Search
Pat Rynard interviews Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms about her decision to endorse Joe Biden for president, her trip to Iowa to join office-openings and campaign for him, and the issues she's working on as a big-city mayor. Paige Godden and Isabella...
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke about Washington corruption and fielded questions about topics like climate change during a Sunday campaign event in Indianola, Iowa today before finally addressing recent attacks on her plan to pay for ‘Medicare for All’...
The third and final reading of the new, controversial Des Moines zoning code was approved Wednesday by the Des Moines City Council while a few focus surrounding a potential housing project surfaced Monday at a Council meeting. The code, which sparked debate over...
Team Starting Line fanned out to multiple debate watch parties tonight in Des Moines, tasked with gathering voters' reactions to the 12-candidate event. The three-hour debate featured the largest field of presidential candidates on one debate stage ever. Take a look...
Affordable housing lies in the underpinnings of Cory Booker’s presidential run. The 2020 candidate’s campaign said the issue is integral to his purpose as a public servant. A housing rights attorney before running for public office, the New Jersey senator’s stump...
In late September, a group of ranchers and farmers presented a letter in support of the Green New Deal to Congress. It was signed by more than 50 organizations and 500 individual farms — including four Iowa organizations and 13 individual farmers. Sustainable Iowa...
Presidential candidate Michael Bennet today joined the slate of 2020 democratic hopefuls with detailed housing plans. The Colorado Senator’s plan looks to build more affordable housing near good jobs, help middle-class families rent or purchase a home and reform...
While nearly all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have released climate plans, and some frame their policies in the context of social equity, Elizabeth Warren today released a separate plan specifically about environmental justice. The Massachusetts Senator...
When Tom Steyer visited Crescent last week to tour damage of western Iowa's third round of major flooding in six months, he was asked a climate question beginning with the clause, “If the science is true … ” Steyer, a Democratic presidential candidate and former...
On her trip Friday to Iowa City, 16-year-old Swedish Climate activist Greta Thunberg echoed local organizers’ pointed calls for leadership to embrace climate reform. Thunberg joined Iowa City Mayor Jim Throgmorton, student organizers Massimo Biggers and Alex Howe and...
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said Thursday she couldn’t link Iowa’s heavy, continued flooding this year with climate change. During a town hall in Carroll County, Ernst was asked by a voter to make the connection between the heavy spring rains and the record flooding...
If Julián Castro is to do well in the Iowa Caucus, one thing he'll likely need is strong turnout from the state's growing Latinx community. But when he visited Perry, Iowa late last month-- a town where nearly 40 percent of its residents are of Hispanic or Latino...
Nearly a fifth of Iowan households do not make enough to live without public assistance, a new Iowa Policy Project report has found, due to factors like rising housing costs. According to the Cost of Living in Iowa report, released last Tuesday, family budget costs...
Affordable housing has an unofficial figurehead as the national crisis makes its debut as a major issue on the presidential campaign trail this cycle. Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, served as the Housing and Urban Development Secretary for the...
It's been a consequential month for youth dedicated to tackling climate change. Before Swedish 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg on Monday scolded the U.N. Climate Action Summit audience asking, "How dare you?", students across Iowa organized and promoted a number...
Pat Rynard sits down with Josh Cook to talk about Bernie Sanders' latest swing through Iowa, Isabella Murray interviews with Vice President Joe Biden about climate policy, and Amy Klobuchar joins Pat to talk about her weekend in Iowa and trying to win Midwest...
Beto O’Rourke supporters debuted signs at Saturday’s Polk County Steak Fry which mirrored those from Bobby Kennedy’s storied 1968 run. ‘Beto is good’ and ‘Leader for the 20s,’ were phrases held up on homemade wooden posts, imitating Kennedy’s ‘Bobby is good’ and...
Johnny Lynn and Randy Williams parked their burgundy pickup truck behind a barricade last Friday, which sat in front of their property just off of Interstate 29 — a home and farm three feet deep in floodwaters. In one direction was the Missouri River, out of its banks...
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he looks at climate change as an opportunity, not just a problem. In a week where flooding ravaged Western Iowa, students across the state participated in the climate strike and youth involved in the Sunrise Movement hosted...
Newly-eligible Iowan voters who attended the Polk County Steak Fry are ready to be politically active and ready to demand their needs. Attendees aged 16 to 20 were abundant Saturday at Water Works Park and heard from 17 presidential candidates. While some young voters...
“Anybody want a beer?” South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg yelled into a crowd of frantic supporters following his lap around the Polk County Steak Fry. The democratic candidate had just led a rally of around 1,300 supporters into the Water Works grounds and was now...
The Steak Fry is underway. Your Starting Line team was spread out across the candidates' rally sites. Here's what was happening early on today. Buttigieg’s Camp Sprawls At The Steak Fry Pete Buttigieg’s supporters were visible upon entering the Steak Fry gates. “Mayor...
Former Vice President Joe Biden responded in Iowa today to the reports that President Donald Trump had pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and his family. "It’s concerning to me that a president would do something like that," Biden told Iowa...
Elizabeth Warren in motion stays in motion. The senator hosted a town hall in front of nearly 2,000 on Thursday night at the largest stand-alone event the Democratic hopeful has had in Iowa this far, her campaign said. The event, held at the University of Iowa’s...
Another round of flooding has hit Western Iowa just as residents started to recover from spring and summer high waters. Current flooding has impacted areas north of Council Bluffs on the west side of Interstate 29 — with some flood potential on the east side as well....
Iowans felt near record-breaking heat this summer, raising concerns the high temperatures may be lethal as well as uncomfortable. Reports indicate premature deaths in the Midwest will increase more than other parts of the country due to extreme summertime...
Another top-tier Democratic hopeful has released a detailed plan addressing the nation’s shortage of affordable homes as housing advocates push for even more coverage on the topic on debate stage. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders rolled out an affordable housing strategy...
As Cedar Rapids city councilman Dale Todd took a lap around his bustling district on a recent Friday afternoon, he paused before reaching a neighborhood tavern, Parlor City, which stands adjacent to the sprawling NewBo City Market. “This was where community members...
It may be getting crowded in the Iowa Starting Line office these days, but we are very excited to share with you our second major expansion of the year. With these new additions, Starting Line now has more full-time political reporters than any other news outlet in...
Iowans gathered at debate watch parties throughout the state to watch the ten leading Democratic candidates square off at the latest debate. As always, your Starting Line team was out at many debate watch parties across Central Iowa, from a Drake University gathering...
