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Former state Sen. Tom Courtney announced today he will run to reclaim Senate District 44 for the Democrats, the southeast Iowa seat he held for 16 years. "After receiving amazing encouragement from many Southeast Iowans — including friends, neighbors and other...
After a year of planning, the Iowa Democratic Party's virtual caucus will be scrapped by the DNC, the Des Moines Register reported late last night. Security concerns for the phone-in caucus option has led to too many doubts from the national committee, even though the...
Julian Castro, the former Secretary of Housing Urban Development under President Barack Obama, announced a new list of Iowa endorsements on Thursday. Four of the eight individuals have a connection to organizations advocating for Latinx Americans, particularly the...
Congresswoman Cindy Axne is not one of the House freshmen that national politics watchers follow on cable television, Instagram or on their Twitter feeds. But for Axne, that's the way she likes it. While Axne's staff will post images of her visits across the 3rd...
"Health care is personal to me," Biden says in his new ad. "Obamacare is personal to me." The ad addresses Biden's personal experiences, drawing on a car accident that took his wife and daughter's lives, as well as his son Beau's struggle with brain cancer. The...
California Sen. Kamala Harris earned an endorsement this summer from the Asian & Latino Coalition of Iowa, but her effort hasn't stopped there to win support among minority voters in the state. Harris' Iowa campaign announced Tuesday its Latinx Steering Committee,...
More than a million dollars worth of advertising spots were purchased in August in Iowa by three dark-money groups trying to impact the health care conversation in the state as voters vet presidential candidates. One Nation, Partnership for America's Health Care...
While Democratic candidates pitch their plans on improving America's health care system to Iowans, three dark-money groups are blanketing the Iowa airwaves with attacks ads on those reforms and similar issues. Aligned with the health care industry, they are airing ads...
Michael Franken, a retired Navy admiral from Northwest Iowa, entered the U.S. Senate race today against Joni Ernst to "do what's right for Iowa" and stand up to the Washington establishment. "Iowans need a senator who will go against the grain in Washington and do...
A guest piece from Claire Carstens, former chair of the Youth Polk County Democrats. Politics is a part of my family. For years growing up, my mom, Shanda, and grandpa, Paul, were politically active and would include me in conversations about politics. They taught me...
As family planning clinics across the country face a mounting number of obstacles to providing health care, the conversation often is focused on abortion services and birth control. But family planning services also include Sexually Transmitted Disease [STD] testing...
Sen. Joni Ernst told a crowd of constituents at a recent town hall meeting her "commitment to rural America is very strong" because she lives in rural Iowa. Josh Dahle challenged that statement, explaining to Ernst how the Affordable Care Act benefited a rural...
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have taken it upon themselves to stack the federal courts with conservative judges, an effort Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst has aided in lockstep. Ernst, Iowa's junior U.S. senator, was appointed to the...
More than 200 union members showed up to the Iowa Federation of Labor Conference in Des Moines Wednesday to hear from over half the crowded Democratic presidential field. Before any of the candidates took the stage, union leaders welcomed the crowd to the conference...
Beto O'Rourke returned to Iowa Tuesday evening with a fiery message to restart his campaign for president. The event was called “An Iowa Conversation: Standing up to Trump,” and during the event O’Rourke continued to condemn white supremacy. O’Rourke took a break from...
Christie Vilsack, the former First Lady of Iowa, has weighed in on Democrats' effort to win a seat in the U.S. Senate with her endorsement today of Theresa Greenfield. "With all the gridlock and mudslinging in Washington, Theresa Greenfield is exactly the kind of...
As the conversation about health care increasingly includes rural areas, the topic of maternal health is showing up in more places, too. This past week, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg released a health care plan targeted at rural America. In it are several...
Questions on gun violence and the 2nd Amendment dominated a contentious town hall forum with Senator Joni Ernst in Johnston this morning. Over half the audience members who asked Ernst about various policies pressed her on her gun rights stance. Though Ernst scheduled...
For Iowans, politics at the State Fair is as inevitable as enjoying fried food on a stick. Like it or not, it's there, and nearly inescapable. On Saturday, fairgoers won't bump into many people running for president, but they might see Sen. Joni Ernst — on a...
The beach and new outdoor waterpark at the $60 million Honey Creek Resort are closed this week, as well as two other beaches on Rathbun Lake. The closures came after dangerous blue-green algae blooms were detected at several spots around the lake. Swimming warnings...
Just hours after Congressman Steve King made offensive comments about rape and incest this morning, he was confronted by a constituent over a real-life example of incestuous rape in his district. Katie Koehler, a retired Mason City public school teacher, told King...
Congressman Steve King's comments this morning on rape and incest drew quick and widespread condemnation from across the political world. "What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be...
Medicare for All has been a central part of Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns since he launched his first national bid in 2015. Since then, the health care conversation in the United States has focused increasingly on reproductive services, as...
This weekend, most of the field of Democratic candidates returned to Iowa to connect with voters in the first caucus state. The last time so many were in the state at one time was in early June, at the Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids. Candidates went to the Iowa...
The issue of climate change temporarily has fallen off the news radar as the public responds to the horrific shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. As a result, much of the public likely missed last week’s latest warning from the United Nations about threats...
At the outset of his speech last week in Burlington, former Vice President Joe Biden told the crowd his remarks would be different than planned. “I planned on coming … to talk about agriculture policy, unions, rural policy, etc.,” said Biden, at a barn-themed event...
Photo: Kamala Harris' first visit to the Asian & Latino Coalition meeting in October 2018. Senator Kamala Harris won the coveted endorsement of the Asian & Latino Coalition of Iowa this evening, beating out the field in a very sought-after contest. It comes on...
The list of Democratic presidential candidates who attended the Iowa State Fair was so long this weekend it forced undecided voters to choose which of the 20 candidates they wanted to see speak at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox the most. Tom Steyer made Wes...
It's going to be hard to ever top the past four days of politicking at the Iowa State Fair. About 20 presidential candidates in all roamed the fairgrounds from Thursday to Sunday, jumping into the media spectacle that is Iowa Caucus campaigning. Only Pete Buttigieg...
An important moment for disability rights advocates happened in West Des Moines Sunday morning; a presidential candidate hosted a first-of-its-kind disability rights panel in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. Former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who wrote the Americans...
