Democrats see midterm hope in reliably red Iowa as Trump approval ratings sag

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IOWA — Connie Klug didn't leave the Republican Party. The party left her, she said.

She was raised in the GOP, considers herself a fiscal conservative and married a registered Republican.

But decades ago, Klug said, she felt the party drifting. The isolation she felt intensified more recently, as she watched her former political comrades turn a blind eye to what she views as President Donald Trump's abuses of power.

"It's astonishing to me how the Republican Party is just looking the other way. Trump continues to stretch the law, and no one's doing anything," Klug said from the kitchen of her home in Adel, Iowa, down a long dirt road about a 30-minute drive west of Des Moines.

Klug was hosting several friends for a roundtable with Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic state senator and one of a handful of candidates who have at least a fighting chance of flipping Republican-held U.S. House seats in the former swing state that is now reliably red. Trone Garriott is running in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Des Moines and its suburbs, as well as much of the southwestern part of the state.

In Iowa, registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by roughly 200,000. Trump handily won the state by 13 percentage points in 2024. Iowa has not voted for a Democratic president since Barack Obama in 2012. The last time Hawkeye voters elected a Democrat to represent them in the Senate was 2008. In the House, it hasn't happened since 2020.

Democrats are also grappling with a persistent reputational problem that stretches beyond Iowa. According to a May poll from the Pew Research Center, 59% of Americans hold an unfavorable view of the party, about the same percentage that views the Republican Party unfavorably.

Nevertheless, Trump's approval ratings continue to fall, prices are up due to the Iran war, and Iowa's economy is struggling. Democrats are hoping to take back a House majority and provide a check on Trump's power in his final years in office. And they see Iowa as an important part of that mission.

State Auditor Rob Sand is running a competitive race to turn the governor's mansion blue. Democrat Josh Turek hopes to upset Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for the seat Republican Sen. Joni Ernst will vacate.

Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic nominee for Iowa's 3rd congressional district, meets with constituents at the home of Connie Klug in Adel, Iowa.

Justin Papp | CNBC

In House races, Trone Garriott is trying to oust incumbent Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, and former state Rep. Christina Bohannan is due for a rematch with Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa's 1st District. Bohannan lost in 2024 by less than 800 votes.

CNBC spent three days crisscrossing Iowa, spending time with the leading candidates in each of those House races, where Democrats have arguably their best shot at making gains in the state.

Trone Garriott, a Lutheran pastor who has worked in the nonprofit sector, met with a handful of constituents around Klug's dining room table, fielding questions over coffee and croissants about threats to democracy, the importance of integrity among politicians, and local cuts to public education.

"It's really important to show up for people, and I have faith in Iowans to be able to come together and meet the challenges facing us today," she said, fresh off a 21-county tour of the district that had ended the night before. "But I know that there are a lot of Iowans who have lost faith in their government, and for good reason."

There was palpable enthusiasm in the room about her candidacy. But Klug wasn't sure any individual Democrat could outrun the negative perception that pervades a state where the party has floundered of late.

"I'm not confident we're gonna win," Klug said. "Because I'm afraid that in the end, the Republicans won't necessarily be voting against Sarah. They're going to be voting against putting any Democrat in Congress."

Tough lessons

A farm owned by Aaron Lehman, located in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District.

Carlos Waters | CNBC

Democrats, once bolstered by a powerful bloc of working class voters, have lost ground in rural parts of the country for decades as the coasts have amassed increasing power within the party.

The result in Iowa, according to Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party and a former state legislator who lost to Miller-Meeks by single digits in 2020, has been a lack of resonance with voters.

"As I talk to folks across the state, it's clear that what was happening at the national level was not representative of the way people think here in Iowa," Hart said. She said she thinks national Democrats in recent cycles put too much focus on social issues and not enough emphasis on economic issues.

"I think we learned some tough lessons," Hart said.

But, at least at the moment, Trump is under water. A Morning Consult poll released in May found Trump has a -7 approval rating in Iowa. And the state's economy is struggling.

Farm bankruptcies are up statewide. Tariffs and the Iran war have hit soybean and other farmers hard. Hospitals and rural health clinics are closing, or are at risk of closing, at least in part because of Trump administration Medicaid cuts. And state tax revenue is on the decline.

