Michele Bachmann said her presidential campaign in Iowa is “very strong” despite the recent defection of a key aide and her current standing in the polls. “The poll that matters is January 3,” Bachmann said Thursday outside a Des Moines radio station where she had just ...

DES MOINES — Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats did not ask for money in exchange for his endorsement and did not ask Republican Michele Bachmann to step aside, according to a statement released Thursday from the Family Leader. Vander Plaats is president and CEO of the ...

URBANDALE — The influential Family Leader social conservative group in Iowa announced today it will not make an endorsement in the GOP presidential race just ahead of thousands of Iowa Republicans participating in the state’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses next month. However, Bob Vander Plaats, president and ...

  SIOUX CITY — There was a war of words over going to war and a Texas governor comparing himself to a Denver quarterback, but the candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination mostly kept the aim locked on President Barack Obama last night. The electoral stakes couldn’t ...

DES MOINES — Rogette Huntington wanted very badly to fall for someone at church last night. But she didn’t. Huntington, a public school teacher from West Des Moines who describes herself as “conservative across the board,” was one of an estimated 3,000 people who packed First ...

DES MOINES — Last night’s Ronald Reagan Dinner was as much of a pep rally for some of state’s most influential party leaders as it was policy forum for five candidates seeking their votes. From the opening speech to the 1,000 attendees by Lt. Gov. Kim ...

    DES MOINES – The polls, the pundits, and the candidates themselves have told Iowa’s social conservatives that the top issue in the 2012 election is the economy. Saturday night in an exhibit hall on the Iowa State Fairgrounds about 1,000 social conservatives turned out to convince ...

Clipping coupons and shopping off the clearance rack has become the new normal for a group of women that some predict will be a key voting demographic in the 2012 election. Called the Walmart mothers, these women are in their late-20s to mid-50s, have children at ...