Iowa Democrats take aim at Tim Pawlenty as he kicks off 'Road to Results' tour

In advance of Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's "Road to Results" tour, the Iowa Democratic Party has released a new video claiming he drove Minnesota straight into the ditch as governor.

Pawlenty announced his Iowa "Road to Results" tour on Thursday. He plans to drive 687 miles in an RV, stopping in 13 counties and 18 cities throughout the state.

The video, released Monday, claims that Pawlenty left Minnesota with the largest budget deficit in history and that taxes increased for 90 percent of Iowans.

"Now he wants to hop in America's drivers' seat?" the video asks.

At a press conference Monday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sue Dvorsky and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin attacked Pawlenty's economic policies.

"As Minnesotans can tell you, if Tim Pawlenty’s driving the bus, his record shows that his road is not one Americans are going to want to follow," Martin said.

"The only results that Tim Pawlenty has delivered are higher property taxes, fewer jobs and services, and a lower quality of education for Minnesotans," he continued. "I guess those are results – but very bad results for the people of our state."

Dvorsky added that Pawlenty had embraced "every bad, failed economic idea" he could find, noting his support for the Ryan budget plan, quadrupling the Bush tax cuts and not raising the federal debt ceiling.

Addressing the criticism, Pawlenty told an audience at the Coralville Public Library in Iowa that as governor he balanced the budget every year for eight years.

"In fact, the last budget for which I was responsible ended June 30, and it ended with surplus," he said, according to the Quad City Times.

Watch the video below: