Speaking to hundreds of students and faculty, the Vice President argued that manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States and talked about the reasons that manufacturing matters not just to people who might one day work in manufacturing like the engineering students at Iowa State, but to the entire U.S. economy and to the American middle class.

WHITEHOUSE: Talking American Manufacturing at Iowa State University

Democrats only had to defend one open seat, in Iowa, where Democratic Secretary of State Chet Culver beat Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle.

CNN: Majority of states have Democratic governor

After completing my diplomatic career with the U.S State Department by serving as U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia, I returned home to Iowa to take over the leadership of the World Food Prize Foundation in 2000.

WHITEHOUSE: A Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture