Can Iowa Democrats help the national party appeal to working-class voters?

“If you build it, he will come.”

That line was spoken in one of my favorite movies of all time — 1989’s “Field of Dreams.”

As a journalist covering Iowa’s presidential caucuses I once drove through farmland to achieve a dream of my own — I wanted to stand on baseball’s legendary “Field of Dreams.”

Today, Democrats have another kind of dream coming to life in Iowa. They can see effective political appeals by Democrats to working-class, white men. These are voters who in the last decade turned away from Democrats and became star players in the political base that launched national victories for President Trump.

Now Iowa is offering a preview of a possibly big change. In the Iowa races for the U.S. Senate and for governor, Democrats have nominated candidates gaining traction with working class white men: Josh Turek, the candidate for U.S. Senate and state Auditor Rob Sand, the party’s gubernatorial nominee.

Turek has produced the best political advertisement of this midterm political cycle. The spot features Turek playing a driveway basketball game, a game of “HORSE,” changing the letters to “IOWA.” His opponent is the last Democratic presidential nominee to win Iowa, President Barack Obama.

“I know a little something about winning Iowa,” Obama says, a reference to his 2008 caucus victory that propelled the little-known U.S. senator from Illinois to the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama also carried Iowa in both the 2008 and 2012 general elections.

“Of all the things I’ve done in politics, Iowa was my favorite thing,” Obama tells Turek in the ad. “There was just a magic about regular folks showing up.”

It is an eye-grabbing advertisement. Turek, the........

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