Marc Short, a former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence who now chairs the board of Advancing American Freedom, a conservative public policy organization founded by Pence, has raised alarms about how in his view Trump administration policies have hurt farmers, a key voting bloc in a heavily agrarian state.

High prices and a stagnating agricultural economy could create an enthusiasm gap for Republicans heading into the midterms in farming and rural communities in places like Iowa, Short said.

"If there's a lack of enthusiasm among a core constituency, I think there's a huge risk to Republicans," Short said. "You can see that there's going to be plenty of people who feel that what they voted for did not turn out to be what they wanted from a policy perspective. So they just stay home."

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter has labeled the 1st and 3rd districts "toss ups," and both are listed as "districts in play" by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC is also focusing on Iowa's open 2nd Congressional District, which Hinson represents, though it's a less likely flip.

Both Trone Garriott and Bohannan have been narrowly outraised by their opponents this election cycle, according to recent Federal Election Commission data, though Bohannan has slightly more cash on hand than Miller-Meeks.

This isn't the first time Democrats have eagerly eyed Iowa. Ann Selzer, a Des Moines-based pollster known for her accuracy, badly underestimated Trump and Republicans ahead of the 2024 election cycle, briefly giving false hope to Democrats who thought the state could be in play for Kamala Harris.

Citing that mishap, as well as other instances of overconfidence from Iowa Democrats that the state could turn a bluer shade of purple, some Iowa Republicans are projecting confidence.

"I've been the chair for 12 years. I think this is the third or fourth time that Democrats said life was going to change as we know it politically," said Jeff Kaufmann, who leads the Republican Party of Iowa. "That's what I would do too if I were them and had lost almost everything and had some out-of-touch candidates."

"So I understand their contention. It's just not supported by facts," he said.

'Cautiously optimistic'

An aerial view of Ottumwa, Iowa, May 2026.

Carlos Waters | CNBC

Nunn, however, was more circumspect about the political position he and other Iowa Republicans find themselves in.

"'Cautiously optimistic' is the military term for this," the Air Force combat veteran said with a grin, during a visit to a farm on the outskirts of Ottumwa, a onetime regional manufacturing hub whose economy has stagnated more recently.

Nunn spent nearly a decade in the Iowa legislature before edging out Democratic incumbent Rep. Cindy Axne by a little over 2,000 votes in 2022. He won reelection more comfortably, by about 4 percentage points, in 2024.

"I have the most fairly drawn district in America," Nunn said. "That means I've got to convince everybody from my Republicans, my independents, my mother-in-law, who's a Democrat, to all at least hear our message."

Nunn and Miller-Meeks have both scored Trump's endorsement, but, like other battleground Republicans, they must contend with the president's unpopularity as they make their pitch to voters.

Nunn has by no means shunned Trump. He joined the president during a visit to a Des Moines suburb in January and appeared with Vice President JD Vance during Vance's trip to the state in May. Trone Garriott said the president's and vice president's visits to the district indicated "They're pretty worried."

But in a roughly 30-minute interview, Nunn invoked the president only sporadically and called himself one of the most bipartisan members of Congress.

"My No. 1 job is to get out there and work for folks. And that's far bigger than whoever's sitting in the White House," Nunn said when asked about Trump's declining favorability.

In the interview, Nunn said he's delivered for Iowans, at times bucking his own party to protect his constituents' interests.

In January, he was one of 17 Republicans who voted to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which were intended to keep premiums low for millions of Americans. The measure failed and the credits expired amid broader GOP opposition.

More recently, Nunn and Miller-Meeks helped lead the push in the House for year-round sales of E15 gasoline, a boon for corn growers in the state. The measure was approved in May but has an uncertain fate in the Senate. And a proposal from Nunn aimed at modernizing USDA housing rules and expanding access to homeownership in rural America was included in a housing bill that advanced out of Congress on Tuesday. Trump was scheduled to sign the package into law on Wednesday.

Nunn also touted the "big, beautiful bill," the massive tax and spending package Republicans passed in July, which he said cut down on rampant Medicaid waste and fraud throughout the country.

At a campaign rally later that same day in Bettendorf, in Iowa's Quad Cities region, Miller-Meeks highlighted the tax-and-spending package, year-round E15 and Trump Accounts, a new tax-advantaged savings account for children.

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, speaks to supporters at a campaign rally in Bettendorf, Iowa, on May 26, 2026.

