Former First Lady Christie Vilsack announced Wednesday that she will move to Ames next month and “continue to explore the possibility of representing Iowa in the US House of Representatives.” A Christie Vilsack for Iowa Facebook page and Christie Vilsack for Iowa website launched today as well. Vilsack’s statement and more news on the IA-04 race are after the jump.

Christie Vilsack statement released April 20:

“Serving Iowa is both a privilege and a responsibility. The decision to run for Congress deserves serious consideration. Next month, I will move to Ames and continue to explore the possibility of representing Iowa in the US House of Representatives. It’s important to listen to Iowa families about the issues they want addressed in Congress. Hearing directly from citizens about their concerns and ideas is very important to me. Too often in campaigns, it’s the other way around. More than anything, this should be a discussion about Iowa values-the value of work, the value of opportunity and the value of community. Input from fellow Iowans will help me make the best decision and will give our state a campaign focused on collaboration and results, encouraging a new way to do business in Washington.”

The 39 counties in Iowa’s new fourth Congressional district contain 176,310 registered Republicans, 135,562 registered Democrats and 177,143 no-party voters. Eighteen of those counties are part of the current fifth district, which Steve King has represented since January 2003. Barack Obama received 48 percent of the vote in the new IA-04 in 2008; John Kerry received 44 percent of the vote there four years earlier. In both of those elections, King outperformed both George W. Bush and John McCain in IA-05.

Compared to most House districts nationwide, the new IA-04 has a relatively high proportion of senior citizens. It appears that targeting the senior vote will be a major focus of Vilsack’s campaign against King. Yesterday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running a paid advertising campaign against 25 House Republican incumbents, including King and Tom Latham. Latham currently represents IA-04 but will run for Congress in IA-03 next cycle. Web ads, live calls, robocalls and a very small radio ad buy will highlight Republican proposals regarding Medicare. Both King and Latham voted for Paul Ryan’s budget blueprint on April 15, which would transform Medicare into a voucher-based program for seniors to purchase private insurance. The DCCC ads accuse targeted Republicans of voting “to end Medicare forcing seniors to pay $12,500 for private health insurance, without guaranteed coverage.”

So far, Republicans don’t sound scared by the prospect of a high-profile challenger to King. Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn told Bret Hayworth this week,

“She can try and take Steve King on, but I think that will be a great opportunity for Republicans to mobilize. A presidential year, having  a very highlighted race in Northwest Iowa, is a guarantee that we are going to be able to turn out every Republican and conservative vote that would benefit a presidential candidate, all the way down the ticket,” Strawn said.

“Not only does Mrs. Vilsack not have any natural connection whatsoever to Northwest and north central Iowa, but culturally is out of step. She’s someone that has an affiliation with some organizations that would certainly inflame a lot of the pro-life voters in this area… Congressman King has a national following as well, and he would have the ability to call in all sorts of resources to aid the fight.”

Governor Terry Branstad described Vilsack as a “fish out of water” in the district, because “she’s never lived in northwest Iowa and it’s a heavily Republican area.”

Conservative activist and three-time gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats suggested it will be “a very uphill challenge for Mrs. Vilsack to try to represent that district where she’s never lived, […] Going up to that part of the state, it’s going to be a stretch to say she really knows and understands. I think that’s going to be a real stretch.”

Story County Democratic Party Chair Jan Bauer countered,

“The 4th District is so typically Iowa,” Bauer said. “Mrs. Vilsack over the years, she’s the epitome of Iowa. Geographically, I’m not sure it makes much difference whether you grew up in southeast Iowa. Our culture is pretty standard. If you’re representing one area of the state, you’re representing all of us.” […]

“She’s spent time all over the state. It is conservative, but I think the dynamic is changing throughout the state,” Bauer said. “When she starts contrasting her ideas against the current congressman, I think there’s a pretty stark difference. I don’t think his values represent the values of northwest Iowa as much as he thinks. Northwest Iowa is religiously pretty conservative. I don’t think his values are very Christian, quite frankly. It’s not the type of Christianity that I belong to.”

Speaking to Radio Iowa today, Vilsack said, “Everybody I’ve talked to and all the people who are working with me think it’s a winnable district and I think it’s the most winnable district for me.” That strikes me as a bizarre thing to say, since the new second Congressional district has a Democratic voter registration edge and includes the area where Vilsack grew up and spent much of her adult life.

Vilsack added,

“I could have run in any of Iowa’s districts because I feel like all Iowa is my home […] I’ve been traveling all over that district for the last 12 or 14 years and they’re my people and I feel very comfortable with them and I feel like it’s the best district for me as I reviewed it.”

