Evangelicals see Trump as a way to get what they want after decades of defeat

Trump has handed his ultra-loyal evangelical base policy victories and in return they turn a blind eye to his scandals

Joanne Craig, a lifelong evangelical Republican and resident of Sioux City, Iowa, couldn’t be more satisfied with the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Donning a large, blue “Christians for Trump” button on a blue pantsuit, the 80-year-old Craig emerged from the Country Celebrations Event Center in this small Iowa city satisfied to have heard Mike Pence and a cadre of Baptist pastors coo about the president’s policy victories.

Continue reading...

Warren falls behind in Iowa but wins coveted newspaper endorsement

  • Des Moines Register: Warren is ‘the president this nation needs’
  • Sanders emerges as frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire


Bernie Sanders emerged as the frontrunner in the two earliest Democratic 2020 nomination voting states this weekend, Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the latest polls – but Elizabeth Warren received a powerful boost with an endorsement from the Des Moines Register newspaper in what is still considered an open race.

Warren had been slipping behind in Iowa, which holds the first vote in the nation with its caucuses just a week a way on 3 February, but the Register this weekend named her “the president this nation needs”.

Continue reading...

‘I really hope she is the future’: AOC’s support of Sanders fuels 2024 speculation

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s aid of Bernie Sanders’ campaign is raising talk of the possibility she might run for the White House herself

It was billed as a rally for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. But the only aging white man on the platform was the film-maker Michael Moore, and attendee Brittany Springmeier wasn’t there to see him.

She was in Iowa City for real star of the show, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Continue reading...

Iowa’s minority voters to Democrats: reject Trump and tell our story of hope

Marshalltown has been transformed by migrants – and locals want candidates to make the positive case for immigration

Customers entering Zamora Fresh Market are greeted by Spanish-language music and the colorful sight of papel picado hanging from the ceiling of a small dine-in section. Employees chat in Spanish to each other and people buying tortas, lengua de res and containers of arroz y frijoles.

Related: Trump has savaged the environment. The planet cannot afford a second term | Ross Barkan

Continue reading...

Klobuchar gains momentum in Iowa – but will her gruelling tour be enough?

The Minnesota senator is reaching out to Iowa’s smallest towns and rural settlements ahead of the vital February caucus and seeing increasing numbers

Craig Hiller, an Iowa farmer, had just enjoyed a hot chocolate on Amy Klobuchar’s campaign bus as it made a stop in the small town of Rockwell City, population just 2,100.

Hiller, whose state is the vital first one to cast ballots in the party’s nomination race to pick an opponent to Donald Trump, was impressed by the Minnesota senator, a fellow midwesterner who desperately needs a strong showing in Iowa to boost her 2020 presidential campaign.

Continue reading...

‘You’re a damn liar’: Biden lashes out at voter and seems to call him fat

2020 contender appeared to say ‘look, fat’ after 84-year-old man questioned his age and his son Hunter’s business activities

A voter at a campaign event in Iowa got into a spat with Joe Biden on Thursday in an exchange that had the Democratic 2020 hopeful slamming the man as a “damn liar” and seeming to call him “fat”, which had conservatives leaping up to attack the candidate.

The man in the audience took the microphone and described himself as an 84-year-old retired farmer, then argued that Biden is too old to be president and pressed him on his son’s business activities in Ukraine, saying the former vice-president had “sent” Hunter to the country to work with an energy company.

Continue reading...

‘I’ll probably vote for him again’: will disappointed voters give Trump a repeat Iowa win?

In the latest instalment of our series on the counties in which voters swung from Obama to Trump, Chris McGreal reports from Howard county, Iowa, where Trump voters have plenty to dislike – but many would vote for him again

Donald Trump hasn’t made life easier for Aaron Schatz. He may even have made the Iowa dairy and grain farmer a little poorer. But Schatz can live with that, for now.

“This trade war with China, it’s dropped prices of our corn and beans but it’s something that needed to be done because China was unfair to us. I know we’re going to take a hit. Some of us are getting a little frustrated but we’re happy something’s being done,” he said.

Continue reading...

Iowa teens delighted as Greta Thunberg leads unexpected climate strike

More than 3,000 people gathered in the shadow of the University of Iowa on Friday afternoon to hear Thunberg speak

Three days prior to Greta Thunberg’s surprise visit to Iowa City on Friday, the organizer and local climate activist, Massimo Biggers, a 14-year-old Iowa City high school student, was preparing to strike – as he has done every Friday, sometimes on his own, since the Global Climate Strike day Thunberg inspired on 15 March.

Out of the blue, a message arrived from the Swedish teen activist, with whom he had been in touch, asking him if he was planning to strike again this Friday. “Of course!” he replied, and for the last 48 hours, according to his father, Jeff, neither had slept. “This was truly a miracle to have the town pull this together,” he said.

Continue reading...

‘I love the theatrics’: meet the tourists traveling to see the 2020 election unfold

Some vacationers ‘too depressed by UK politics’ are heading to Iowa, the state with an outsized importance in the nominee process, to witness the primary elections

For many people, a vacation to the US means heading up New York’s Empire State Building, descending into the Grand Canyon in Arizona or splashing about in the Pacific Ocean in California.

Some, however, are choosing to whet their appetites differently, by instead traveling to Iowa, in the middle of the US, to witness the presidential primary elections in person.

Continue reading...

Republican party condemns Steve King – but where’s the outrage over Trump?

Critics say the effort to dump King glosses over Trump’s conduct and fails to tackle a problem more pervasive than the GOP admits

Republican leaders piled on quickly following the latest outrageous remarks by Steve King, the longtime Iowa congressman and perceived bigot whom the party has been trying, unsuccessfully, to shake off its pant leg for months.

