second term

WASHINGTON — One year after Trump retook the White House and set into motion a dramatic expansion of executive power, the Republican president figures prominently in state and local elections being held Tuesday.

The results of those contests — the first general election of Trump’s second term — will be heralded by the victors as either a major repudiation or resounding stamp of approval of his second-term agenda. That’s especially true in high-profile races for Virginia and New Jersey governor, New York City mayor and a California proposition to redraw its congressional district boundaries.

More than half of the states will hold contests on Tuesday. Here’s a look at some of the major statewide and local races on the ballot:

Governors: New Jersey and Virginia

In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are the nominees to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. Sherrill is a four-term U.S. representative and former Navy helicopter pilot. Ciattarelli is a former state Assemblyman backed by Trump. In 2021, Ciattarelli came within about 3 percentage points of toppling Murphy.

In Virginia, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger look to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. While Spanberger has made some efforts to focus on topics other than Trump in stump speeches, the president remained a major topic of conversation throughout the campaign, from comments Earle-Sears made about him in 2022 to some of his more polarizing policies, such as the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill tax and spending cut measure and the widespread dismissal of federal workers, many of whom live in northern Virginia.

Trump was scheduled to participate in telephone rallies for the candidates on Monday night.

As the only gubernatorial races held in the year following a presidential election, the contests have long served as the first major test of voter sentiment toward the party holding the White House. In every race for governor since 1973, one or both states have elected a governor from a party different than that of the sitting president.

New York City Mayor

The race to lead the nation’s largest city features Democratic state legislator Zohran Mamdani, independent candidate and former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Mamdani’s comfortable victory over Cuomo in the June primary generated excitement from the party’s more progressive wing and apprehension among the party establishment. Party leaders like Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries eventually endorsed the self-described democratic socialist months after he won the nomination.

The winner will replace outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who initially sought renomination as a Democrat. After losing the primary Adams opted to run as an independent, but dropped out of the race in September and eventually endorsed Cuomo. In February, the Trump Justice Department asked a court to drop corruption charges against Adams because the case impeded Trump’s “ immigration objectives.” Trump later said he’d like to see both Adams and Sliwa drop out of the race in an effort to defeat Mamdani.

California Proposition 50

California voters will decide a statewide ballot measure that would enact a new congressional map that could flip as many as five Republican-held U.S. House seats to Democratic control.

Proposition 50, championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is in response to a new Texas map that state Republicans enacted in August as part of Trump’s efforts to keep the U.S. House under Republican control in the 2026 midterms. The Texas plan, which could help Republicans flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats, has sparked an escalating gerrymandering arms race among states to pass new maps outside of the regular once-a-decade schedule.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will be at stake when voters cast Yes or No votes on whether to retain three justices from the high court’s 5-2 Democratic majority.

Partisan control of the court could have major implications for the 2028 presidential race, since justices might be asked to rule on election disputes, as they did in 2020. Spending on Tuesday’s contests is on track to exceed $15 million as Republicans have campaigned to end the majority and Democrats have responded.

If all three justices are ousted, a deadlock in the confirmation process to replace them could result in a court tied at 2-2. An election to fill any vacant seats for full 10-year terms would be held in 2027.

Other notable contests

VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Republican incumbent Jason Miyares seeks a second term against Democrat Jay Jones. Much of the fall campaign has focused on text messages suggesting violence against political rivals that Jones sent in 2022.

TEXAS-18: Sixteen candidates hope to fill a vacant congressional seat previously held by the late Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner.

STATE LEGISLATURES: Control of the Minnesota Senate and Virginia House of Delegates is at stake, while New Jersey Democrats defend their 52-28 General Assembly majority.

BALLOT MEASURES: Maine voters will decide statewide questions on voting and a “red flag” law aimed at preventing gun violence. Texas’ 17 ballot measures include constitutional amendments on parental rights and limiting voting to U.S. citizens. Colorado and Washington also have statewide measures on the ballot.

MAYORS: Detroit, Pittsburgh, Jersey City and Buffalo will elect new mayors, while incumbents in Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cincinnati seek another term.

Yoon writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, once a casino owner and always a man in search of his next deal, is fond of a poker analogy when sizing up partners and adversaries.

“We have much bigger and better cards than they do,” he said of China last month. Compared with Canada, he said in June, “we have all the cards. We have every single one.” And most famously, he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their Oval Office confrontation earlier this year: “You don’t have the cards.”

