Category: Republicans

A major national Republican donor was charged with soliciting prostitution in the Florida sting that also nabbed New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. John Childs, a billionaire who’s given $20,000 to the Republican Party of Iowa and $2,700 to Chuck Grassley, is one of hundreds of people ensnared in a sweeping bust of a sex trafficking network in Florida. The founder of J.W. Childs equity firm (a company from which he quickly resigned after the charges), Childs has poured money into Republican and conservative efforts over the years. The Washington Post reported that he’s donated over $17 million to Republican […]

Governor Kim Reynolds has a decision to make: who to appoint as outgoing Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey’s replacement. Northey, after a very long wait, was finally appointed to be the Under Secretary of Farm Production and Conservation in Donald Trump’s USDA. He’ll still have to wait a while more, however, until the Senate acts on the nomination, which Chuck Grassley indicated could be as soon as October or as late as next year. Northey won’t resign his current job until his confirmation is finished, so Reynolds has some time to mull over her choice. For years Iowa political insiders and […]

It was not a good summer for the credibility of Iowa Republicans’ stances on moral values. The lurid details from the Senate Republican sexual harassment trial, along with Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the matter, confirmed what many critics think Republicans actually feel about women in the workplace. That the Senate Republicans continued to keep on payroll the staffer most responsible for reprehensible comments and a hostile work environment was troubling. To be able to put up with people like that is beyond the reasoning of most decent Iowans. And the $2.2 million verdict […]

If Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse plans on coming back to Iowa, he may want to plan a detour on a different route than the usual I-80 one. Republican Pottawattamie County chair Jeff Jorgensen declared today that the neighbor-state senator should stay far away from his county, home to Council Bluffs. “LET ME MAKE THIS AS CLEAR AS I CAN,” Jorgensen wrote in all-caps on his personal Facebook page this morning. “NEBRASKA SENATOR BEN SASSE IS NOT WELCOME IN POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY, NOR WILL HE EVER BE INVITED TO SPEAK TO POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY REPUBLICANS!” In the Facebook post, Jorgensen also shared a […]

Time and again this legislative session, Republicans passed legislation that supposedly polls very poorly with Iowa voters. And yet most political pundits predict that Kim Reynolds and the GOP ticket holds the upper hand heading into the 2018 election. A victory then by the new Reynolds and Adam Gregg team would solidify Republicans’ electoral stranglehold on the Hawkeye state where they control both U.S. Senate seats, three of four congressional districts and five of seven statewide offices. So why have Republicans been so successful here the last four campaign cycles, despite Iowa’s swing state reputation (former reputation after 2016, perhaps)? The answer is obviously many […]

Under a blazing hot sun yesterday, Senator Joni Ernst drove into her annual Roast And Ride fundraiser with Vice President Mike Pence at her side. Both were on motorcycles. But had just a few political calculations gone differently last year, it might have been Ernst who wore an official vice presidential riding jacket. Last June and July, during the speculation over who Donald Trump would pick as his running mate, Ernst’s name came up often as being on Trump’s short list. There was chatter in some Republican circles that she was actually the favorite, so long as she wanted it. It’s […]

In very sad(!) news today, Donald Trump announced he will be cancelling his planned Thursday rally in Cedar Rapids, due to an “unforeseen change in President Trump’s schedule.” It will be rescheduled at a later date, possibly as soon as early in the following week. Some people were a little surprised when Trump scheduled a campaign rally in Iowa, just five months into his presidency. He’s held political events like these in a few other states since taking office, as it seems to rejuvenate the president, who loves events where he’s cheered on by thousands of supporters. Their purpose beyond that, however, […]