DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Few states have changed politically with the head-snapping speed of Iowa. In 2008, its voters propelled Barack Obama to the White House. In 2012, Iowa backed Obama again. But by 2016, Donald Trump easily defeated Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Republicans were in control of the governor’s mansion and state legislature and held all but one U.S. House seat and both U.S. Senate seats.
Democrats are hoping the state could be swinging back. Tom Vilsack, Iowa’s only two-term Democratic governor in the past 50 years, says Republicans have “gone too far to the right and there is the slow movement back.”