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House GOP campaign chief blasts Iowa Rep. Steve King's 'white supremacy and hate'

Washington (CNN)The head of House Republicans' campaign arm sharply criticized Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King's white nationalist rhetoric on Tuesday, just a week before King faces an unexpectedly competitive election.

Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, tweeted:

"Congressman Steve King's recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior."

A National Republican Congressional Committee aide said it was the growing volume of King's remarks, rather than a specific incident, that led to the unusual rebuke.

Responding to Stivers' tweet with one of his own Tuesday afternoon, King didn't directly address the chairman or the controversies over his own statements and actions. Instead, King said: "Americans, all created equal by God, with all our races, ethnicities, and national origins-legal immigrants & natural born citizens, together make up this Shining City on the Hill. These attacks are orchestrated by nasty, desperate, and dishonest fake news. Their ultimate goal is to flip the House and impeach Donald Trump. Establishment Never Trumpers are complicit."

Stivers' tweet came after agricultural giant Land O' Lakes said it would no longer support King, suggesting in a statement that he is not "a positive force for good."

King is under fire over a long series of comments he's made criticizing diversity and immigration. King has recently retweeted a Nazi sympathizer, backed far-right politicians in foreign elections -- including Faith Goldy, the white nationalist fringe candidate for Toronto mayor -- and said in an interview with an Austrian publication: "What does this diversity bring that we don't already have?"

Last year, King tweeted, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

King faces Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten in Iowa's 4th District, a rural north-central portion of the state that includes Ames and Fort Dodge. The district voted for President Donald Trump by 27 percentage points in 2016 -- but Democrats, who hope to gain at least two congressional seats in Iowa next week, see the potential for backlash against King.

New poll shows anti-immigration firebrand Steve King up by just one point

By Aris Folley - 10/30/18 10:14 AM EDT

A new poll released Tuesday shows anti-immigration firebrand Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) with just a 1-point lead over his Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten in the hotly-contested race for Iowa's 4th Congressional District.

Forty-five percent of respondents in the online poll said they would either vote for the Iowa Republican if the election were today, or have already voted for him early, according to the poll conducted by left-leaning polling firm Change Research from Oct. 27-29 with a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Forty-four percent of respondents said the same for Scholten.

The Cook Political Report also moved the race for Iowa’s 4th district from "Likely Republican" to "Leaning Republican," indicating the nonpartisan handicapper believes the race is tightening.

President Trump previously won Iowa's 4th District by a 27-point margin in the 2016 presidential election.

“The defendant is a serial child molester,” said Judge Thomas M. Durkin of Federal District Court, as Mr. Hastert sat impassively, often staring downward, hands crossed on his lap. He added, “Some actions can obliterate a lifetime of good works. Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.”