Category Archives: Iowa

Vivek Ramaswamy urges supporters not to believe polls in final Iowa pitch

Posted on by

Republican presidential candidate makes final appearance in Iowa hours ahead of caucuses

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has gone all in on Iowa to jumpstart his presidential bid, urged supporters not to believe the polls during a final appearance at a Cedar Rapids brewery hours ahead of Monday night’s caucuses.

Ramaswamy has visited all 99 counties in Iowa twice and even rented an apartment in Des Moines during the final stretch of the campaign. He said on Monday he had done nearly 400 events in the state.

Continue reading...

US election season begins as Iowa Republicans brave cold in first caucuses

Posted on by

Latest polls place Donald Trump as clear frontrunner for party’s nomination in first round of voting in 2024 primary

Iowa Republicans braved brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination.

The caucuses began at 7pm CT and marked the first round of voting in the 2024 presidential primary. They will offer the most tangible insight yet into whether any of Trump’s primary opponents, particularly the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have managed to diminish his significant polling advantage in the race. Trump has maintained that advantage for months, even as he has been charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.

Continue reading...

‘Ready to rumble’: Trump holds Iowa campaign rally more akin to victory lap

Posted on by

Event, briefly interrupted by young climate protesters, overshadows those of former president’s Republican rivals

It was a melancholy farewell. Three years ago this week, Donald Trump departed on Air Force One for the last time as Frank Sinatra’s My Way blared from loudspeakers. The outgoing US president was defeated, disgraced and seemingly down and out.

Amid the snowy plains of Iowa, however, Trump is set to pull off one of the most improbable of all political comebacks. On Sunday, he held a campaign rally more akin to a victory lap in a state where Republican caucus-goers look certain to back him for a swift return to the White House.

Continue reading...

‘Selfless and heroic’: Iowa principal who was wounded in school shooting dies

Posted on by

Dan Marburger was injured in shooting at Perry high school on 4 January, during which an 11-year-old student was killed

An Iowa high school principal who was wounded in a school shooting has died, the state’s governor said.

Dan Marburger was injured during a mass shooting at Perry high school on 4 January. One person, an 11-year-old student, was killed, and six others injured. The suspect, a 17-year-old pupil at the school, was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Continue reading…

Freezing US winter storms threaten to break low-temperature records

Posted on by

From New Mexico to Portland, Maine, temperatures dropped and snow fell, closing campaigns, football games and roads

Icy winter weather blanketed the US on Saturday as a wave of Arctic storms threatened to break low-temperature records in the heartland, spread cold and snow from coast to coast and cast a chill over everything from football playoffs to presidential campaigns.

As the three-day Martin Luther King Jr Day holiday weekend began, the weather forecast was a quilt of color-coded advisories, from an ice storm warning in Oregon to a blizzard warning in the northern plains to high wind warnings in New Mexico.

Continue reading...

Extreme cold and snow blanket Iowa ahead of Monday’s Republican caucuses

Posted on by

Candidates were forced to cancel campaign events as snow closed rural highways and temperatures are expected to plummet

Wild and dangerous winter storm weather continued to wreak havoc on Saturday in Iowa just two days before the Republican caucuses kick off the official nominating process for the 2024 presidential election.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in the state capital of Des Moines said on Saturday morning that more snow was expected, in combination with lingering gusty winds causing “blowing snow and whiteout conditions at times” and warned that “travel is expected to remain treacherous, so consider altering plans”.

Continue reading...

Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast

Posted on by

Hours before Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the debate stage in Iowa on Wednesday night, more than 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire Chris Christie shocked his supporters by announcing he was dropping out of the race. The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to consistently attack Donald Trump, in a field of Republicans trying to beat the former president, all the while keeping his base sweet.

With only three days until the Iowa caucus, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Elaine Kamarck about who is most likely to come out on top

Archive: CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN

Continue reading...

Nikki Haley emerges from TV debate as Trump’s nearest rival as Iowa vote looms

Posted on by

Former South Carolina governor, boosted by Chris Christie’s exit, has hopes of seizing second in Iowa caucuses from Ron DeSantis

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged from the last televised debate before the Iowa caucuses clearly Donald Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, boosted by the withdrawal of Chris Christie, the only explicitly anti-Trump candidate to register significantly with voters.

Voting begins in Iowa on Monday, before New Hampshire stages its primary a week on Tuesday. Haley has closed on Trump in New Hampshire and has hopes of seizing second place in Iowa at the expense of the rightwing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

Continue reading...

Trump avoids mention of US Capitol attack on 6 January anniversary

Posted on by

Three years after insurrection, Trump was in Newton, Iowa, currying support before the 15 January Republican caucus

Donald Trump largely ducked speaking about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol during a campaign speech Saturday, which he delivered on the third anniversary of the insurrection, reflecting the degree to which Republican voters have absolved the former president of responsibility for that day’s deadly consequences.

Trump’s remarks came a day after Joe Biden appeared in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and spoke about how his presidential predecessor had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” shortly before they staged the Capitol attack.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Continue reading...

Trump tells Iowans to ‘get over’ school shooting at campaign event

Posted on by

Former president made the comment 36 hours after one student was killed and seven people wounded during the first day of school

Donald Trump told an audience at a campaign event on Friday in Iowa to “get over” a deadly shooting at a high school in the state a day earlier.

After offering sympathy and emotional support for the victims of the shooting in Perry, Iowa, and their families, Trump said at the event in Sioux Center: “It’s just horrible – so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward.”

Continue reading...

Sixth-grader killed and five people wounded in Iowa high school shooting

Posted on by

Investigators believe suspect died of self-inflicted gunshot wound, and at least one of the victims is a school administrator

Police said that a 17-year-old suspect killed a sixth grader and wounded five others in a shooting early Thursday at a high school in the small town of Perry, Iowa.

