Iowa
From dirt poor to common ground – Iowa Capital Dispatch
I was raised on Dust Bowl stories.
My grandmother told stories of growing up in Chandler, Oklahoma, until her family was displaced to the fruit plantations of California, where her father became a Baptist tent preacher, famous for his apocalyptic sermons that he delivered under the shade of orange trees.
In her diary, Grandma Velma describes Dust Bowl economics in personal stories of sneaking off with her brother, Oral, to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes while wearing shoes patched with cardboard.
Every Christmas, Grandma packed oranges into our stockings, one for each of her nine children, several dozen grandchildren, and at least half a dozen “took ins.”
A good orange is hard to find in North Dakota. But every winter I seek one out because oranges are heirlooms of my grandmother’s survival.
Grandma’s Dust Bowl stories have been returning to me this winter, where I work for the Walsh County Three Rivers Soil Conservation District in northeastern North Dakota.
The stories have me reconsidering the definition of “dirt poor.”
Merriam-Webster notes that “dirt-poor” came into common use in 1937. Although the term means “suffering extreme poverty,” I contend that it can better serve us as a question: what happens to a farming and ranching community when it becomes “dirt poor,” with depleted and impoverished soil?
Perhaps it is only coincidence that 1937 was also the year that the first soil conservation district was established with the Brown Creek Soil and Water Conservation District in North Carolina. The district where I work was established in 1938.
In “A Sand County Almanac” (1949), Aldo Leopold wrote that soil districts were “a beautiful piece of social machinery.” But he warned that we had only fulfilled half of our original obligation, explaining that SCDs were not merely to provide cost-share funding, education and outreach, and on-the-ground support. Crucially, SCDs were also implemented to establish local rules for land-use that would be enforceable by law.
As Leopold observed:
When one asks why no rules have been written, one is told that the community is not yet ready to support them; education must precede rules. But the education actually in progress makes no mention of obligations to land over and above those dictated by self-interest. The net result is that we have more education but less soil, fewer healthy woods, and as many floods as in 1937.
As a former professor, I believe strongly in the power of education. But as a conservationist, I believe even more strongly in the power of a community to work toward common ground solutions.
The first step is recognizing that the public has the power to change the story we are currently writing on the land. Soil health is not a private matter. Like water, soil must be protected and preserved for the common good.
Without enforceable soil health ordinances, this winter has seen yet another year where topsoil has filled up our ditches, drifted into mounds in fields, and smeared along our roadways.
In the absence of enforceable ordinances, countless fields bear the marks of freshly installed drain tile: ground pocked by the iron tracks of excavators; trenches dug for thousands of feet of perforated tubes; a pump station, much like a basement sump pump, peeking above ground at the edge of the field, its below-ground system plunged 10 to 15 feet into the earth.
Drain tile is an industrial solution to a host of filtration problems caused by the abuses of industrial agriculture. Designed to pump excess water from soggy and flooded fields that often lack cover crops or living roots, drain tile promises the industrial farmer several nifty conveniences: shortening the time it takes to drain oversaturated ground and increasing the capacity for tillable acres through the chance to drain wetlands.
The cost of this convenience is difficult to measure, and we cannot afford to measure it in economic terms alone. The prevalence of drain tile in the Red River Valley is producing much more than a trickle: millions of gallons of water have been pumped from fields sprayed with fertilizer and pesticides into ditches, which flow into tributaries, which flow into the Red River, crossing state boundaries between Minnesota and North Dakota before flowing north into Canada.
The prevalence of drain tile in the Red River Valley offers another way of understanding trickle-down economics. The origins of this trickle-down theory can be traced to the 1890s, when “horse-and-sparrow” economics took hold, with the belief that by overfeeding oats to a horse, a few lucky sparrows would benefit from the expelled excess.
Our work here in Walsh County seeks to reverse this logic, where we collaborate with farmers, ranchers, and conservation organizations to come up with comprehensive solutions to complex problems related to soil health, water quality, habitat restoration, human nutrition, and rural community development.
Charismatic species, such as the mallard duck, western meadowlark, and sharp-tailed grouse, are our ambassadors in this effort. Or, as our partner the ND Meadowlark Initiative teaches us: what is good for the meadowlark is also good for working ranchland.
Moreover, cropland can benefit from implementing full-season, multispecies cover crops that can rest highly erodible soil, sequester carbon, provide seasonal habitat for nesting birds and pollinating insects, offer grasslands for grazing in partnership with local ranchers, and begin to reverse the losses in topsoil and microbial activity crucial to soil health.
