"Over decades of presidential campaigns, the Iowa way has been to hop from town to town, taking questions from all comers and genuflecting to the local culinary traditions."

"Going everywhere and meeting everyone has been the gospel of how to win over voters in the low-turnout midwinter caucuses that kick off the American presidential cycle. Now former President Donald J. Trump is delivering what could be a death blow to the old way.... If any of his dozen challengers hope to stop his march to a third straight nomination, they will almost certainly have to halt, or at least slow, him in Iowa after spending the better part of a year making their case. A commanding victory by Mr. Trump could create a sense of inevitability around his candidacy.... As Mr. Trump and nearly all of his Republican rivals converge in the coming days at the Iowa State Fair, the annual celebration of agriculture and stick-borne fried food will serve as the latest stage for a nationalized campaign in which the former president and his three indictments have left the rest of the field starved for attention. 'You’ve got to do it in Iowa, otherwise it’s gone, it’s all national media,' said Doug Gross, a Republican strategist who was the party’s nominee for governor of the state in 2002. 'The chance to show that he’s vulnerable is gone. You’ve got to do it here, and you’ve got to do it now.'"

From "Racing to Stop Trump, Republicans Descend on the Iowa State Fair/As the state fair and its Republican pageantry begin, Donald Trump’s rivals face a transformed political environment in Iowa, where he holds a comfortable edge in polls despite rarely visiting" (NYT).

That made the three indictments sound like the equivalent of stick-borne fried food — stick-borne fried food that Trump gets to hog while everyone else is "starved."