Governor Kim Reynolds announced on February 7 that she has scheduled a special election in Iowa House district 100 for Tuesday, March 11. The seat became vacant due to the recent passing of State Representative Martin Graber.
The district covers most of Lee County, including the population centers of Keokuk and Fort Madison. Like several other counties containing mid-sized cities, this part of Iowa was a longtime Democratic stronghold.
But Lee County was among the “pivot counties” that voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump in three straight presidential elections.
More recently, voters in this area have favored Republican candidates for down-ballot offices as well. GOP candidates picked up the Iowa House and Senate seats covering this territory by defeating Democratic incumbents in 2020. In the 2024 general election, a Republican challenger won the race for Lee County sheriff, a position held by Democrats for many years. Some county office-holders who used to be Democrats (such as the Lee County attorney, recorder, and former auditor) have changed their party affiliation to Republican in recent years as well.
To my knowledge, no candidates have announced plans to run in the House district 100 special election. One obvious Democratic contender would be Nannette Griffin, a small business owner in Fort Madison who ran for Iowa Senate district 50 in 2024. Republicans vastly outspent Democrats on that race, and Griffin lost to Republican incumbent Jeff Reichman by a margin of 16,735 votes to 11,869 (58.4 percent to 41.4 percent).
I also heard some speculation about former Lee County Sheriff Stacy Weber as a Democratic candidate. He lost his bid for a third term in November by 8,364 votes to 7,639 (52.2 percent to 47.6 percent).
The many potential GOP contenders include various county office-holders and Dylan Keller, who currently works as a legislative staffer for Iowa Senate Republicans.
On paper, the district is relatively balanced. The latest official figures indicate House district 100 contains 6,175 registered Democrats, 6,485 Republicans, and 6,947 no-party voters.
However, the recent voting history of this area shows a clear advantage for the GOP. According to Bleeding Heartland’s analysis of precinct-level results from the last presidential election, voters in House district 100 preferred Donald Trump to Kamala Harris by 9,429 votes to 5,368 (62.2 percent to 35.4 percent).
Democrats did not field a candidate against Graber in House district 100 last year. Nicolas Atwood filed as an independent but did not run an active campaign. Graber won the race by 9,466 votes to 4,489 for Atwood (67.6 percent to 32.1 percent).
So the GOP will be strongly favored to hold House district 100 next month. But as we just saw in Iowa Senate district 35, anything can happen in a low-turnout special election.
