Iowa rated tossup in governor’s race and two of four House contests
DES MOINES, Iowa — Trump administration officials have converged on Iowa in recent days to campaign for Republican candidates facing competitive midterm contests, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth headlining a 19-minute speech for Rep. Zach Nunn at the Iowa State Fair on Monday.
The visits by at least six senior administration figures reflect how a state that backed President Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024 has emerged as a November battleground. Nonpartisan analysts rate Iowa’s governor’s race and two of its four U.S. House contests as tossups, while an open Senate seat is rated “lean Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
The political shift comes as rural communities face high fuel and fertilizer costs alongside stagnant grain prices following Trump’s robust embrace of tariffs — a backdrop that has made races across the state competitive.
The event had been scheduled for five months earlier but was canceled after U.S. troops from Iowa were killed early in the Iran war. On Monday, Hegseth stood beneath an elk head mounted to a wall inside a bar as he campaigned for Nunn, a Republican in a tossup-rated congressional race.
“According to the lawyers, I’m only here in a personal capacity today,” Hegseth said roughly halfway through his remarks, which also covered Trump, military spending, the Iran war, and — perhaps himself, down the road — in a state that starts the GOP presidential nomination process.
When Nunn “asked if I’d come on out here, it was an absolute no-brainer,” Hegseth said. “We need those reinforcements in Washington, D.C. We need him to continue to be there.”
The defense secretary connected the trip to the human cost of the Iran war. “There is a cost to doing very difficult things, to going out and defending your country and ensuring radical Islamist crazies don’t get a nuclear weapon,” Hegseth said. “I’m not willing to look my kids in the eye and say we had a chance to do something about it but didn’t.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were among the highest-profile officials to visit the Hawkeye State in recent days. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also attended events at the fair or elsewhere in Iowa during the past week. Some of the events were official in nature, while others were purely campaign-related.
Hegseth sold Nunn’s loyalty to Trump, a position that could both help and hurt in a state where a Fox News poll of Iowa voters released in July showed Trump viewed more unfavorably than favorably, 55% to 42%. The defense secretary said his “biggest job” is “to ensure that my department is properly funded” and argued that the U.S. must avoid “fighting the dumb nation-building wars of the past.”
Iowa’s emergence as a political battleground is notable given its recent history. The state backed Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024, and all six members of Iowa’s congressional delegation are Republicans. The Democratic National Committee was so disillusioned with prospects in the state that it ended a roughly five-decade tradition of Iowa hosting the party’s first presidential nominating contest.
Marni Hockenberg, a 70-year-old Des Moines resident who attended the Nunn-Hegseth event, said she would support the defense secretary if he were to run for office someday.
“Whatever the pathways for Pete, I will support that,” said Hockenberg, who works as an executive consultant. “He is an ambitious, pro-American, freedom-loving individual.”