahead of any other primary.

Last month, South Carolina Republicans adopted Feb. 24 as the date for the traditional first Southern primary, leaving plenty of time for Nevada to schedule its Republican caucuses without crowding New Hampshire.

“We remain committed to maintaining Iowa’s cherished first-in-the-nation caucuses, and look forward to holding a historic caucus in the coming months and defeating Joe Biden come November 2024,” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said.

Associated Press contributed.