Iowa Caucus

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…

Donald Trump will be in Iowa today, touring an ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, to celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency’s lift of a seasonal ban on E15, allowing for year-round sale of the gasoline mixture containing 15% ethanol. The ethanol tour was recently announced with Trump set to come to the state for a Republican…

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…

Montana Governor Steve Bullock blames the radical changes Iowa’s collective bargain laws have undergone in recent years on the so-called “dark money” that’s being funneled into the state, he said during an interview with Starting Line last week. The Democratic presidential hopeful is fighting back against dark money and foreign money by suing the International…

Former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell has a message for the presidential candidates visiting Iowa: expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court to protect basic, fundamental rights. She penned an op-ed in the Des Moines Register on the subject and spoke with Starting Line about the importance of the idea. While Supreme Court…

Elizabeth Warren took a tour of an ethanol production facility today in Dyersville, Iowa. It was the latest in a series of presidential candidate visits to biofuel facilities in the caucus state, and she used the occasion to point out where she felt Donald Trump’s administration was falling short in delivering for Iowa farmers. Led…

Today’s party gathering in Cedar Rapids was the largest crowd yet for an Iowa Caucus event, and 19 presidential candidates took the opportunity to impress the key activists who showed up. For many of the Iowans there, it was their first time hearing in-person from a dozen or more of the contenders. Starting Line fanned…

Nineteen presidential candidates made their case to a ballroom packed full of the very Democratic activists who will help determine the next nominee of the party. Despite the lengthy program line-up, the day actually ran decently on-time, and most attendees stuck around for the full three hours. How do you make your case to be…

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders marched with a crowd of hundreds to the Iowa Hall of Fame event in Cedar Rapids Sunday afternoon with striking McDonald’s workers from Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. The workers were demanding the right to unionize so they can raise their pay, end sexual harassment and workplace violence. Chants of "This…

Senator Amy Klobuchar landed her second Iowa endorsement just in time for her speech at the Iowa Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids this Sunday afternoon. State Representative Marti Anderson announced her support for Klobuchar, citing the senator’s experience in working on mental health care issues and criminal justice. Anderson represents House District 36…