If you would like to learn more about our efforts, tune in to our podcast “Common Ground: A Prairie Podcast,” also available on Spotify. We received a generous grant from the ND Natural Resources Trust that has enabled us to travel across North Dakota to interview a range of guests, including Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, award-winning artists, folks from The Land Institute, Audubon Great Plains, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, North American Grouse Partnership, Ducks Unlimited, North Dakota Meadowlark Initiative, the United Prairie Foundation, and local farmers and ranchers.
Our podcast recognizes the prairie as a literal common ground with deep roots and an abundance of species. Although the prairie’s most enduring lesson might be patience, we also recognize this is a time of urgency: only 20% of prairies remain in the U.S., and of those, over 90% are unprotected by law.
15 minutes with Jan Jensen on Taylor McCabe’s injury, California trip
The Hawkeyes’ head coach meets the media with a No. 8 national ranking and a transition ahead without their senior sharpshooter.
IOWA CITY — A long and arduous season delivers several moments where a team must snap and clear from what just happened, good or bad. Iowa women’s basketball finds itself in that exact position.
After a stretch that paired excitement with devastation, the No. 8 Hawkeyes head out west for maybe their trickiest trip of the season. The Los Angeles swing begins with a Jan. 29 showdown at USC (8 p.m. CT, Peacock), followed by a Feb. 1 duel at No. 2 UCLA (3 p.m. CT, FOX).
Though these two schools have only been in the Big Ten a year and change, no conference squad has completed a perfect sweep of a California trip when knocking out the two matchups together. Considering UCLA has national-title aspirations as one of the best teams in the country, there’s even more pressure for the Hawkeyes to start this trip with a victory over the Trojans.
With that, here are three things to watch in Iowa vs. USC.
Can Iowa mentally move on from a whirlwind week that covered both ends of the emotional spectrum?
Wiping the mental slate clean was always going to be an important objective ahead of this trip, even before Taylor McCabe’s season-ending ACL tear happened.
Now, doing so is doubly important.
It was a tough scene at practice the day after Iowa’s 91-70 win over Ohio State, where McCabe informed her teammates through tears that her playing career is over. The sharpshooting senior was one of Iowa’s most respected veteran voices, and her even-keeled demeanor helped keep a young team grounded. McCabe will do all she can from the sidelines moving forward.
There’s reason Iowa needs to move on from positivity as well. Amid an eight-game winning streak that included top-15 wins over Michigan State, Maryland and Ohio State in a week’s span, the Hawkeyes have surged in the rankings and NCAA Tournament projections. Iowa is getting properly recognized as one of the hottest squads in the nation.
None of that matters once the ball tips inside the Galen Center. USC, a preseason top-25 team, desperately needs a jolt to get its campaign back on track. A shocking top-10 home upset could certainly do the trick. That’s exactly what Iowa did last season when JuJu Watkins and the Trojans visited Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
How does Iowa keep USC in its Big Ten funk?
Sitting at 10-3 on Dec. 29 with ranked wins over North Carolina State, Washington and Nebraska, the Trojans looked like they had survived their daunting early slate.
The wheels have somewhat fallen off since. In the new calendar year, USC is 1-6 with its only win coming against lowly Purdue. Losses to Oregon, Minnesota, Maryland, Michigan State and Michigan have all been by seven points or less, with a UCLA blowout tacked on as well.
Although freshman guard Jazzy Davidson and Georgia Tech transfer Kara Dunn have been nice weapons spearheading USC’s offense, the Trojans are averaging just 64 points per game in 2026. That sets up nicely for Iowa, considering how potent its defense has been during this winning streak.
If Kylie Feuerbach can make things difficult on Davidson while Iowa takes advantage of USC’s unreliable size — no Trojans forward averages more than 15 minutes per game — the Hawkeyes should be in position late for a big road win.
Can Addie Deal keep everything under control in what will be her first collegiate start?
For a player with the mental makeup of Deal, this insertion into the starting lineup following McCabe’s injury shouldn’t be as big a deal as many outsiders are making it.
Deal has been trending upward for two weeks now, and a return to her home state of California times out well for her responsibilities to officially increase. This five-star freshman feels ready to grab the reins and go.
That said, Deal shouldn’t feel any more pressure than she did before. Iowa has rounded into a versatile squad capable of winning with numerous players leading the charge. Though consistent 20-point outings, like Deal delivered against Ohio State, would certainly be welcomed, Iowa doesn’t need that every night to survive.
Iowa women’s basketball prediction vs. USC
Iowa will endure a turbulent three quarters where stability is hard to find, only to turn it on late and survive with a gritty road win similar to those at Northwestern and Indiana. The Hawkeyes will lean on its interior advantages for a key California survival effort. Iowa 71, USC 69.
Dargan Southard is a sports trending reporter and covers Iowa athletics for the Des Moines Register and HawkCentral.com. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.
