2024 Elections

Although Iowa isn't deep red like its neighbor to the west, Nebraska, the state has been a frequent source of frustration to Democrats. President Barack Obama won Iowa in both 2008 and 2012, but the state went to Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. And Iowa is home to Religious Right-friendly Republicans such as Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Joni Ernst.

With the 2024 Iowa Caucuses less than half a year away, The Bulwark's Joe Perticone visited the Iowa State Fair and surveyed the political landscape —which he describes in an article published on August 17. Perticone encountered some diehard Trump supporters as well as some conservative voters who were open to supporting other GOP presidential candidates.

Reacting to new "devastating" polling that shows Donald Trump's latest indictment -- this one in Georgia on racketeering charges -- has voters questioning whether he should be allowed to run for office, much less be re-elected, a former U.S. senator said a reckoning is coming for Republicans if they allow him to be their presidential nominee.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said the former president -- if Republicans let him -- will take the whole party down to defeat in the 2024 election.

After hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski displayed graphics showing the poor numbers for the former president she said she had a point to make.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

"The final thing I want to say is, if the Republican Party has anybody to blame for why they are in this mess that they are handcuffed in a position where they have to play to this base of their party when all of the facts are telling most of America they are way, way out of bounds here, it is this: they have refused to have the courage, they're lily-livered cowards, they have not had the courage to stand up and say, 'Donald Trump did things wrong, the law is working. We need to back off and let the law work. There are serious allegations here. No, the DOJ hasn't been weaponized. No, Fani Willis is not a partisan. This is real stuff.'"

"They won't do that, so it's their own fault they're going to go down in flames because, if they had, they wouldn't be in this position right now," she added.

Watch below or at the link.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was called out by the editorial board of a key California paper for running to the defense of Donald Trump once again after his fourth indictment -- and the paper urged him to "dump" the former president and let him face the music in the courtrooms.

According to the Sacramento Bee editorial board, McCarthy jumped into the fray once again after the former president was indicted under RICO charges in Georgia by taking to social media and proclaiming, "Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election. Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham.”

As the editors pointed out, the top Republican in the House was "wrong on many levels."

"Trump is not the president. The man who beat him fairly, Democrat Joe Biden, is leading the nation. Biden had nothing to do with bringing the Georgia case. That was the decision of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. As for 'weaponizing,' McCarthy, like his fellow Americans, has yet to hear all the evidence in the two federal and two state cases against Trump," they accused.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

As they noted, McCarthy has had multiple previous opportunities to cut Trump loose after two impeachments and his earlier indictments but has lacked the will to stand up for the rule of law.