Trump rallies in Sioux City on Thursday as Republicans defend Iowa seats they expected to hold easily

Iowa was not supposed to need a rescue visit. President Donald Trump carried the state by 13 percentage points two years ago, and Republicans built a commanding advantage there across a decade. On Thursday he holds a rally in Sioux City anyway, because the party is defending a Senate seat, three House districts and the governor's office at once, and his weakened standing has given Democrats an opening in all of them.

Some of the Republicans he is traveling to help have broken with him in public. Representative Ashley Hinson, in a close Senate race against Democratic state Representative Josh Turek, has called for an immediate end to the war in Iran, arguing that Iowans should not bear higher fuel or grocery prices because of it. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both in difficult reelection races, joined Democrats last month in voting to limit Trump's war powers in Iran.

The governor's race shows the same strain. Democrat Rob Sand leads Republican Zach Lahn in recent polling, and Democrats are also targeting an open House seat in the state's second congressional district. Republicans worry about the rural voters who powered Trump's Iowa victories: farmers are facing higher costs and trade uncertainty, and the war's fuel and grocery prices land on them directly.

A Marist poll this month put numbers on the mood. Forty two percent of likely voters said their finances had worsened over the past year, including more than half of independents. Thirty five percent said they saw their vote as a vote against Trump, against 21 percent who saw it as a vote for him. The Senate and House races in Iowa could help decide control of Congress, and with it the shape of the president's final two years. Republican losses in a state this red would be a setback that reaches well beyond Iowa, as of October 22.