President Donald Trump heads to Iowa on Thursday, looking to energize his base as he touts a financial-support plan to reassure farmers, a key constituency that has been hit hard by rising prices.

It’s another campaign trip to a reliably red state that has become surprisingly competitive. Trump won Iowa three times — carrying it by 13 points in 2024 — but this year several Republicans are in tight races.

Returning to Iowa for the first time in nearly 10 months, Trump will campaign, in part, for Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate hopeful who is running to fill retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat. Hinson and her Democratic rival, state Rep. Josh Turek, are almost neck and neck in polling averages from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne.

“There are a number of Senate seats in play that we did not expect to be in play,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “[Trump’s] record and his approach are likely to appeal much more to members of his base than they are to independent or swing voters.”

Thursday’s rally at Sioux Gateway Airport is the first of at least two planned visits to Iowa by the president in the final stretch of the midterms. The president’s campaign blitz in typically Republican strongholds reflects shifts in the political landscape in a midterm that initially favored the GOP.

“The problem right now is that people perceive that the economy is not better, and inflation has not only not come down, but it’s higher,” Ayres said.

A GOP strategist familiar with Republicans’ thinking in the midterms, granted anonymity to speak freely about internal strategies, told MS NOW the president’s visits to some of the reddest districts in states like Iowa in the final days of the campaign are part of a deliberate strategy to maximize turnout by loyal Trump voters in key races.

“Specifically, the 4th District, where we’re deploying him, is the heart of the base, the heart of Republican support,” the strategist said. “If we can churn out our base voters in that area, Democrats’ path to winning the state just shrinks dramatically.”

Seeking to address the financial hardships hitting major agricultural states like Iowa, the Trump administration has announced an $8 billion relief package for farmers and construction plans for a $15 billion steel plant in the state. The president himself has also touted new foreign trade deals to export American farm products and other efforts to boost farmers and ranchers.

But some farmers MS NOW spoke to say Trump’s trade deals have made little impact on their businesses as their operating costs have increased from rising diesel and fertilizer prices. And the president’s announcement that he would lower tariffs on ground beef from Argentina earlier this year came as a blow to the state’s cattle industry, with both Hinson and Turek calling the policy a bad idea.

Craig Moss, a fifth-generation cattle and hog farmer from Hull, about 50 miles north of Sioux City, told MS NOW the volatile cattle market had been “rough” in the past year, in part because of the president’s lifting of tariffs on Argentine ground beef.

“Trump makes a trade deal with Argentina, and then when he’s questioned about it by reporters, he says, ‘You don’t know anything about what’s going on over there,’” Moss said. “Well, sir, you don’t know anything about the cattle market.”

Moss said the current diesel price “kind of stinks,” adding that the ongoing Iran war was to blame. Still, Moss, who voted for Trump in the past, said he agreed with the president on most issues and did not regret voting for him before.

Julius Schaaf, a corn-and-soybean farmer of more than 40 years based in Fremont County, voted against Trump in past elections and said the current volatility in the farming industry was because of Trump’s trade policies. Schaaf criticized the administration as a “rude and difficult” trading partner.

“A lot of the people that supported him were farmers that have a lot of equity in their property, and they can weather a storm for a while,” Schaaf said. “But you talk to the young guys that are just getting started and trying to buy inputs and inputs have gone through the roof — they’re the ones that are really struggling.”

Vice President JD Vance addressed some of those concerns last month at a rally in the state, telling supporters that the Trump administration’s trade and tax policies have directly benefited farmers and blue-collar workers. He has also sought to show understanding of economic realities, acknowledging the high cost of gas and telling voters “we’re working on it.” Trump, for his part, has at times downplayed those concerns, calling the focus on affordability a “hoax” and insisting that prices would plummet once the Iran war ends.

Many Iowans across the political spectrum whom MS NOW spoke with agreed that their No. 1 concern was the cost of living. And while Trump’s performance got mixed reviews, they still had not decided how they would vote in the Senate and House races.

