Iowa Caucus

A sense of fatalism has crept into the leadership of Iowa Republicans. Faced with the very real possibility that Donald Trump could be Republicans’ standard bearer in the fall, many leading Republicans in Iowa are cozying up to the bombastic front-runner. Now they’re sharing stages with the man whose policies they’ve distanced themselves from several…

Bernie Sanders has talked to a whole lot of people in Iowa. On Sunday he passed the big milestone of combined Iowa turnouts of 50,000. It happened at a notably smaller and more subdued conference room at Upper Iowa University, filled with about 300 people. But, true to form, the event was still very good…

Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards is traveling around Iowa this weekend in support of Hillary Clinton, who the Planned Parenthood Action Fund has endorsed. She’s hitting up a number of house parties and Clinton field offices to meet volunteers, supporters and undecided Iowans to persuade them on Clinton’s record of women’s healthcare access…

Clinton County was not Clinton country in 2008. The eastern Iowa working-class county situated on the Mississippi River broke for neighbor-state Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 Iowa Caucus win, besting Hillary Clinton here by a 37% to 34% margin. That defeat in the county that shares a name with the former Secretary of State…

About 100 Ironworkers from central Iowa gathered at the Local 67 headquarters on the northeast side of Des Moines a few cold weekends ago to hear from their international president on the importance of caucusing for Hillary Clinton. Their mission that day was to send their members out to knock on doors of fellow labor…

Ted Cruz has made a lot of enemies in Iowa. Chief among them is the ethanol industry. Now several of Cruz’s important Iowa allies may be exacerbating his problems and opposition by unwittingly dragging him into a long-running internal Iowa Republican civil war. The conflict is a fight over the future of the Iowa Republican…

Hillary Clinton went in to caucus night in 2008 in 2nd place. Nearly every entrance poll released showed her ahead of John Edwards, though still behind Barack Obama. But after the realignment period in the actual caucus – where candidate groups who don’t meet the Democrats’ viability threshold switch sides – Clinton ended just behind…

It was not the typical Bernie Sanders crowd. A dozen Iowans in their 60’s, 70’s and beyond, nearly all white-haired and wearing glasses, shuffled into the basement meeting room of the Estherville public library last Friday, to hear from a Sanders staffer about seniors issues. Estherville is in Emmet County, located in deep-red northwestern Iowa,…

There’s fewer degrees of Fahrenheit outside in Iowa right now than there are days left until the Iowa Caucus, but not by much. The final Democratic debate before the caucus was held last night, and it reflected a much changed dynamic since months past. Hillary Clinton is fighting for her life in Iowa, much as…

As the environmental and climate change movement continues to build momentum and expand, a number of new partners join the coalition. One important addition has been the faith community, with leaders from a wide array of denominations adding their voice and unique perspective. One veteran civil rights activist and faith leader visited Des Moines recently…