“Biden is dead meat out here,” Branstad asserted Wednesday in an interview with CNN inside his office at the gilded state capitol building. “He is not going anywhere.”

Branstad, a 67-year old Republican, admitted his lack of familiarity with the passions of Iowa’s liberal Democratic caucus-goers, but he was unusually blunt when discussing Biden’s latest flirtation with the White House.

“Washington, D.C. is extremely unpopular,” he said. “Biden is so associated with this administration and all of its failures. He was unpopular before and he is even less popular now.”