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Klobuchar Touts Midwest Roots, Bipartisan Common Ground

Clay Masters/IPR
Sen. Amy Klobuchar talks to a crowd in Knoxville, Iowa during her first trip to Iowa after annoucning her 2020 presidential bid.

Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar made several stops in Iowa this weekend. It’s her first trip here since announcing she’s running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Klobachar told a crowd at a brewery in the central Iowa town of Knoxville she doesn’t come from a political machine or from money.

“I have won every single congressional district – three times in a row - in the state of Minnesota,” Klobuchar told the crowd at Peace Tree Brewing Company. “That includes Michelle Bachmann’s district. So I know how to find the common ground with people that don’t always agree with me.”

Klobuchar talked about working with Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley to crack down on pharmaceutical companies. Klobuchar says any changes to energy or climate change policy needs to work for rural America.

“This idea that we move toward more renewables has been a positive economically for the states in the Midwest,” Klobuchar told reporters. “Because we want to be investing in the farmers and the workers of the Midwest instead of the oil cartels of the Mideast.”

She says one of the first things she would do if elected president would be to re-join the Paris climate accord, which is an international agreement to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Klobuchar made several appearances in Iowa during the 2018 election stumping for congressional candidates. She talked about the victories of electing Iowa’s Democratic Reps. Cindy Axne and Abby Finkenauer.

Klobuchar also made weekend stops in Mason City and Albia.

Clay Masters is the senior politics reporter for MPR News.