I'm guessing this was before a farmer audience.

Trump/Pence won Iowa easily in 2016, cleaning up the farm vote. The tariff war destroyed the private trade agreements made over decades of work between farm groups like the Corn Growers Association with the Chinese food buyers.

It isn't surprising that the found a group of pro-Trump farmers who'd lap up the red meat here.

Iowa will probably go red again, but the administration is worried about it as polls are tight, and the Ernst race is close to tossup also. So far (I just read today) the administration is budgeting $6 million and they sent Pence and Birx out there.

While Repubiicans will win the farm vote again, they will have more trouble in the suburbs of Des Moines and the other cities for the same reasons that they are having trouble in all suburbs--erosion of college educated voters who are leaving the party. We saw this erosion in a big way in the 2018 races, where some of the districts flipped. If those districts continue that trend, Iowa is a true tossup.
[Post edited by Shenhoo at 08/13/2020 9:43PM]