Loebsack to endorse Clinton Monday

Hillary Clinton will get the endorsement Monday of Iowa's only Democrat in Congress.

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, will endorse the former secretary of state at the Quad-City Federation of Labor's 'Salute to Labor” picnic on Monday.

Loebsack's endorsement comes as new polls say Clinton has lost support among Iowa Democrats over the past few months and is locked in an increasingly competitive contest for the party's presidential nomination.

Loebsack's campaign says the congressman has met with all the party's candidates for president, but in remarks Monday he'll say that Clinton is the most qualified.

'She has the ideas, the passion, the values that we need in our next president,” Loebsack will say, according to his campaign. 'To put it simply, she knows how to work with others and get things done. That is why I'm proud to stand with her today and announce my support for Hillary Clinton for President.”

Loebsack also will say that Clinton understands 'what makes this country so great: a strong and growing middle class.”

'I have spent my time in Congress fighting to expand the middle class … and to grow an economy that works for all Iowans,” Loebsack will say. 'And I know that is what Hillary Clinton has spent her life fighting for.”

Before the 2008 caucuses, Loebsack, then in his first term in Congress, endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency.

He was among four Democrats then in the state's congressional delegation at the time who split their endorsements.

Now, Loebsack is in his fifth term, and he is the only Democrat left in Iowa's congressional delegation.

His announcement comes as a new polls are being released saying Clinton's lead over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, has narrowed.

An NBC News/Marist poll, released Sunday, said that Clinton holds an 11 point lead in Iowa over Sanders, 48 percent to 37 percent. That is down from a 24-point lead the poll said she had in in July. The latest poll has a margin of error of 5.3 percentage points.

A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll a week ago said that Clinton led Sanders among likely caucus-goers in Iowa, 37 percent to 30 percent. The Register/Bloomberg poll included Vice President Joe Biden, who has not said whether he will run for president.

Clinton, who was in Iowa on Sunday, is making three stops on Labor Day to to court voters, appearing at union organized events in Cedar Rapids, the Quad-Cities and Burlington.