PERRY, Iowa — Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown was less than halfway through his 400-mile tour of the nation’s second-largest soybean producing state when he entered a library conference room and pulled up a chair to a group of farmers and small-business owners.
It didn’t take long for these Iowans to get at the heart of what plagues Democrats trying to reclaim the battleground Midwest in 2020.
“I’m eager to hear what you have to say, particularly around revitalization of the rural areas,” said Mary Weaver, whose family farms 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans across Boone and Greene counties in central Iowa. “We’re aging and we don’t have the labor force that we need.
“I want a candidate who brings me hope and who brings me ideas and who can beat Donald Trump,” said Ms. Weaver, who is in her 60s and attended Mr. Brown’s event with her husband and son.
“In that order?” quipped Mr. Brown, whose Iowa trip is a test of those very ideas and whether he will eventually make a run for the White House.
Mr. Brown, 66, is testing the presidential waters after his midterm victory amid a Republican sweep in Ohio. Democrats are looking for a candidate who can wrest the Midwest from Mr. Trump, and Mr. Brown might fit the bill.
One by one, the men and women sitting with Mr. Brown shared their stories, including their anxiety about the future of the rural Midwest. They wondered aloud whether Democrats have a shot against Mr. Trump, who rode a wave of working-class discontent to the White House.
They also said Mr. Trump’s trade war has inflicted harm on soybean producers. In retaliation against U.S. tariffs, China has dramatically curtailed importing American soybeans, driving down prices as soybeans pile up in American silos.
“They’re terrible,” said 72-year-old Keith Puntenney, who farms 600 acres in Boone, Iowa. “Reagan did it, Carter did it ... but Trump’s is the worst one that’s ever happened.”
A progressive who’s popular among the working class, Mr. Brown initially favored the President’s tariffs, but appeared to walk back that support on Friday.
“Full disclosure: I supported the tariffs originally,” he said, adding, however, that Mr. Trump hasn’t implemented them wisely. “The reason I would support them is they are a temporary tool to get to a long-term point, not a long-term trade policy.”
Bryce Smith, a 27-year-old who returned to his hometown to run a business, told Mr. Brown how many don’t choose the same path. Mr. Smith’s $50,000 student loan debt almost prevented him from starting a business. He owns a bowling alley in Adel, a town of 4,300 in Dallas County.
“The idea was to get as far away from home ... go out and experience the real world. Go get a job somewhere and make money, because you might not have that opportunity in Iowa,” he said. “That isn’t necessarily the case. As someone who came back to my hometown and who now owns a small business ... I kind of live on that break between the urban and rural divide.”
Mr. Brown’s stops in Clear Lake, Waterloo, and Perry marked the first full day of his “Dignity of Work” tour, named for a phrase he can work into almost any remarks — a message for the working class he’s honed over decades across Ohio. As the tour continues, he’ll visit New Hampshire next weekend, and South Carolina and Nevada in the coming weeks.
Perry, which has some 7,500 residents, is an hour northwest of Des Moines and part of Dallas County, where Mr. Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10 percentage points. Mrs. Clinton won only six Iowa counties in 2016.
The Perry Public Library sits at the edge of a sleepy downtown, across from an historic hotel that’s been around since Perry had a bustling railroad junction. The city’s major employer, a Tyson Foods pork processing facility, is down the street.
This city is the closest Mr. Brown will come on this trip to Iowa’s capital, which has already hosted Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris, 2020 hopefuls with bigger national profiles than Ohio’s senior senator.
On Friday morning, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker announced his run for the Democratic nomination — a definitive step Mr. Brown has yet to take. He told the group he’s only been thinking about running since the fall.
“I like all my colleagues who are running,” Mr. Brown said. “I like some more than others. I’ll leave it at that. I like Cory and more power to him. He’s been looking at this for a while.”
Dressed in khakis and a cable-knit beige sweater Friday, Mr. Brown isn’t known for embracing the buttoned-up look of a Washington lawmaker. He could have been mistaken for a regular Joe if not for the media gaggle that formed around him.
After less than two hours in Perry, Mr. Brown was ushered to another event, a tour of TechWorks, a manufacturing hub in Waterloo, about two hours away.
Embracing Iowa’s longstanding role in presidential contests, Mary Weaver’s husband, Gary Weaver, 76, said he looks forward to the parade of candidates that starts anew every four years.
“I read that George Will had an opinion piece that said we should be looking at Sherrod Brown,” he said, referring to the conservative-leaning Washington Post columnist and a column he wrote about Mr. Brown in December. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Mr. Brown said.
Mr. Puntenney, one of the first people to show up, said he didn’t have enough time with Mr. Brown to really form an opinion.
“I thought it was a good discussion, but this is typical politics,” he said. “We would like a two-way discussion, longer, more methodical. This is a photo op. This is what Hillary Clinton did when she came to Iowa as well.”
First Published February 2, 2019, 4:19 a.m.
