In what was one of the busiest caucus weeks yet, five presidential candidates fanned out over Iowa recently, mostly in the eastern half of the state, to woo potential caucus-goers. Starting Line was on the road for seven days straight, covering the visits of Beto O’Rourke, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker. Whenever there’s this many back-to-back events, plenty of interesting, telling moments get left out of the larger news coverage. For myself, anyway, that’s often due to simply being too tired by the time I get back to the hotel room or home at the end of the […]

Democratic candidates running for president are increasingly talking about the rights of transgender Americans while out on the campaign trail. Two contenders who traveled through Iowa this past week – Senators Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand – both had extended discussions at events in Davenport about their past support for the LGBTQ community and future plans. Part of what’s driving the conversation is Donald Trump’s ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, which goes into effect next month. Booker said the ban was “ridiculous, insulting, un-American.” State issues are cropping up as well. An Iowa Supreme Court decision earlier […]

Senator Bernie Sanders continues to build out his Iowa Caucus team, one that will likely end up as one of the largest of the 2020 field. The campaign tells Starting Line that they have hired Michael Fasullo to serve as their Iowa field director and Tony Anthony as the deputy caucus director. It’s a second round in the Iowa Caucus for Anthony, who filled the same role in Sanders’ 2016 Iowa team. In the time since, he ran DC Attorney General Karl Racine’s reelection race and managed Paul Pelletier’s congressional run in Virginia’s 10th District. Fasullo also has some Iowa […]

A Public Policy Polling survey shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a nearly two-to-one lead over his nearest competitor, Senator Bernie Sanders, in a new poll of likely Iowa Caucus-goers. Biden, who is expected to soon enter the presidential race, starts with 29% support in the poll, compared to Sanders’ 15%, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 8%, and Beto O’Rourke’s 7%. The poll, which ran from March 14 to 15 (during the first two days of O’Rourke’s candidacy) and surveyed 678 likely caucus-goers, was commissioned by the End Citizens United organization, a group pushing campaign finance reform issues in the 2020 […]

Senator Amy Klobuchar blasted the Trump Administration’s continued use of blending waivers for renewable fuels usage while in Iowa this weekend. Using it as an example of how Donald Trump’s presidency has hurt rural America, she linked the EPA’s decisions to the first decline in ethanol prices in many years. “For the first time, we’ve actually seen decreases in prices in biofuels. You know why?” Klobuchar said at an event in Davenport on Sunday afternoon. “[Former EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt] has been granting these secret waivers, right. That way, what happens when he does that is they go to oil […]

Who the hell is Beto O’Rourke? That’s what many Iowans – myself included – wondered as they squeezed their way into packed coffee shops last week to catch a glimpse of the newly-announced presidential contender. Was O’Rourke the breakout, generational star he was hyped up to be, or a flash-in-the-pan media sensation who benefited merely from challenging someone as reviled as Ted Cruz? The internet, as it often does, had its opinions. While O’Rourke’s every move dominated the cable news airwaves, the Twitter crowd was decidedly more skeptical. As many political observers (accurately) pointed out, O’Rourke is certainly not as […]