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The 2024 GOP presidential primary is in full swing in Iowa this week, as candidates squeeze in final campaign stops ahead of the state's caucuses on Jan. 15. Why it matters: While former President Trump has dominated polling, many will be watching how his main rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, perform. Iowa's Republican caucus will be the star of this year's show, due to no significant challengers to President Biden on the Democratic side. When and where do the caucuses take place? On Jan. 15, Iowa Republican primary voters will gather in locations like...

An English professor at Iowa State University warned students that they might get dismissed from the class if they argue against abortion or criticize the Black Lives Matter movement, according to her syllabus. The syllabus, which was obtained by Young America’s Foundation, was written by professor Chloe Clark, a 2016 Iowa State University graduate, for students who will be attending her English 250 class. The student who sent the syllabus to the organization wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution. Clark notified students that “othering” is prohibited in her class, as well as “any topic that takes at its base that...

The Dorr Brothers and their impact on Idaho.

'Trump basically turned me into a Democrat': Working-class white women drifting away from the president DUBUQUE, Iowa — One of the essential storylines of the 2016 presidential election was the hidden Donald Trump voter: the person who wasn’t surveyed by pollsters or comfortable telling friends or family about who they thought was best to lead the country. Three years ago, thousands of these Americans — many working class, residing in the middle of the country — helped deliver the most astounding electoral surprise in modern history. Now, as they review the Trump presidency a year before his reelection, some are...

DES MOINES -- Julian Castro, Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders took to that stage at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines Thursday night for a town hall hosted by The League of United Latin American Citizens. Hundreds of Latinos attended Bernie Sanders got loudest crowd reaction Julian Castro impressed some with immigration knowledge It was an opportunity for not only the moderators--including Spectrum News’s own Annette Gracia--but the audience to ask questions. The candidates were surrounded by hundreds of Latinos ready to cheer on their favorites. “Should we make public colleges and universities tuition free? Yes. Well you know...

The first votes of the 2020 presidential election are just 100 days away, when Iowans kick off their first-in-the-nation caucus on Feb. 3. Democrats in the state are eager to unseat President Trump, but voters are split on which candidate can make that happen. On a recent Thursday night, supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren packed into a split-level house in suburban Dubuque, Iowa, to network and get tips from local campaign organizers on canvassing voters. Rachel Guhin was among them. The 25-year-old works at a publishing company in Dubuque. She says she's volunteering for the campaign because she thinks Warren...

WEST BRANCH, Iowa (AP) — Hillary Clinton's suggestion this past week that Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russians to act as a spoiler in the 2020 race may have had the opposite effect of what the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee intended: It's elevated Gabbard's candidacy and may have inspired even more ardent interest in her campaign among Clinton critics. On Saturday, Gabbard found fans among the many Clinton skeptics across Iowa, where Clinton barely won the 2016 Democratic caucuses against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. "What is this horrible thing that Hillary said about you?" one person asked...

Dallas (WBAP/KLIF) – The crowd is already gathering outside the American Airlines Center for the Trump campaign rally tomorrow evening. Among those in the small crowd that is slowly building, this group of women talked to us about why they came out so early. “Mr Trump, President Trump. [What are some of the things that you support that he’s done?] Oooh so much, (the wall), the wall for sure… security … he brought faith back out in the community … all of the above and being able to say God again.” The women, mostly strangers before today are from Des...

Altoona, Iowa (CNN)Joe Biden said Sunday that even though he was the last top-tier Democratic candidate to call for President Donald Trump's impeachment, "I'm the reason there is impeachment going on." The former vice president lambasted Trump for asking foreign governments to investigate him and his son Hunter -- despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Biden -- at a forum in Iowa, saying that the President is leading the "most corrupt administration in modern American history." "It's gotten so far now, if you don't move on it, then what do we say to the...

On Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren got one of her best polls of the cycle. According to a new survey by Selzer and Co. sponsored by the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom, Warren has 22 percent support among Democrats in Iowa, the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state. Former Vice President Joe Biden sits at 20 percent, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders at 11 percent, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 9 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris at 6 percent. Notably, this is the first high-quality poll to put Warren at the top of the field in Iowa, though her 2...

