The former governor and mayor is hopeful to gain support of Iowan’s as the state’s first caucus is 29 days away.

His high hopes comes just days after failing to receive enough valid signatures causing the presidential candidate to not appear on Ohio’s primary ballot.

“I am the underdog, in fact, I’ve always been called to a tough fight,” said O’Malley.

O’Malley would be the first to say his bid to become president in 2016 is an uphill battle. On Thursday, the former Maryland Governor came up 228 signatures short to ensure a spot on Ohio’s primary ballot, but despite the hardships felt on the campaign trail, O’Malley is still as confident as ever, saying the road becoming the Democratic nominee isn’t supposed to be easy.

“Every challenger’s campaign is a battle to the balls up in the air as you stretch your resources and unfortunately we’re going to have to compete in Ohio as a write-in basis, but we’ve made the ballot in every other state and unfortunately for us Ohio is later in the process,” said O’Malley.

While visiting Sioux City, O’Malley stated that he wants to shift the dynamic of the presidential race with the help of Iowans. He believe he has the experience to get it done to face challenges that our country is up against.

“As I traveled all across northwest Iowa, the two phrases that I hear over and over again are ‘new leadership’ and ‘getting thins done’. People understand that our politics is grid locked in Washington and we need a new leader who will pull us forward, build on the good things that President Obama has accomplished and actually make wages go up again because that’s the only way our country work well when we’re all able to do better,” said O’Malley.

Compared to the other democratic candidates, supporters of O’Malley say, “so far he’s pretty good,”.

“With O’Malley, I think that he just has a proven track record,” said. Hildreth.

“He is open to ideas, he is open to hearing from the people…I really believe that he could make a difference,” said Alarcon-Flory.