CNBC

Miller-Meeks — a former Army nurse and an ophthalmologist who joined Congress in 2021 — was more eager to tout her association with Trump, referencing him multiple times in a less than 10-minute speech. Miller-Meeks was a week out from her Republican primary — which she won by a wide margin — and was dealing with accusations from her opponent that her record wasn't conservative enough.

"Donald Trump endorsed me because I'm a fighter," Miller-Meeks told the crowd of roughly 100 people who support her and Hinson and who had gathered at a banquet hall in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Guests sipped cocktails as music by Travis Tritt and Jake Owen played over the loudspeakers. One wore a Trump '24 football jersey.

Unlike Nunn, who didn't mention Trone Garriott by name, Miller-Meeks took a pugnacious tone. She told of the hardships she'd overcome — she was burned badly as a teen and spent years in the hospital; she ran three times unsuccessfully for Congress before winning; she's won two elections by less than one percentage point — and warned of what she said is the damage her Democratic opponent would do if elected in Iowa.

"We know what happens if we don't keep this House seat and if we don't keep the majority," Miller-Meeks said. "All we have to do is just look back a few years ago."

"Open borders, cartels ... record numbers of overdoses, authoritarian censorship, as we saw people get kicked out of the military if they declined the [Covid-19] vaccine," she said. "Record inflation, record spending by the government, and your money going to places that you don't want your money to go to, while they tax you into oblivion."

Miller-Meeks was the only candidate in the two highly competitive Iowa House races who declined to sit down for an interview with CNBC.

Groceries or gas

But the policies touted by Nunn and Miller-Meeks are the same that Trone Garriott and Bohannan are citing to mount a case against the incumbents.

"People are struggling, choosing between groceries and filling up the gas tank, not being able to find a doctor in their community anymore. And these are all Trump policies that my congressman is supporting wholeheartedly," Trone Garriott said in an interview before the roundtable at Klug's.

Under Republican rule in Washington, ACA tax subsidies were not extended, year-round E15 has not gotten final passage, prices for diesel, gas and fertilizer have been volatile, and inflation is high. Bohannan and Trone Garriott both said Trump's 2025 tax-and-spending package, which Nunn and Miller-Meeks voted for, resulted in rural health clinic closures.

Nunn and Miller-Meeks have also repeatedly voted against war powers resolutions that would rein in Trump's war on Iran. Two Iowans have died in combat — both from Nunn's district — since the war began in February.

Both Democratic candidates said if elected they would push to restore Medicaid funding and oppose Trump's tariffs. They also criticized their opponents' continued support of the war in Iran.

Third time's the charm?

Bohannan's Coralville campaign headquarters was quiet in the early afternoon the day following Miller-Meeks' rally.

"This is the chillest you will ever see it," Bohannan said as she walked around the space, on the ground floor of an apartment complex in the Iowa City suburb. She'd moved into the office just days before, and the campaign was still settling in.

A few campaign staffers chatted softly as another made calls. The WiFi had not been set up, and the walls were mostly barren, though a Barack Obama "Hope" poster hung in a common space.

Bohannan, who is positioning herself as an independent voice for Iowa, was quick to say it wasn't hers. It had come with the office when she moved in.

"I am not a big political party person. I don't speak for the party. I don't think that way. I hardly ever talk about Democrats or Republicans," Bohannan said. "I am literally out there just talking to people. I don't ask them what party they're from when I talk to them. But what I can tell you is that people are fed up."

Democrats in red-tinged districts such as Bohannan's must strike a delicate balance: strongly opposing Trump's policies while also reaching across party lines to appeal to unaffiliated voters and swayable Republicans.

Timothy Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, said he isn't sure most of them are pulling it off.

"Trump's poll numbers have been down so long and Democrats try so hard to demonize him. It's no surprise, but it doesn't really affect his supporters," Hagle said. "Now, the question, of course, is back to the no-party voters. How are they affected by this? By and large, they're probably just turned off."

Bohannan pointed out that she is running against Miller-Meeks, not Trump. She said she thinks people of all political persuasions in southeast Iowa are ready for a change.

"Last cycle I came within 799 votes of winning this district even though President Trump won it by over 35,000 votes. And if you do the math on that, you see that tens of thousands of people who voted for Donald Trump also voted for me," Bohannan said.

"Miller-Meeks took four times to win this district. I'm going to do it in three."