Trump may have already lost Iowa to the 2020 Democratic candidates - over corn Art Cullen

You might think that when President Trump calls in his ambassador to China they would talk about the trade war.

Nope.

The ambassador, former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, instead showed Trump county maps of Iowa and how he might lose the swing state because he has honked off so many farmers.

That’s according to a fascinating story by Reuters that detailed the two-hour meeting August 19 at which Branstad told Trump that waiving ethanol blending requirements for gasoline refineries was causing deep political doo-doo in the Corn Belt. Forget the fact that China shut down Iowa’s biggest market for soybeans — China used to gobble up nearly half the state’s crop. Ethanol is the third rail of Tall Corn State politics. The state hosts 42 distilleries that cook over a third of the corn crop. Mess with ethanol and you might get burned.

“Fed up,” is how the Iowa Corn Growers Association put it.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2019/sep/16/trump-may-have-already-lost-iowa-to-the-2020-democratic-candidates-over-corn

Plus Trump's approval rating in Iowa is abysmal at -9 : https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump-2/