Jeromy Brown, a 46-year-old teacher in Iowa, considers President Trump a white supremacist. "If the shoe fits, then say it, and the shoe fits him," Brown said, while waiting in a "selfie line" at an Elizabeth Warren rally in August. "Why should he be excused from that label?" Brown, like many white liberal voters, appreciates that some Democratic presidential candidates have begun explicitly referring to Trump as a white supremacist. His top choice, Warren, told The NPR Politics Podcast in August that "when the white supremacists call Donald Trump one of their own, I tend to believe them." But she's...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Friday’s LGBTQ Presidential Forum had the feeling of a home game for Pete Buttigieg, who was introduced as “a member of our community” to a rousing standing ovation. But that enthusiasm for Buttigieg has not guaranteed him a lock on this voting bloc in Iowa. Buttigieg covered topics including learning “the hard way” about “discrimination” when he came out — like the first time he saw his mayoral office’s annual blood drive on his schedule, Buttigieg said, and soon realized, “I can’t be part of it.” Yet some activists in Iowa said that Buttigieg had not...

Pete Buttigieg, the first major openly gay candidate for president, is campaigning heavily in Iowa, a state that was among the first to sanction gay marriage. DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The question posed to Pete Buttigieg — gay, married and running for president — came from a supporter at an Iowa campaign stop: What should he tell friends who say America isn't ready to elect a gay man as president? That prompted a woman in the crowd to object with an expletive, igniting cheers from hundreds in the audience. Of the many intriguing things about Buttigieg and his candidacy...

The last time presidential candidates gathered to address LGBTQ issues specifically was 2007. Since then, there’s been a sea change in rights and acceptance. When 10 of the Democratic candidates for president gather in Iowa on Friday evening, it will be at a forum to address issues that are top of mind for one of their party’s most reliable constituencies: the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. The candidates — Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Sestak, Elizabeth Warren and Marianne Williamson — will take the stage at Coe College...

The Iowa Republican Party is holding onto plans to have its traditional straw poll at the caucus in February to decide the Republican nominee in the bid for the White House. Still, local party leaders maintain that the party firmly supports President Trump. Muscatine County Republican chair Fred Grunder said the party is behind Trump, but there is likely to be a small number of protest votes at the caucus in 2020. “There are some people that I think they’re just trying to make a statement more than anything else,” he said. “If there’s 500 people that are at our...

Gary Kupferschmid managed to snag the autographs of five presidential candidates in just three hours at the Iowa State Fair this month, adding to a hefty collection that includes Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump – the last of whom got his vote in 2016. Now Mr. Kupferschmid is back in his hometown, standing on the dimly lit porch of the Port of Burlington as the Mississippi River flows by, waiting for a signature from the latest candidate to roll through. But Mayor Pete Buttigieg is hard to get to. He is mobbed everywhere...

While Democrats consider more than 20 candidates hoping to become their party's nominee, the Republican National Committee is forging ahead with an August ground-game push to boost President Trump's reelection campaign in more than a dozen states. The RNC and the Trump Victory Committee launched an "Open for Business" tour last week featuring more than 30 events across 17 states to highlight the administration's economic achievements. In conjunction with the events hosted by surrogates, the committees have launched a six-figure digital ad buy targeting cities like Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, West Palm Beach, Miami and Las Vegas. The ads, which...

DES MOINES, Iowa — As Democratic presidential candidates descended on the Iowa State Fair, a plane buzzed overhead, an ominous warning fluttering behind it on a banner: “Focus on Rural America.” Democrats hoping to win the White House in 2020 recognize how critical that advice is after 2016, when Hillary Clinton turned in strong performances in many cities and suburbs but lost rural voters 2-to-1, falling short to President Donald Trump by slim margins in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats clawed back some gains in rural counties in the 2018 midterm elections, and they want to build on that...

At least four Democratic presidential hopefuls — Joe Biden, Julián Castro, Joe Sestak and Marianne Williamson — are expected to attend an LGBTQ forum in Iowa on Sept. 20. The event at Coe College in Cedar Rapids will be hosted by One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group; The Gazette, a daily in Eastern Iowa; and The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine. The candidates will address the audience before a question-and-answer session with the three moderators, one from each of the host organizations. Courtney Reyes, the interim director of One Iowa, said the event will "focus on LGBTQ people in the...

DES MOINES — A Democratic presidential field that has struggled to precisely define its general election indictment of Donald Trump appears finally to have found it. In the wake of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas — the latter of which was tied to a suspect whose anti-immigrant sentiments led to the killing of 22 people — candidates are road-testing a withering argument that draws a direct line between gun violence and the president’s racist rhetoric. “We are living with a toxic brew of two different things, each of which is claiming lives and each of which represents a national...