The phrase offers a window into the worldview of Trump, who has spent his second stint in the White House amassing cards to deploy in pursuit of his interests.

Seven months into his second term, he’s accumulated presidential power that he’s used against universities, media companies, law firms and individuals he dislikes. A man who ran for president as an angry victim of a weaponized “deep state” is, in many ways, supercharging government power and training it on his opponents.

And the supporters who responded to his complaints about overzealous Democrats aren’t recoiling. They’re egging him on.

“Weaponizing the state to win the culture war has been essential to their agenda,” said David N. Smith, a University of Kansas sociologist who has extensively researched the motivations of Trump voters. “They didn’t like it when the state was mobilized to restrain Trump, but they’re happy to see the state acting to fight the culture war on their behalf.”

How Trump has weaponized the government

Trump began putting the federal government to work for him within hours of taking office in January, and he’s been collecting and using power in novel ways ever since. It’s a high-velocity push to carry out his political agendas and grudges.

This past month, hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops fanned out across Washington after Trump drew on a never-used law that allows him to take control of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. He’s threatened similar deployments in other cities run by Democrats, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. He has also moved to fire a Federal Reserve governor, pointing to unproven claims of mortgage fraud that she denies.

Trump, his aides and allies throughout the executive branch have trained the government, or threatened to, on a dizzying array of targets:

—He threatened to block a stadium plan for the Washington Commanders football team unless it readopted the racial slur it used as its team name until 2020.

—He revoked security clearances and tried to block access to government facilities for attorneys at law firms he disfavors.

—He revoked billions of dollars in federal research funds and sought to block international students from elite universities. Under pressure, Columbia University agreed to a $220-million settlement, the University of Pennsylvania revoked records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and presidents resigned from the University of Virginia and Northwestern University.

—He has fired or reassigned federal employees targeted for their work, including prosecutors who worked on cases involving him.

—He dropped corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams to gain cooperation in his crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally.

—He secured multimillion-dollar settlements against media organizations in lawsuits that were widely regarded as weak cases.

—Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is pursuing a grand jury review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and appointed a special prosecutor to scrutinize New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

That’s not weaponizing government, says White House spokesperson Harrison Fields; it’s wielding power.

“What the nation is witnessing today is the execution of the most consequential administration in American history,” Fields said, “one that is embracing common sense, putting America first, and fulfilling the mandate of the American people.”

Use of power

There’s a push and a pull to power. It is both given and taken. And through executive orders, personnel moves, the bully pulpit and sheer brazenness, Trump has claimed powers that none of his modern predecessors came close to claiming.

He has also been handed power by many around him. By a fiercely loyal base that rides with him through thick and thin. By a Congress and Supreme Court that so far have ceded power to the executive branch. By universities, law firms, media organizations and other institutions that have negotiated or settled with him.

The U.S. government is powerful, but it’s not inherently omnipotent. As Trump learned to his frustration in his first term, presidential powers are limited by the Constitution, laws, court rulings, bureaucracy, traditions and norms. Yet in his second term, Trump has managed to eliminate, steamroll, ignore or otherwise neutralize many of those guardrails.

Leaders can exert their will through fear and intimidation, by determining the topics that are getting discussed and by shaping people’s preferences, Steven Lukes argued in a seminal 1974 book, “Power: A Radical View.” Lukes, a professor emeritus at New York University, said Trump exemplifies all three dimensions of power. Trump’s innovation, Lukes said, is “epistemic liberation” — a willingness to make up facts without evidence.

“This idea that you can just say things that aren’t true, and then it doesn’t matter to your followers and to a lot of other people … that seems to me a new thing,” at least in liberal democracies, Lukes said. Trump uses memes and jokes more than argument and advocacy to signal his preferences, he said.

Trump ran against ‘weaponization’

Central to Trump’s 2024 campaign was his contention that he was the victim of a “vicious persecution ” perpetrated by “the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice.”

Facing four felony criminal cases in New York, Washington and Florida, Trump said in 2023 that he yearned not to end the government weaponization, but to harness it. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 4, 2023.

“If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them,’” he said in a Univision interview on Nov. 9, 2023. And given a chance by a friendly Fox News interviewer to assure Americans that he would use power responsibly, he responded in December that year that he would not be a dictator “except on Day One.”

He largely backed off those threats as the election got closer, even as he continued to campaign against government weaponization. When he won, he declared an end to it.

