Category: Iowa Caucus

Iowa firefighters showed up for Joe Biden during his latest two swings throughout Iowa, but state union members have yet to officially endorse him. The state group won’t offer an endorsement to any candidate until after its state convention June 20 and 21, when delegates from across Iowa will meet and cast their votes. Doug Neys, president of the Iowa Professional Fire Fighters, said it certainly seems like the spotlight will be on his group as they make their decision. But, he said, it’s a role they’re happy to take on. “Iowa is not the largest state in the union, […]

Democrat Julian Castro promised a 9-year-old girl in Urbandale who asked him about climate change that his first executive order as president would be to sign the Paris Climate Accord. That, Castro said during an Urbandale house party on Friday, would ensure her generation has cleaner air and water. Castro called climate change “the biggest threat we face in this country” and told the girl if it’s not fixed soon, “it may be that one day there is no United States of America.” Scarlett Montgomery, who’s going into the fourth grade, said she asked the question about climate change because […]

Elizabeth Warren unveiled today her plan to create a Small Business Equity Fund, which would work to even the playing field for entrepreneurs of color who are trying to start their own businesses. According to an outline of Warren’s plan, on average Black, Latinx, Native American and other minority households have less wealth and therefore less collateral to use to gain credit than white Americans. Typically, Black entrepreneurs start a business with just $35,000, which is about one-third of the money white Americans use to start up a business. It’s why entrepreneurs of color own less than 20 percent of […]

Guest post from Connie Klug, an Adel business developer manager and co-chair of Delaney’s Iowa campaign. I have lived on 15A west of Des Moines for nearly 20 years, and I am a proud life-long Iowan. I am a widow with two children, both married with kids of their own – one family lives in Seattle, and one in Washington, D.C. About 18 months ago, my son Jay, who lives in D.C., called me: “Mom, you need to have something for John Delaney at your place. He is a Congressman in Maryland and he’s running for President. Mom, I know […]

After this past week’s jam-packed Iowa Caucus weekend, we’re starting to get a new sense of where things stand in the lead-off state. Campaigns demonstrated their organizing strength outside the Hall of Fame event, a new Des Moines Register poll got the chattering class chattering, and candidates tested their message in front of their largest audience yet. And there does seem to be some movement going on. The Register’s poll kicked off a round of stories of who’s up and who’s down here, but I’d like to take a few moments and theorize on why those changes may have come […]

The way Joe Biden and President Donald Trump sparred Tuesday during their separate trips to Iowa, one might think they already were in the midst of a general election campaign. But it’s only June, and Election Day is more than a year away. Biden kicked off his Southeast Iowa swing Tuesday afternoon in Ottumwa, a working-class town situated in a county that gave 57.5% of their vote to Trump in 2016. There he addressed a standing-room-only crowd. After a brief interruption by an anti-abortion protestor (who followed him on campaign stops throughout the day), Biden began his remarks with acknowledgment […]

Guest post from Porter McNeil, a Democratic communications consultant. He was the Illinois Communications Director for the Kerry-Edwards’ Presidential Campaign and helped on Tom Vilsack’s first gubernatorial campaign as a staffer for (David) Axelrod & Associates. He is a regular Democratic analyst on WHBF-TV (CBS) in the Quad Cities. An American president tells us not to support John Deere — What?! The same president, who’s telling farmers to be patriots for the sake of a China trade war with no plan or allies, is now likely to blame for John Deere’s plans to scale back 20% of production at major […]