OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) – In struggling Wapello County, a swath of southeast Iowa Donald Trump was the first Republican to carry in 44 years, his earliest and most devout supporters cheer the new president’s quick action on health care, trade, energy and immigration, including accelerated construction of the long-promised Mexican border wall.
And yet, even these voters, to whom Trump disproportionately owes his presidency, roll their eyes at his ongoing fixation with his popularity.
“He’s said what needs to be done, and he’s doing it,” said Viki Wilson, a retired trucking company operator from Ottumwa, Wapello County’s seat. “He’s just got to sort the small stuff from the big stuff.”
Far from the cacophony enveloping Washington in Trump’s first week in office, the Iowa voters who helped him capture the state and the presidency last November give the president high marks for reversing eight years of Democrat Barack Obama’s policies. But they shake their heads at his widely debunked claims about the crowd size for his inauguration and voter fraud costing him the popular vote.
Wilson is like hundreds of Trump supporters in this county of about 35,000 people, a former Democrat in a once union-heavy city who embraced Trump’s candidacy out of frustration with the region’s high unemployment.