His victory essentially ended the felony criminal indictments against him, including his role in the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which led to his second impeachment. Long-standing Justice Department policy says that sitting presidents may not be charged with crimes.

He still entered the White House in January as the only felon to ever occupy the office, after his conviction last year on fraud charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star just before his first election, in 2016.

One of Trump’s first acts of his new term in January was to issue pardons or commutations for more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6, including sedition and attacks on police officers.

“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about,” Trump said in his second inaugural address.

A month later: “I ended Joe Biden’s weaponization soon as I got in,” Trump said in a Feb. 22 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. And 10 days after that: “We’ve ended weaponized government, where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent, like me.”

Two days later, on March 6, Trump signed a sweeping order targeting a prominent law firm that represents Democrats. And on April 9, he issued presidential memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.

With that, the weaponization has come full circle. Trump is no longer surrounded by tradition-bound lawyers and government officials, and his instinct to play his hand aggressively faces few restraints.

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell made history — becoming the first New Orleans mayor to be indicted while in office — after federal prosecutors on Friday charged her with multiple counts of wire fraud, obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury.

The 11 counts specific to Cantrell stem from an investigation into her alleged affair with former New Orleans Police Department Officer Jeffrey Vappie, who worked on Cantrell’s security detail prior to his retirement from the force and has also been federally indicted.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleges, in a 48-page indictment, that Cantrell and Vappie illegally used city funds to travel around the country together, falsely claiming that the expenditures were related to city business, then conspired to cover it up. Federal investigators combed through 15,000 text messages sent between the two — and later deleted by Cantrell, according to the indictment — in which they discussed their relationship and travel plans.

What comes next?

With no political precedent to turn to in order to understand how the following months will play out, legal and governmental experts in New Orleans have relied on the rules set out in New Orleans’ Home Charter and similar incidents from other cities to inform predictions for the future.

“I don’t expect this as a legal matter to have any effect on her ability to be mayor of the city of New Orleans,” said attorney and Loyola College of Law professor Dane Ciolino. “Now, as a practical and political matter, that’s another issue.”

Ciolino added that when Cantrell appears in court for an initial hearing and arraignment — which is now scheduled for Sept. 10 — it is likely there will be restrictions placed on her movement as a condition of release, meaning that she will need to consult with a judge before engaging in any international travel, or perhaps even travel outside of the Eastern District of Louisiana.

“It won’t be any impairment to her doing her job,” he said. “She’ll just have to seek permission, which would be, I suspect, liberally granted to her.”

An in-office conviction would force Cantrell out

Although it may be unlikely that Cantrell will go to trial before her second term as mayor ends in January, she would be forced to step down if she were convicted of a felony.

Under state law, public officials must be removed from office if they are convicted of a federal or state felony. Under the city charter, if Cantrell were to plead guilty or chose not to contest the charges, she would face immediate removal.

If a mayor pleads not guilty and is convicted after a trial, the city charter calls for an automatic, unpaid suspension until the conviction is finalized through the appeals process, at which time she would be removed. If Cantrell were suspended but later made a successful appeal to overturn the conviction, she would receive back pay.

What happens after a mayor is removed from office?

The charter also states that if a mayor is removed or resigns with less than a year left in the term, the City Council must elect one of the two at-large council members to fill the seat, in lieu of a special election. Helena Moreno and JP Morrell are currently the two at-large City Council members, with Morrell currently serving as council president.

Morrell is running for a second term in his seat. Moreno, meanwhile, is actively running her own mayoral campaign and is thus far the front-runner in the race to succeed Cantrell. (The New Orleans municipal election will be held on Oct. 11, with a runoff — should it be necessary — set for Nov. 15.)

Moreno’s office put out a public statement the day that the charges were announced, saying that the mayor is entitled to the presumption of innocence and “a vigorous defense.”

Moreno’s statement mirrored many of her colleagues — neutral on the subject matter involved in the charges, choosing instead to reframe and discuss how to best serve the city. Although Cantrell’s relationship with the City Council has been rocky throughout her second term, there have been no public calls from members of the City Council for her to resign.

“The announcement today reminds us of the need to let the justice system work in a fair, timely fashion and without regard to politics or preference,” Councilmember Oliver Thomas, who is also running for mayor, wrote in a statement. “These are critical times for our city to get back on track and to stay focused on building a city that works and thrives for everyone.”

Councilmember Eugene Green released a statement similar in content, adding that it was a difficult day for New Orleans.