Tiffany, an Iowa voter who backed Trump in 2024, plans to vote in the midterm races but said she is currently undecided. Her top issue: the cost of living, she said, because “prices keep going up.”

“If you can’t afford to put gas in your car, how can you go to work to make money to put a roof over your head to put food on your table?” said Tiffany, who asked to go by her first name only. “You can only stretch your penny and your dollars so far until you can’t stretch it anymore.”

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Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has made Amy Acton’s estranged mother — whom Acton has accused of childhood neglect — the face of its latest attack on the Democrat in the Ohio governor’s race. Even some of Ramaswamy’s fellow Republicans are condemning it.

A top official in Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration said that “exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong.” Ohio’s Republican secretary of state distanced himself from the ad, saying his office is reviewing complaints about it. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called Ramaswamy a “bad guy.” But Vice President JD Vance, campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday, defended it.

In the video, which has circulated online but not yet aired on TV, Donna Arthur calls Acton “a liar” about her past and urges voters not to support her. Acton has said that her stepfather raped her as a child and that Arthur stood by him even after he was criminally charged and remained at large for more than two decades until his death. The two have not spoken since 1978, according to Acton, who has said her mother is “clearly not well.” Arthur has disputed the allegations.

“The media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said. “Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts.”

Wednesday’s stop was Vance’s second visit to the state in two weeks amid Republican worries about losing tight races for governor and U.S. Senate.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took issue with the vice president’s comments on Wednesday.

“Vance’s acceptance of this campaign ad only breathes life into the disease that we should be seeking to cure,” Christie told The Washington Post.

Closer to home, Lydia Mihalik, director of the Ohio Department of Development under DeWine, wrote on X that she didn’t have to agree with Acton’s politics to object to the ad.

“I haven’t changed my political beliefs. I’m simply unwilling to set aside my personal values to defend a political ad,” she wrote.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for state auditor, told a local ABC affiliate that his office is ensuring the video complies with the law. He also distanced himself from the ad.

“Candidates will answer for their own ads,” LaRose told WSYX. “I probably wouldn’t run an ad like that, but every candidate gets to make their own decision.”

“This is going to cost Mr. Ramaswamy the election right here,” said Don Kissick, Ohio’s long-shot Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in a video posted to Facebook. “He obviously has no respect for anyone’s humanity. If he did, this wouldn’t be a thing.”

Ramaswamy’s Trump-endorsed campaign is standing by the ad and has plans to spend $4 million airing it, Axios has reported. According to AdImpact, Ramawamy’s campaign has added $4.5 million in spending on ads and reservations on Wednesday, most of which would presumably be spent on this video.

A Ramawamy spokesperson did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Backlash to the ad has fueled a late fundraising boost for Acton, with early voting already underway. On Wednesday, Illinois first lady MK Pritzker, the wife of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, said she would donate $500,000 to Acton’s campaign.

Acton holds a 5-point edge over the entrepreneur-turned-politician, according to a polling average from MS NOW’s partner FiftyPlusOne — a notable edge in a state that has become reliably Republican over the past decade-plus.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz plainly described the spot as a “Hail Mary” for Vivek’s campaign to drive up turnout, adding that “Vivek’s team is hoping voters don’t dig into” the details of Acton’s relationship with her mother.

Haley, who faced personal attacks from Ramaswamy on the debate stage during the 2024 Republican presidential primary, also said on social media that it’s “a shame he continues to get away with it.”

Summit County Republican Party Chair Bryan Williams acknowledged that the video was bound to upset critics of negative campaigning, but he said none of his constituents have reached out to him about it.

“This commercial is a punctuation of the fact that Amy Acton is not mentally stable and as a result shouldn’t be governor,” Williams told MS NOW.

Acton’s campaign responded Tuesday evening with its own video, describing Ramaswamy as unfit to lead. The campaign has yet to buy airtime for it, according to AdImpact.

In the video, Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, says his sister was abused by her stepfather when she was as young as 11.

“To think that that’s somehow a talking point, shame on Vivek,” he said.

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