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‘It was a zoo’; 10 years ago, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders all came to the Iowa State Fair on the same day
All 3 candidates drew large crowds as they vied for Iowans’ support in the 2016 presidential campaign
Aug. 15, 2025 5:30 am, Updated: Aug. 18, 2025 2:55 pm
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DES MOINES — Donald Trump swooped in from his helicopter, which he let kids ride. Hillary Clinton saw the butter cow. And Bernie Sanders drew a crowd so large it almost shut down the Grand Concourse.
It was 10 years ago today — Aug. 15, 2015 — that Trump, Clinton and Sanders all visited the Iowa State Fair on the same day.
The big three were doing what presidential candidates do: visiting Iowa, including the State Fair, to win favor with voters ahead of the next year’s presidential precinct caucuses.
That all three candidates — three of the biggest names in national politics at the time — all visited on the same day and at roughly the same time created a remarkable and memorable day at the Iowa State Fair.
“My overwhelming memory of that day was that it was a zoo,” journalist Ben Jacobs, then of The Guardian, recalled this week.
Fair attendance that day was 115,959, according to Fair organizers. It was just the third day of that year’s Fair, the first Saturday. The sun shone bright and hot.
Sanders packed the concourse
Sanders, an Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont who was running for president as a Democrat, was the only of the three to participate in the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox. It was the first of Sanders’ two presidential campaigns, and the interest in his candidacy could be seen sprawled across the Fairgrounds.
In fact, the throng of people watching Sanders expanded across the Grand Concourse, making foot traffic through the area difficult.
Sanders delivered what by that point had become his familiar stump speech, calling for a political revolution, single-payer health care, criminal justice reform, tuition-free college, and addressing wage and income inequality.
Sanders also made his way around the Fairgrounds, as did Clinton.
Clinton attempted a typical Fair walkabout
Jacobs, who now reports for Politico, was the pool reporter assigned to cover Clinton at the Fair that day. He described the assignment as “entirely chaotic.”
“She had Secret Service agents, staffers, television cameras and, of course, me following her around the fairgrounds,” Jacobs said. “It was an attempt to try to come as close as possible to traditional state fair politics for someone who had been a household name for a quarter century. I’m not sure if it really worked.”
According to Jacobs’ pool reports, Clinton spent 90 minutes at the Fair, during which she held a press conference with and received the endorsement of then-Iowa Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, took 42 pictures — including some selfies — with fairgoers, and was introduced to a number of Iowans.
Clinton saw the butter cow and butter sculpture, which that year was Monopoly themed. She left the Fair, according to Jacobs’ pool reports, “holding a plastic cup of lemonade and a pork chop on a stick that she had taken three bites of.”
Trump’s helicopter buzzed his rivals
Clinton and Sanders’ appearances both featured a cameo of sorts from Trump, whose helicopter buzzed overhead during the two Democrats’ Fair appearances.
Trump would conduct a similar exercise eight years later in 2023, when his plane flew over the Iowa State Fair while fellow Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was making an appearance there.
“There’s Donald,” Sanders joked when the helicopter flew overhead while he was on the Soapbox, according to reporting from Lee Enterprises’ Des Moines Bureau. “I apologize, we left the helicopter at home. It’s in the garage. Forgot to bring it.”
Trump’s helicopter passing overhead — to shouts of “Trump” by some fairgoers — was the only interruption during Clinton’s visit, according to Jacobs’ pool reports.
“The Trump helicopter stunt certainly loomed over everything and was already viewed a peculiar novelty,” Jacobs said. “I remember a national reporter fumbling a question about it and awkwardly asking (Iowa Republican U.S. Sen.) Chuck Grassley the day before about it ‘if he had ever seen a helicopter.’”
According to reporting from then-Gazette Des Moines Bureau Chief Rod Boshart, Trump “made a grand entry aboard a helicopter that made a pass over the expansive fairgrounds before landing at a nearby softball field where the New York billionaire offered free rides to kids and answered reporters’ questions before being shuttled to the fairgrounds to peruse its offerings and mingle with the weekend crowd.”
“I remember the day was such a contrast in styles, with Bernie Sanders railing about the wealthiest 1 percent having too much of a grip on the nation only to have his soapbox speech temporarily interrupted by a flyover of Trump’s helicopter in a raw display of sheer excess with a grand New York billionaire entrance,” Boshart said this week.
Jacobs said that Trump helicopter flyover was the only time he could recall things at the Fair “really coming to a pause,” recalling that “everyone stopped and pointed.”
“Things quickly moved on but, the fact that the spectacle it presented halted a procession of literally dozens of people jam packed in the middle of Grand Avenue by the Agriculture building was something that perhaps we should have taken more notice of at the time,” Jacobs said.
Boshart noted that Trump wore white pants and white shoes that, as he reported, “weren’t the normal footwear of people familiar with the fair venue.”
“Trump seemed very much in his element greeting people and exuding showmanship everywhere he went but, having grown up on a livestock farm myself, I thought his advance team really missed the mark by having him show up at this type of venue wearing white shoes,” Boshart said this week. “To me, that revealed that his man of the rural people persona that he was trying to communicate rang hollow when he kind of stepped in it by making a basic barnyard faux pas.”
A remarkable day
Trump, Clinton and Sanders remained among the top candidates in the lead-up to the 2016 Iowa caucuses.
Clinton and Sanders finished a close 1-2 in the Democratic Iowa caucuses, and Clinton eventually became the first woman to win a major political party’s nomination for president.
Trump finished second in the Republican Iowa caucuses to Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, eventually earned the Republican Party’s nomination and defeated Clinton in the general election to earn the first of his two terms in the White House.
And for one incredible day the summer prior, all three were at the Iowa State Fair.
“Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and chaos visit the Iowa State Fair,” read the headline for the Washington Post’s coverage of that day. “Excess in Iowa: 90°, a Butter Cow and Rides on Donald Trump’s helicopter,” said the New York Times’ headline.
“The arrival of the three biggest names contending to be presidential nominee at one of America’s biggest country fairs brought a strange spectacle to an already eclectic scene,” wrote The Telegraph.
Boshart, who retired as The Gazette’s Des Moines Bureau Chief in 2021, said that day 10 years ago certainly stands out.
“The whole day was such a unique spectacle that you almost felt like it was Americana overload,” he said.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks to the media after arriving by helicopter at a nearby ballpark before Trump attended the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greats the crowd at the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Iowa State Fair, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at the Iowa at the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
An Iowa State Trooper tries to clear a path through the crowd for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, center left in red hat, at the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump meets with potential supporters outside his helicopter at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015.(KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
Former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with potential supporters at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. (KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
Former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gets her picture taken with Sarah Friedricks, of West Des Moines, by her mother Jackie Crawford, of West Des Moines, along with former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. (KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
Former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with potential supporters at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. (KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
Former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with potential supporters at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. (KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump meets with potential supporters outside his helicopter at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. (KC McGinnis / The Gazette)
Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com
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