“My focus will continue to be on moving New Orleans forward — ensuring the safety of our citizens, strengthening our neighborhoods, and meeting the needs of my constituents,” Green wrote.

No indication of stepping down

A similar saga unfolded in Nashville, Tenn., in 2018 when then-Mayor Megan Barry — who, like Cantrell, was the city’s first female mayor — had an affair with a city-employed security officer who traveled with her on the city’s dime.

Barry pleaded guilty to a felony and resigned from office immediately after. Her political career was short-lived in the aftermath of the scandal as she mounted an unsuccessful run for Congress then pivoted to write a memoir.

Cantrell has not made any public statements since the indictment was announced by prosecutors. She skipped the launch of Amtrak’s new train service from New Orleans to Mobile, Ala., where she was slated to be a guest speaker on Saturday, but was back to work by Monday.

Cantrell’s communications team did not respond to Verite News requests for comment about whether her governance plans will change in response to the charges. Cantrell’s attorney, Eddie Castaing, declined to comment on the charges. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in a statement Monday that the mayor is focused on doing her job for the city of New Orleans.

Mediratta writes for Verite News, in partnership with the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has fired a Democratic commissioner for the federal agency that oversees nuclear safety as he continues to assert more control over independent regulatory agencies.

Christopher Hanson, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a statement Monday that Trump terminated his position as NRC commissioner without cause, “contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees.”

The firing of Hanson comes as Trump seeks to take authority away from the independent safety agency, which has regulated the U.S. nuclear industry for five decades. Trump signed executive orders in May intended to quadruple domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, a goal experts say the United States is highly unlikely to reach. To speed up the development of nuclear power, the orders grant the U.S. Energy secretary authority to approve some advanced reactor designs and projects.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an emailed statement that “all organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction” and that the Republican president reserves the right to “remove employees within his own executive branch.”

Trump fired two of the three Democratic commissioners at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an independent federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace. In a similar move, two National Labor Relations Board members were fired. Willie Phillips, a Democratic member and former chairman of the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stepped down in April, telling reporters that the White House asked him to do so.

Trump also signed an executive order to give the White House direct control of independent federal regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, called Hanson’s firing illegal and another attempt by Trump to undermine independent agencies and consolidate power in the White House.

“Congress explicitly created the NRC as an independent agency, insulated from the whims of any president, knowing that was the only way to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the American people,” Pallone said in a statement.

Senate Democrats also said Trump overstepped his authority. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Patty Murray and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement that “Trump’s lawlessness” threatens the commission’s ability to ensure that nuclear power plants and nuclear materials are safe and free from political interference.

Hanson was nominated to the commission by Trump in 2020. He was appointed chair by former President Biden in January 2021 and served in that role until Trump’s inauguration to a second term as president. Trump selected David Wright, a Republican member of the commission, to serve as chair. Hanson continued to serve on the NRC as a commissioner. His term was due to end in 2029.

Wright’s term expires on June 30. The White House has not said if he will be reappointed.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Hanson a dedicated public servant and a strong supporter of the NRC’s public health and safety mission. Firing Hanson is Trump’s “latest outrageous move to undermine the independence and integrity” of the agency that protects the U.S. homeland from nuclear power plant disasters, Lyman said in a statement.

The NRC confirmed Hanson’s service ended on Friday, bringing the panel to two Democrats and two Republicans. The commission has functioned in the past with fewer than the required five commissioners and will continue to do so, the statement said.

McDermott and Daly write for the Associated Press. McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.

PHOENIX — Former President Biden’s time in office is behind him, but his age and mental acuity have become an issue for the next leaders in his party.

Audio was published Friday from portions of interviews Biden gave to federal prosecutors in 2023, the latest in a stream of reports putting questions about Biden’s health back in the spotlight. Months after former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, a new book alleges that White House aides covered up Biden’s physical and mental decline.

Several potential Democratic contenders for the 2028 nomination have been asked in recent days whether they believe Biden was declining in office or whether he should have sought reelection before a disastrous debate performance led to his withdrawal.

Many Democrats would prefer to focus on President Trump’s second term and his sagging poll numbers. Trump has done his best to prevent that — mentioning Biden’s name an average of six times per day during his first 100 days in office, according to an NBC News analysis — and Republicans have followed his lead, betting that voters frustrated by Trump’s policy moves will still prefer him over memories of another unpopular presidency.

