Nearly two dozen Democratic presidential candidates paraded through Iowa this weekend, speaking at the state fair, the annual Wing Ding dinner and a forum on gun control.
The sheer volume of contenders signals a new phase of the primary campaign, ending the get-to-know-you period and beginning a six-month sprint to the Iowa caucuses.
They'll be competing for the support of Democrats who say repeatedly that, despite their differences, their top priority is landing on a nominee who can defeat President Donald Trump.
The sole Republican running against President Donald Trump for the 2020 party nomination says the president is a Republican in name only.
Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld told a crowd at the Iowa State Trump isn’t a fiscal conservative, doesn’t like free trade, and opposes other things Republicans have traditionally stood for.
Weld spoke at the Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox, and said he’s running because the country is at a turning point.
“And I think the most urgent duty facing the next president is to seek to seek to unify the country as opposed to dividing it.”
Weld stressed his record of budget-cutting when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Weld faces long odds in his effort – a recent Gallup poll suggested nine out of 10 Republicans approve of the job President Trump is doing.
The number of fatal traffic crashes at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is down this year.
The 10-day rally wrapped up Sunday with two fatalities, compared with four last year.
The Highway Patrol says drunken driving and drug arrests increased this year. The patrol made 171 DUI arrests and 344 drug arrests.