IA-Monmouth: Trump +2

[pbrower2a]

Iowa was a great fit for Barack Obama, who seemed to know farm policy well enough to win by a  landslide margin in a US Senate race in Illinois. He got lots of votes outside of Greater Chicago -- and if you have ever driven the deathly-dull Interstates of Illinois to the south and west of Chicagoland, you realize how rural "downstate Illinois" is. Iowa outside of Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and the two of the four Quad Cities  is much like rural Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio.

Obama did not do well with rural America, but he did have some good position papers in 2008. One was on the meth epidemic. Farmers were getting their anhydrous ammonia stolen, and the thieves who stole it often left the spigots open, the anhydrous ammonia often spilling over into pastures where livestock were. That killed livestock, basically destroying farmers; wealth.
Obama has been nasty to meth.
  
John Kerry lost Iowa in 2004, and Al Gore came close to losing it in 2000. Need we remind ourselves that Joni Ernst won the US Senate seat in contest in Iowa in 2014? Senator Chuck Grassley continues to lead in polls for the Senate race.

Democrats dare not get complacent about Iowa this year. This state can go R.