In the race for Virginia governor, one of this year’s highest-profile contests, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears is running a pair of digital ads tying Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger to Biden, with images of the two hugging and the former president calling her a friend.

“The stench of Joe Biden still lingers on the Democratic Party,” Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett said. “We have to do the hard work of fixing that, and I think that includes telling the truth, frankly, about when we were wrong.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told Politico this week that “there’s no doubt” that Biden, now 82, experienced cognitive decline as president.

Pete Buttigieg, who was Biden’s Transportation secretary, wasn’t as blunt but stopped short of defending Biden’s initial decision to run for reelection. He responded “maybe” when asked Tuesday whether the Democratic Party would have been better off if Biden hadn’t declared a bid for a second term.

“Right now, with the advantage of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case,” Buttigieg told reporters during a stop in Iowa.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he didn’t see signs of mental or physical decline in his meetings with Biden.

“I saw him a few times,” he told CNN this week. “I certainly went to the White House whenever there was an opportunity for me to make the case for something for people in my state. And I never had the experience of anything other than a guy who brought to the table a lot of good ideas about how to solve problems.”

The book “Original Sin,” by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, revives a core controversy of Biden’s presidency: his decision to run for a second term despite voters, including Democrats, telling pollsters that he should not. Biden would have been 86 at the end of a second term had he won in November.

A spokesperson for Biden did not respond to a request for comment.

“We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job,” the spokesperson has told many media outlets in response to the book.

Late Friday, Axios published portions from audio recordings of Biden’s six hours of interviews with prosecutors investigating his handling of classified documents after his term as vice president ended in 2017, for which he was not charged.

The Biden administration had already released transcripts of the interviews, but the recordings shed light on special counsel Robert Hur’s characterization of Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and appeared to validate his claim that the then-president struggled to recall key dates, including the year his son Beau died of cancer — 2015.

Biden and his aides fiercely objected to Hur’s report, which they characterized as a partisan hit. Biden at that time — early 2024 — was still planning to run for a second term and fending off accusations that he was too old for another four years in the job.

The recordings released by Axios include Biden’s discussion of his son’s death. His responses to some of the prosecutors’ questions are punctuated by long pauses, and his lawyers at times stepped in to help him recall dates and timelines.

Before he dropped his reelection bid last summer, Biden faced widespread doubts within his own party, even as Democratic leaders dismissed a series of verbal flubs and Republican allegations about his declining acuity.

In January 2022, a year into Biden’s first term, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that only 48% of Democrats wanted him to seek reelection. That fell to 37% of Democrats in an AP-NORC poll in February 2023. Three-quarters of Americans — and 69% of Democrats — said in August 2023 that they believed Biden was too old to serve as president for another four-year term.

And shortly after his debate flop, nearly two-thirds of Democrats said Biden should withdraw from the race.

Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden appeared on ABC’s “The View” on May 8 in a preemptive defense of his health and decision-making before the first excerpts of “Original Sin” were published.

The former president said he’s responsible for Trump’s victory but attributed Harris’ loss, at least in part, to sexism and racism. He maintained that he would have won had he remained the Democratic nominee. Both Bidens rejected concerns about his cognitive decline.

Patricia McEnerney, a 74-year-old Democrat in Goodyear, Ariz., said Biden should not have tried to run again.

“I think it’s sad the way it ended,” she said.

She compared him to Douglas MacArthur, the World War II and Korean War general famously dismissed by President Truman.

“I think he needs to stop giving interviews. I think that would help,” McEnerney said. “Like MacArthur said, generals just fade away.”

Janet Stumps, a 66-year-old Democrat also from Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, had a different view.

“I don’t think it’s going to hurt the Democrats,” Stumps said. “I feel badly that he feels he has to defend himself. I don’t think he has to. Everybody ages. And the fact that he did what he did at his age, I think he should be commended for it.”

Hackett, the Democratic strategist, predicted Biden won’t be a major factor in the 2026 midterms or the 2028 presidential primaries. But he said Democrats who want voters to trust them would be well-served “by telling the truth about the mistakes that our party made in the run-up to 2024.”

“Those mistakes were largely driven by Joe Biden, and I think any Democrat not willing to say that is not really prepared to face the voters, who want the truth and they want authenticity,” Hackett said.

Rick Wilson, a former GOP strategist who co-founded the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, said Republicans want to talk about Biden to avoid defending Trump. But he said the strategy is folly.

Besides “political nerds,” he said, “no one else cares.”

Cooper writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Thomas Beaumont in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, contributed to this report.