Iowa State Fair

Des Moines, Iowa This isn’t your grandfather’s Iowa State Fair.  Iowa, once a reliably blue state, hosts an internationally renowned fair every summer that explodes in popularity during presidential cycles. This year was different. Republicans ran the show, building off their almost complete political domination of the state.  “Iowa has been trending red,” the state’s lieutenant governor, Adam Gregg, told me, laying out the stakes. “The future of our state and the future of our country is impacted by what Iowa does.” And the state fair is where it’s at. Gregg, who’s been coming here for “decades,” called the fair “ground zero” for presidential campaigns.

It sounds like Never Back Down, the PAC supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis, is having a little too much fun at the Iowa State Fair. Politico reported Sunday that a group of Never Back Down officials got into a shouting match at a local bar with a Trump supporter who was sporting a "Back to Back Iowa Champ" hat. According to two witnesses, the fight was started by communications director Erin Perrine, who told the supporter: "You know you lost." "The resulting shouting match lasted several minutes," the outlet reported. "Multiple 'F'-bombs were dropped. At one point, a Trump supporter made a lewd comment to Perrine, a fourth person familiar with the events told Politico. No physical fight ever occurred.