Representative Bruce Braley (D., Iowa) won’t let President Obama campaign with him as he runs for Senate this year, so Republicans are reaching back to 2012 to drive home their point.
Obama praised Braley for “doing a great job on behalf of our veterans and on behalf of working people here in Iowa” while he was on the stump in Iowa during the last presidential campaign.
“After skipping 75 percent of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearings, it’s disappointing that President Obama would applaud Congressman Braley’s record on veterans’ issues,” Iowa GOP spokesman Jahan Wilcox said. “After repeatedly skipping the VA hearings, it’s clear we can’t trust Congressman Braley to do his job.”
Obama carried Iowa in 2008 and 2012, but his approval rating there has plummeted of late.
“Democratic senators in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — states that were pivotal to his success and whose demographics reflect his winning coalition of young, minority and female voters — do not want him,” the New York Times noted. “Nor does his party’s Senate nominee in Iowa, where Mr. Obama won twice and whose youth-filled 2008 Democratic caucuses vaulted him toward the nomination.”