The suspect was identified as Dylan Butler, a 17-year-old student at Perry high school, officials said at a news briefing on Thursday afternoon. He was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound by responding officers.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Continue reading...

Satanic Temple condemns vandalism of its statue by Christian military veteran

Posted on by

Michael Cassidy arrested over tearing down of satanic altar – symbol of humanism and anti-authoritarianism – at Iowa capitol

The leader of an organization whose satanic altar at Iowa’s state capitol was torn down by a Christian military veteran Thursday has dismissed the vandalism as “a real act of cowardice”.

“There’s a certain point at which we need some adults in the room to tell people what … liberal, democratic values are; what they’re value is; why we uphold them; what they’re good for; and they need to stand up for these values or we are going to further degenerate in our polarism towards autocracy,” the co-founder of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, told CNN’s NewsNight on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Casey DeSantis encourages Republicans nationwide to vote in Iowa caucus

Posted on by

On Fox News, wife of Ron DeSantis mistakenly invites ‘moms and grandmoms’ to cross state lines and illegally vote in caucus

Casey DeSantis, the wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, has upset party officials in Iowa by urging her husband’s supporters from around the US to “descend” on the state and illegally take part in next month’s caucuses.

The former television news reporter, who has become the Florida governor’s chief supporter on the campaign trail, made the faux-pas during an appearance with him on Fox News on Friday, in which she wrongly stated it was legal for out-of-state residents to participate.

Continue reading...

‘Moderate’ or Roe v Wade killer: can Trump have it both ways on abortion?

Posted on by

The former president is proud of appointing the supreme court justices who overturned the right to abortion – now the issue is a vote loser for Republicans

A few months ago, the former president Donald Trump accused the Republican party of speaking “very inarticulately” on abortion. And yet, for the GOP presidential frontrunner, inarticulateness seems to be a feature, not a bug, of his own approach to abortion.

Trump thinks he can run in 2024 as a “moderate” on abortion, Rolling Stone reported this week – even though he’s currently running ads in Iowa, a crucial state in the Republican primary, proclaiming himself “the most pro-life president ever”. It’s a title to which Trump has a legitimate claim: his three nominees to the supreme court not only handed the nation’s highest court a definitive conservative majority, but all three voted to overturn Roe v Wade in summer 2022.

Continue reading...

Iowa rights groups sue over law banning LGBTQ+ books and discussion in school

Posted on by

Suit by several families and organizations seek to have law declared as violation of students’ and teachers’ free speech

Several families are suing to stop Iowa’s new law that bans books from school libraries, forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues and forces educators in some cases to out the gender identity of students to their parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda announced the federal lawsuit on Tuesday, saying the law passed earlier this year by the Republican-led legislature and enacted this fall “seeks to silence LGBTQ+ students, erase any recognition of LGBTQ+ people from public schools, and bans books with sexual or LGBTQ+ content”.

Continue reading...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis rejects idea of Palestinian refugees in US

Posted on by

At event in Iowa, governor conflates Palestinian civilians with Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel a week ago

Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has rejected accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza to the US, speaking at a campaign rally in the US midwest on Saturday.

“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” he said. “If you look how they behave … not all of them are Hamas but they are all antisemitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”

Continue reading...

Authorities rescue nearly 100 goldendoodles from Iowa puppy mill

Posted on by

The dogs at Paris Puppies Paradise, who were underweight and living in their own feces, were housed with a rescue organization

Iowa authorities rescued nearly 100 dogs from a puppy mill over the weekend, many of whom were living in their own excrement.

On Friday, a deputy from the Boone county sheriff’s office was conducting a welfare check on a missing woman and came across what appeared to be a puppy mill, the sheriff’s office said in a press release.

Continue reading...

‘Inhumane’: judge hears arguments about anti-migrant buoys in Rio Grande

Posted on by

Court to decide whether to remove them as Greg Abbott and other Republican governors defend militarization of border with Mexico

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday about whether state authorities should remove huge buoys installed to stop migrants crossing the river that divides Texas from Mexico.

The court hearing in Austin came a day after Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and a group of hardline Republican governors gathered on the riverbank to defend local militarization of the US-Mexico border – while also acknowledging that the 1,000ft (305-meter) floating barrier had been adjusted after complaints that it had mostly drifted into Mexican territory.

Continue reading...

Obscure Iowa non-profit produces new flyer calling Trump ‘trailblazer for trans’

Posted on by

Second flyer sent to households in state by mysterious political group seeks to portray former president as LGBTQ+ advocate

An obscure non-profit political group in Iowa that has been attempting to portray Donald Trump as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community is doubling down on its unlikely claim, producing a second flyer condemning the former president for “fighting conservatives” over trans rights.

The mailer repeats the messaging from the original communication that the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year’s election is a “trailblazer for trans”.

Continue reading...

Iowa Republicans consider six-week abortion ban during special session

Posted on by

Bill faces few hurdles from being passed as state’s house, senate and governor’s office are all Republican-controlled

Iowa’s state legislature held a special session on Tuesday ahead of voting on a bill the same day that would ban most abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy, when most people don’t yet know they are pregnant. The state is the latest in the country to vote on legislation restricting reproductive rights after the overturning of Roe v Wade last year, which ended the nationwide constitutional right to abortion.

Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, called for the special session last week, vowing to “continue to fight against the inhumanity of abortion” and calling the “pro-life” movement against reproductive rights “the most important human rights cause of our time”. Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature will debate house study bill 255, which was released on Friday and seeks to prohibit abortions at the first sign of cardiac activity except in certain cases such as rape or incest.

Continue reading...