“I really used quite a process and spent a long time trying to decide, really, what’s best for me and my family, what district fits me best and what’s best for my party,” Vilsack said. “…I wanted to run where I had the best chance of winning and I think I have the best chance of winning in the new fourth.”

Click here to listen to Vilsack’s full Radio Iowa interview (about nine minutes).

Meanwhile, King is crowing about a new Rasmussen poll showing that “61% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that a child born in the United States to a woman who is here illegally should not automatically become a U.S. citizen.” King is a lead sponsor of a bill to end “birthright citizenship,” which is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He told Iowa Independent,

Americans want their borders secured, and they understand that the practice of granting birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens undermines border security by encouraging illegal aliens to sneak into the country. The current practice of granting birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is not mandated by the U.S. Constitution. It is based on a misapplication of the 14th Amendment that needs to be addressed by Congress. We now know that 61% of Americans oppose the practice of granting birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, and my legislation, H.R. 140, gives Congress the means to address this issue. It is important that Congress close the birthright citizenship loophole, and this high level of support makes it much more likely that Congress will.

King’s stand on immigration is probably popular in the new IA-04, even if his rhetoric on the issue cost him a subcommittee chairmanship and earned him the top spot on an advocacy group’s “Immigration Hall of Shame” list.

Any comments on Iowa’s upcoming Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Vilsack wasn’t thrilled with her husband’s private comment about her “holy war” campaign:

“Well, I think my husband two days ago wasn’t the spouse of a potential candidate and I don’t think he’s got the spouse thing down quite yet,” she told Radio Iowa. “But today he is and I think he’ll be able to stand next to me and be supportive.”

SECOND UPDATE: Via Greg Giroux, the 39 counties in the new IA-04 voted for Branstad by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin in 2010, for McCain by 50-49 in 2008, for GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle over Chet Culver 50-48 in 2006, for George W. Bush 55-44 in 2004, and for Governor Tom Vilsack over GOP nominee Doug Gross 49-48 in 2002.

Iowa pundits are already giving Christie Vilsack advice. Steffen Schmidt thinks she needs to be aggressive right out of the gate:

Vilsacks biggest weakness, Schmidt says, is her gender. “Older voters in Iowa still don’t feel that comfortable electing a woman to that level of a position,” he says, “They think it’s a guy’s job. They think that it’s rough and tumble. They think it’s not appropriate.”

Schmidt says Vilsack’s best chance is to ditch the exploratory committee, and begin aggressively attacking King rather than defending herself against his attacks. “The women candidates have run terrible races,” he says, “They have run races that began too late. They were hesitant. They were not really rough and tumble and real politics. They were soft. They allowed themselves to be painted into a corner. They did not go on the offensive. And if she does that she’s gonna get beaten.”

Kathie Obradovich thinks Vilsack should move to the right:

Vilsack has logged plenty of time in rural Iowa as part of her efforts to promote literacy. Her husband’s expertise in rural development will give her some tools, although she will have to bring her own ideas as well.

Vilsack’s main target will have to be on independents, who make up a slight plurality of registered voters in the district. She also may try to appeal to country-club Republicans who are weary of King’s flamboyance and the brinksmanship in Washington.

To do so, however, she will have to take a far more conservative line on taxes and the federal budget than most people would expect. That will be a challenge since her husband’s in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet. Obama has called for raising taxes on high-income Americans.

She’s also going to have to be cautious and thoughtful about her approach to the federal health care program, which isn’t popular among Iowans. King has been singularly intent on repealing the program. Vilsack will need a plan for fixing it, while preserving the parts that people like, such as protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Democrats have already zeroed in on King’s vote for a major overhaul of Medicare – one federal program that is still very popular in Iowa.

She will also likely try to play up her work with a bipartisan group aimed at reducing unwanted pregnancies in Iowa as a way to show her commitment to bridging partisan chasms. But really, the less she talks about social issues, the better off she’ll be.

THIRD UPDATE: Republican Party of Iowa Chair Matt Strawn previews his talking points against Vilsack in this press release:

“While supporting Obamacare, record-deficit spending and the most socially-liberal president in American history may play well at Washington, D.C. cocktail parties, folks in Mrs. Vilsack’s newfound Iowa home have different values and priorities.

Her move, hundreds of miles from her southeast Iowa home, indicates that she doesn’t care which Iowans she actually represents so long as she can be in Congress.

Iowans have long valued humility in service rather than a desire for power and stature. Vilsack’s blind ambition to run for office wherever, whenever is a first impression voters will not soon forget. ”