Obama Hits the Trail, Er, Court in Iowa Senate Race

Former President Obama took a basketball-themed trip down Iowa memory lane to boost Democrat Josh Turek's bid for the US Senate. In a new two-and-a-half-minute campaign video, Obama trades shots in a game of "IOWA" (basically HORSE) with Turek, a centrist state lawmaker and two-time Paralympic wheelchair basketball gold medalist, while talking politics and the state's shifting mood. "I know a little something about winning Iowa," Obama quips in the clip, nodding to his 2008 and 2012 victories in a state that the New York Times notes has since tilted firmly Republican.

The seat is open with GOP Sen. Joni Ernst stepping aside; Turek faces Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is backed by President Trump. Polls show a neck-and-neck race in a state where farmers have been hit by Trump-era tariffs and Democrats spy a prime chance in their push to retake the Senate. Turek pitches himself as a "common-sense" Democrat with a bipartisan record; Hinson's camp waved off Obama's involvement as just "another liberal" endorsement. The video never reveals who won the game, though Obama jokes he was "whooped" and calls Turek "somebody who knows how to win." The two discussed their NBA "Mount Rushmore," and agreed on the first two, notes the Des Moines Register.