Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Cory Booker’s Iowa senior adviser is departing his 2020 presidential campaign, leaving the New Jersey senator without one of his top staffers in a key early voting state.

Iowa senior adviser Joe O’Hern confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that he had stepped down from the campaign last week for personal reasons. O’Hern was Martin O’Malley’s caucus director in 2016, managed a Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign in 2018 and is widely known among Iowa’s political class as a seasoned organizer with a deep understanding of the caucus process.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Joe Biden is taking an aggressive approach to defending the Affordable Care Act, challenging not just President Donald Trump but also some of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination who want to replace the current insurance system with a fully government-run model.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrats in the early presidential contest states of Iowa and Nevada will be able to cast their votes over the telephone instead of showing up at their states’ traditional neighborhood caucus meetings next February, according to plans unveiled by the state parties.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — During a campaign swing through Iowa this week, Joe Biden mentioned that his family recently dined with former President Barack Obama’s family. At a Houston fundraiser, Biden joked about the infamous expletive he deployed in congratulating Obama’s health care victory. And Biden recently tweeted an image of Joe and Barack friendship bracelets.

The message is clear: Biden really wants you to know he’s still friends with Obama.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Latest on Donald Trump and Joe Biden visiting Iowa(all times local):

8:15 p.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says President Donald Trump is trying to dismantle the limits on the presidency.

The former vice president said Tuesday that in the 2020 election, voters must not only reject Trump’s policy agenda and values, but they also must stop Trump’s attempt to elevate the presidency above its coequal branches of government.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden spent Tuesday trading insults — sometimes almost simultaneously— as they stumped across Iowa in split-screen moments that could preview a ferocious fight ahead if the two face off for the presidency next year.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After months of jabbing each other from afar, President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will overlap Tuesday in Iowa, a state that’s critical to both their political futures.

For Biden, a convincing win in next year’s caucuses would cement him as the Democratic front-runner and reinforce his chief argument that he is the party’s best-positioned candidate to beat Trump. The president, meanwhile, is seeking to shore up his Iowa support as part of a broader effort to ensure the Midwestern states he snagged in 2016 remain in his column next year.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A seed developer from the Netherlands credited with introducing high quality disease-resistant vegetable seeds to more than 60 countries including the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia was awarded the 2019 World Food Prize on Monday.

Simon Groot, a sixth generation seedsman, began his search to create better vegetable seeds to help farmers in Southeast Asia in 1981 at age 47 after his family’s company was taken over by a larger corporation.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Joe Biden was not in the banquet hall for the Iowa Democratic Party’s blockbuster fundraiser on Sunday where 19 of his party’s presidential candidates spoke. But he was present in the veiled criticism from several of his rivals.

In five-minute chunks of speaking time, the candidates got the chance to make their case before 1,400 of the most influential Democrats in the leadoff caucus state. Some chose to nudge the national front-runner, and leader in a new Iowa poll, without naming him.

MADRID, Iowa (AP) — Iowa farmer Tim Bardole survived years of low crop prices and rising costs by cutting back on fertilizer and herbicides and fixing broken-down equipment rather than buying new. When President Donald Trump’s trade war with China made a miserable situation worse, Bardole used up any equity his operation had and started investing in hogs in hopes they’ll do better than crops.