In Sioux City, President Donald Trump demands Iowans vote to stave off 'darkness'
President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in Sioux City on Thursday evening.
With two years left in his term, Trump said the country could be in for a glum stretch if Republican voters in Iowa’s 4th District and beyond don’t go vote.
“If they win the midterms,” Trump said of Democrats, “it’s the start of something very bad, very dark, very horrible for our country.”
Trump reminded the audience he carried Iowa “all three times” he has run for president, “receiving more votes than any candidate in political history."
In the run-up to the midterm elections, though, the president’s approval ratings in Iowa have sagged amid rising economic anxieties and dissatisfaction with the Iran War.
Polls show Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn lagging behind Democrat nominee Rob Sand, and Republican Ashley Hinson is locked in a tight race with Democrat Josh Turek.
“If we lose this seat here in Iowa, the Democrats will control the U.S. Senate. Mark my words," Hinson told the crowd.
Lahn, who grew up in the Sioux City area, suggested the "fake news media" was putting out "fake polls" to depress voter turnout in deep red parts of Iowa.
"Don't believe them," he told the crowd.
Imploring the 4th District
A recurring message from those speaking before the two-term president was that Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, the most Republican of the state’s four districts, is crucial to maintaining Republican control in Congress.
Republican speakers Chris McGowan, the 4th District candidate for Congress, Brenna Bird, the incumbent attorney general, and Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann all made that point exceedingly clear.
“They expect Iowa 4 to do the heavy lifting for the rest of the state,” said McGowan, a Sioux City native and former president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce.
Kaufmann, a former state legislator from Wilton, called the 36-county district, Iowa’s largest and reddest, a secret weapon.
“Will you be there for the president? Will you be there for Ashley Hinson? And will you be there for Zach Lahn?” Kaufmann shouted to liven the crowd.
Bird said she was able to win her 2022 race against Democrat Tom Miller, the longest-serving attorney general in U.S. history, because of the 4th District, which includes Sioux City as well as Council Bluffs, Ames, Carroll, Fort Dodge, Hampton, Marshalltown, Spirit Lake and Storm Lake.
“We’re counting on you western Iowa, God Bless you,” Bird said.
Speech lasted over 90 minutes
At least 2,000 people turned out for Trump's rally at a large airport hangar, with the overflow crowd extending outdoors.
The president's speech lasted over 90 minutes and covered a familiar blend of topics. He fiercely attacked critics such as U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, touted his work approving a possible $15 billion steel plant in Iowa and waiving off-road requirements for red-dye diesel, bragged about repeatedly “acing” cognitive tests he’s been given, defended an ad from Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, pondered whether or not he should rename one of the two oceans America is buffered by, and joked about how fixing lawnmowers used to require a degree from MIT before he did something about it.
The speech was Trump’s seventh in Sioux City since 2015, his second at Sioux Gateway Airport and his first in Northwest Iowa since being reelected president in 2024.
Process on immigration
Since he first ran in 2015, immigration and immigration enforcement have been two of Trump's biggest talking points. Thursday evening was no different.
Trump boasted to the crowd about taking a "record number of illegal criminal aliens" off the streets. "We've achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded," he said. The FBI said in August that "The nation’s violent crime rate fell 9.3% in 2025, marking the largest year-to-year decline since the FBI began estimating crime trends in 1936." Axios said of that data "The decline in homicides began in 2022 under President Biden, continued through 2025 and has extended into the second year of President Trump's second term."
The president also elliptically talked about immigration while slamming Turek and Sand. He framed Iowa as taking a turn toward the radical if they got in.
"Look, that's what gonna happen if you put the radical left lunatics in here, like the people that these two great people are running against," Trump saod. "You put them in, and that's what you're gonna have — that's what they have — they have an immigration. They'd like to say, 'Oh yes, these are high school.' They're not high school students! They don't like the way the high school's run. Such crap. It's immigration, it's a huge immigra-- you can have it. And it's all radical left. You know the way they like to blame the right? I'll tell you what, these are left problems."
Steel mill and farm plans
During his speech, Trump repeatedly touted major projects and other initiatives his administration directed to bolster the state's economy.
"I just approved a steel plant for billions of dollars in a section of Iowa," Trump said of plans for a $15 billion steel plant in Southeast Iowa.
Earlier this month, the Iowa Legislature approved a plan that would award $1.4 billion in state tax breaks — the most ever to a single project in Iowa — to Mesabi Metallics, a Minnesota-based, India-owned company.
When outgoing Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bill, she called the company's planned steel plant "the most consequential economic development project ever to come to our state,” and the incentive program expansion “reasonable and limited changes."
The planned steel plant will: take high-grade iron ore pellets, mined from the company’s new, $3 billion facility in Minnesota, and ship them to the new Iowa plant, either via rail or the Mississippi River. During debate on the bill in the legislature, both Democrats and Republicans raised concerns about the significant corporate tax breaks.
