President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, after returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos.(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)2026-01-27T05:24:49Z DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White Houses midterm-year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.While in Iowa, the president will make a stop at a local business and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.The trip will also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said last week. Its part of the White Houses strategy to have Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on affordability issues facing everyday Americans an effort that keeps getting diverted by crisis. The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete. Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United States upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it. Republicans are hoping that Trumps visit to the state Tuesday draws focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of the GOPs pitch as they ask voters to keep them in power in November.I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress weve made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and growing our economy, Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of his trip. Now weve got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable housing bill, deliver for Iowas energy producers, and bring down costs for working families. Trumps affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the presidents political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.But his penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off cost-of-living issues and his administrations plans for how to combat it. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a hoax to hurt him. At that same event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. from filthy countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024.Still, two of Iowas four congressional districts have been among the most competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this years midterm elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowas four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections during Trumps first term, see a prime opportunity to unseat Iowa incumbents. This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political shakeups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and U.S. senator, respectively. Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand. ___Kim reported from Washington. SEUNG MIN KIM Kim covers the White House for The Associated Press. She joined the AP in 2022 and is based in Washington. Kim is also a political analyst for CNN. twitter mailto HANNAH FINGERHUT Fingerhut is a government and politics reporter based in Des Moines, Iowa. mailto