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President Donald Trump kicked off an aggressive midterm push Tuesday night in Iowa, warning supporters that losing control of Congress would jeopardize his tax cuts, border policies and broader second-term agenda as he urged Republicans to turn out and “win the midterms.”
“If we lose the midterms, you’ll lose so many of the things that we’re talking about, so many of the assets that we’re talking about, so many of the tax cuts that we’re talking about, and it would lead to very bad things,” Trump said during remarks that framed the 2026 midterm elections as a test of his presidency.
Speaking after Reps. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, and Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, Trump said holding both chambers of Congress was critical to advancing his agenda.
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“We got to win the midterms. That means Senate. And it means House. We gotta win,” he told the crowd.
Trump explicitly cast the Iowa stop as the opening act of his midterm campaign, arguing that presidents who fail to campaign aggressively often lose ground in off-year elections.
President Donald Trump speaks Tuesday during an event in Clive, Iowa. (Scott Morgan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I’m here because we’re starting the campaign to win the midterms. We have got to win the midterms,” he said. “The midterms are very important. We’re going to really work hard on winning the midterms.”
The president warned that a Democrat-led Congress would reverse his economic and border policies, telling supporters that control of Capitol Hill would determine whether his priorities survive.
“If they won, this country would be cratering right now,” Trump said as he contrasted Republican and Democrat candidates. “We have candidates that roll with common sense. Not this craziness.”
Trump repeatedly tied the midterm stakes to his economic record in his speech, touting what he described as a dramatic turnaround in inflation, investment and job growth since returning to office.
“Today, just after one year of President Trump, our economy is booming. Incomes are rising. Investment is soaring. Inflation has been defeated,” he said. “Our border is closed, totally closed.”
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President Donald Trump takes the stage to speak during a rally at the Horizon Events Center Tuesday in Clive, Iowa. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump credited tariffs and trade policy for increased domestic investment, saying his administration had secured what he called “commitments for a record-breaking $18 trillion.”
He also praised companies like John Deere for expanding U.S. manufacturing and touted tax provisions he said would benefit seniors, tipped workers and employees who work overtime, pointing to “no tax on tips,” “no tax on overtime” and “no tax on Social Security for our seniors.”
At several points, Trump returned to immigration as a defining midterm issue, arguing that border security and deportation policies would be undone if Republicans lost control of Congress.
“The worst is open borders,” he said. “We can never forget what that group of morons did to this country. We can never forget. And we’ve got to win the midterms.”
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President Donald Trump arrives for a rally in Iowa. (Scott Morgan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump acknowledged the historical challenges facing the party in power during midterm elections but said aggressive campaigning could overcome them.
“Even if you’re a good president … whoever wins the presidency has a hard time with the midterm,” Trump said. “But I campaigned hard. We got it. We got to win the midterms.”
Trump closed the political portion of his remarks with a direct call to action, urging supporters to mobilize to protect his agenda and elect Republican candidates up and down the ballot.
“So, remember that you got to get out, and you got to vote,” he said.
The Iowa stop is part of a broader push by the White House to put the president on the road regularly ahead of the 2026 midterms. Administration officials have said Trump plans to make weekly appearances in states with key congressional races as Republicans work to defend narrow House and Senate majorities, with a particular focus on motivating core GOP voters who don’t always turn out in off-year elections or when the president’s name isn’t on the ballot.
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The president made clear that he views the elections not as a referendum on Congress but as a vote on the future of his presidency.
“We got to win them,” he said of GOP candidates. “We have great candidates. Again, Senate and House. We got to win them.”
The White House referred Fox News Digital to President Trump’s remarks.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Emma Colton contributed to this reporting.
Iowa
Trump’s personal Minneapolis response is to travel to Iowa to talk about affordability | Fortune
President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White House’s midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.
While in Iowa, the Republican president will make a stop at a local business and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.
The trip will also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said last week. It’s part of the White House’s strategy to have Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on affordability issues facing everyday Americans — an effort that keeps getting diverted by crisis.
The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Pretti had participated in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete.
Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it.
Republicans are hoping that Trump’s visit to the state on Tuesday draws focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of their pitch as they ask voters to keep them in power in November.
“I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress we’ve made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and growing our economy,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of his trip. “Now we’ve got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable housing bill, deliver for Iowa’s energy producers, and bring down costs for working families.”
Trump’s affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the president’s political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.
But Trump’s penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off cost-of-living issues and his administration’s plans for how to combat it. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a “hoax” to hurt him. At that event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.
Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris.
Still, two of Iowa’s four congressional districts have been among the most competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this year’s midterm elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowa’s four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, see a prime opportunity to unseat Iowa incumbents.
This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political shake-ups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and for U.S. senator, respectively.
Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand.
___
Kim reported from Washington.
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