"They'll do it right," Trump said. They're looking forward to doing (it)."
As further nods to his work for Iowa farmers, Trump reminded the crowd that he signed an order "waiving off-road requirements for red-dye diesel."
During an Oct. 5 campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, Trump unveiled an executive order permitting the use of red-dyed diesel in road vehicles, as a way to relieve fuel price pressures on farmers hauling grain to market this fall.
Red-dyed diesel is exempt from federal fuel taxes used in tractors, combines, and other off-road agricultural equipment. Extending its use to grain trucks and other harvest-related equipment that use public roads would, in theory, save farmers the 24.4-cents-per-gallon federal tax.
He also trumpeted giving Iowa waivers to "sell E15 year round," and most recently, an $8 billion aid package to help farmers offset the cost of rising diesel prices during the harvest season. Trump said $400 million from the Harvest Fuel Relief Program would be directed to Iowa producers.
Ilhan Omar
Some of Trump's most ferocious criticism came while speaking about Omar, a four-term Somali-American member of Congress who represents Minneapolis and some of its suburbs.
The president said she shouldn't be allowed in Congress for what he claimed was fraudulent behavior when her father first came to America. The Justice Department is investigating Omar's citizenship. He claims she used a false name.
"You know, she comes from a non-country, basically, Somalia" Trump said of Omar.
"Deport her" multiple people at the rally yelled as Trump talked about Omar.
Later, some in the crowd in Sioux City started "lock her up chants" about Omar, which echoed an old chant about Hilary Clinton at Trump rallies in 2016.
President Donald Trump dances to "YMCA" after dancing after speaking during a rally Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, at Sioux City’s Sioux Gateway Airport. Trump was rallying to whip up support for Republican candidates ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Cognitive tests
In one segment of the speech, Trump talked about cognitive tests he has taken and how adept he is at them.
"I wanted to do an executive order where anybody running for president or vice (president) has to take a cognitive test," he says. "I thought it was great, I thought, 'Oh, I'm so smart, it's a great idea.' And then you know what they told me? It's not Constitutional! In other words, a person who's stupid is allowed to run for office."
"I think you should pass a cognitive test. So I took 'em, three, three of 'em. I aced all three," he adds. "In fact, the doctors are here. They travel all over the place with whoever the president may be. And, I said, 'You think I should do it?' And they said, 'Well, if you're smart, I guess it's OK.' I said, 'How many presidents have taken them?' 'None.' Are they easy? No, they're actually hard. You know the first question, it's tough. They have a lion, a snake, a giraffe and a bear. And they say, 'Which is the snake?' And then, when they report that I aced it, they always say 'Oh, it was so easy.' And they always show the first question. By the time you get to No. 5, a lot of people are left out on the road."
Trump faithful show up
Around 11 a.m., hours before the commander-in-chief even stepped to the podium, supporters were queued up to the tune of at least 100.
One supporter who came to hear Trump speak was Michelle Weber, who drove more than 200 miles from Milbank, South Dakota.
“(I) was just interested to see what Trump has to say and there’s a lot of energy here and it seems like it’s going to be a good time,” she said.
Weber, a lifelong Republican who cast her first vote for former President Ronald Reagan in 1984, said she thinks the elections will go well for the Republicans. But she’s concerned about affordability.
“I’m concerned about the cost of living. I’m also concerned about when the war with Iran is going to end,” she said. Weber said she believes that the cost of living problems began under former President Joe Biden and were “exacerbated” by the months-long war with Iran.
Not all attendees have forever been on the “red team” though.
Sany Dash, a businesswoman from Dallas, who has been to 268 Trump rallies, said she was a Democrat before Trump “came down the escalator” and first announced his candidacy for president in June 2015.
Sioux City resident Dawn Stanley said she’s been to Trump speeches in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska and that he was the first Republican presidential candidate she voted for. She voted for former President Bill Clinton but never for former President Barack Obama.
Protesters urge resistance
The pushback to the Republican president’s visit also came early with Iowa Democrats holding an 11 a.m. event at Pearl Street Park in downtown Sioux City to criticize Hinson and what they see as her unwavering support of Trump.
Across the parking lot for eventgoers, Democratic protestors gathered in a grass field with signs and inflatable pig to mock Hinson’s “Save Our Bacon Act.”
“I just don’t think he’s a very nice person,” Sioux City resident Jessica Shook said. “I think he doesn’t have any policies that actually help Americans. I feel like he is just helping himself become richer.”
Local Sioux City activist Garie Lewis helped organize the event outside and was later escorted out during Trump’s speech for yelling “that’s a lie” as Trump castigated Iowa Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek on transgender issues, immigration and other issues.
“How wonderful it is tonight that I got to call Donald Trump a liar in person,” Lewis posted on Facebook.
President Donald Trump headlines a rally Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, at Sioux City's Sioux Gateway Airport. The rally was held to whip up support…
This report contains material from the Lee-Gazette Des Moines Bureau.
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