On Wednesday, King offered a defense of sorts of rape and incest, questioning whether, without the historical persistence of those two crimes, “would there be any population of the world left?”

Continue reading...

Republican Steve King: if not for incest and rape ‘would there be any population left?’

  • Trump ally tries to defend absolute abortion restrictions
  • Democratic 2020 contenders call for King’s resignation

Republican congressman Steve King has tried to defend a proposal for absolutist abortion restrictions on Wednesday by saying that without rape and incest the human race might long since have disappeared.

Related: Fury as Trump ally says poem on Statue of Liberty refers to 'people from Europe'

Continue reading...

Biden in his element in Iowa – is he still the Democrat most likely to beat Trump?

The former vice-president’s folksy charm went down well at the state fair – but critics say the party needs a bolder 2020 candidate

Joe Biden hardly seemed to be sweating.

He was standing on a small wooden stage at the Iowa state fair, a large crowd around him, no shade in sight. He wore a dark polo and his signature aviator sunglasses, and spoke with a vigor that was absent in his first two Democratic debate performances. But while his audience perspired in the oppressive August sun, cooling themselves with paper fans, Biden seemed at ease.

Continue reading...

Iowa executive was not sacked for loving Tupac Shakur, says governor

Kim Reynolds says a ‘number of factors’ were behind the dismissal of state human services chief Jerry Foxhoven

The governor of Iowa has denied firing a senior executive because he sent emails to staff praising Tupac Shakur and exhorting them to listen to the late rapper’s lyrics.

Kim Reynolds’s decision to sack Jerry Foxhoven after he sent the email to more than 4,000 staff in June set off an explosion of national and interntional interest in Iowa’s usually unremarkable state administration.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden in Iowa: Trump an ‘existential threat’ to America – live

Biden and Trump to hold duelling rallies in key battleground state, while big tech under scrutiny at congressional hearing in Washington

Well, Donald Trump is tweeting again ... (not that he ever stopped).

The president took to his favorite social media platform on Tuesday to refer to the Russia investigation as “the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time” and once again suggest, falsely, that he had been exonerated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“Mueller has spoken. He found No Collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russians. The bottom line is what the Democrat House is doing is trying to destroy the Trump Presidency (which has been a tremendous success), and I can assure you that we’re done with the Mueller......

....investigation in the Senate. They can talk to John Dean until the cows come home, we’re not doing anything in the Senate regarding the Mueller Report. We are going to harden our Infrastructure against 2020!” @LindseyGrahamSC

Vice president Mike Pence has defended the Trump administration’s move to bar US embassies from flying the rainbow pride flag during LBGTQ pride month as “the right decision”.

“We’re proud to be able to serve every American,” Pence said in an interview with NBC News late Monday. “But when it comes to the American flagpole, and American embassies, and capitals around the world, one American flag flies.”

At least four US embassies – in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia – were denied permission to fly the pride flag. Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, is spearheading an American campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the world and said he would be “proud” to fly the rainbow flag.

But Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, believes that embassy flagpoles should be reserved for the American flag only, according to a spokeswoman.

Continue reading...

Beto O’Rourke apologises for teen writings and joke about his wife

Democratic presidential contender is forced on to the defensive as he kicks off campaign in Iowa

Democratic presidential contender Beto O’Rourke has acknowledged making mistakes as a teen and as a candidate as he responded to criticism of his campaign rhetoric toward his wife as well as writings he produced online when he was young.

During a taping of the Political Party Live podcast in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he addressed criticism of his campaign-trail joke that his wife, Amy, has raised their three kids “sometimes with my help”.

Continue reading...

Beto O’Rourke kicks off 2020 bid in Iowa – in a voter’s living room

Texas Democrat said he has ‘some unique things’ to bring to race on his first day of campaigning to a crowd of about 125 people

Randy Naber is really a Joe Biden man, although he could also see himself voting for Kamala Harris. But here was former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, America’s newest presidential candidate, in Naber’s living room, and the retired teacher wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Related: O'Rourke enters race with natural skills, eager support and some big challenges

Continue reading...

Joe Biden tops 2020 Iowa Democratic presidential poll ahead of Sanders

Des Moines Register poll puts former vice-president on 27% of likely Democratic caucus-goers, Sanders on 25%

The former US vice-president Joe Biden has topped a poll of Iowa voters on Saturday that also showed Senator Bernie Sanders gaining momentum against him in the number two spot.

Biden, who has not announced whether he is running in the 2020 election, is the first choice for president of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers with 27% in the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll. Sanders, 77, got 25%.

Continue reading...

‘He’s a winner’: Iowa voters warm to Corey Booker as Democrat field heats up

Senator kicks off campaign in crucial caucus state as race to take on Trump in 2020 gathers steam

Democratic Senator Cory Booker kicked off his presidential campaign in Iowa with a call for unity, warning a crowd in Waterloo on Friday afternoon against “surrendering to cynicism” and calling for a revival of “civic grace”.

“I believe in this country,” he said at Hawkeye Community College, on the first day of a weekend trip to the crucial caucus state that marks a key moment in the beginning of his bid for the Democratic nomination . “I believe in us as a people. I’ve seen what can happen when we come together.”

Continue reading...

Congressional Black Caucus wants action against Republican Steve King

  • CBC: assignments must be stripped over white supremacy line
  • Trump ally is immigration hardliner with far-right links

The Iowa Republican congressman Steve King was under mounting pressure on Saturday, over remarks in which he asked how the term “white supremacy” came to be seen to be offensive.

Related: Trump ally Steve King: I don't know how 'white supremacist' became offensive term

Continue reading...