Melissa Gesing reached her limit this week. Four days after a 2005 video showed Donald Trump telling a reporter he could “do anything” to women, two days after Trump insisted in the second presidential debate that those comments were merely “locker room talk,” Gesing stepped down as president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women. In her October 11 resignation letter, she described her move as a “last resort,” saying she can’t “look at myself in the mirror each morning if I do not take a stand against the racism, sexism, and hate that Donald J. Trump continues to promote.” She explained her decision at greater length in a blog post called “Ending this bad and unhealthy relationship.”

So far, no other woman in the top echelon of Iowa Republican politics has jumped ship. The Iowa Federation of Republican Women named a new president today and restated its support for the Trump-Pence ticket.

But how long can that last, with more women coming forward every day to say Trump kissed or groped them without consent, and used his position of power to walk in on women or underage girls undressed?

You don’t need to venture into a high-quality prairie or wooded area to find today’s featured plant. Tall boneset (Eupatorium altissimum) grows well on sunny or partly shaded ground in a range of habitats: “open woods, thickets, prairies, along railroads, [or] waste areas.”

Sometimes known as tall thoroughwort, this member of the aster family is native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains.

Some trivia before we get to the photographs: according to the Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden website, the 40-some plant species with Eupatorium as the first part of the Latin nomenclature (including common and tall boneset) are “named after the Persian general Mithridates Eupator who is said to have used plants as a medicine and in his personal quest to become insensitive to poisons.”

Good news for Iowa Republicans: their second major early vote mailing produced a surge in absentee ballot requests. President Barack Obama won this state in 2012 thanks to votes cast before election day, so shrinking the Democratic advantage in absentee ballots has been a key goal of the GOP’s turnout program.

Bad news for Iowa Republicans, though: tens of thousands of GOP voters received their absentee ballots just in time for Donald Trump’s 2005 videotape to become one of the most talked-about political stories of the year.

When the dust settled after the 2012 general election, I was frustrated to see how close Iowa Democrats came to winning back the Iowa House majority. Democratic candidates picked up seven GOP-held state House seats that year, but lost half a dozen other races by extremely narrow margins, leaving Republicans with 53 of the 100 seats in the lower chamber.

One of the “seats that got away” was House district 72, where Dean Fisher beat Nathan Wrage by only 216 votes in an open seat due to GOP State Representative Lance Horbach’s retirement. President Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney by about 3 percentage points among voters in the district.

The GOP expanded its Iowa House majority to 57-43 in the 2014 midterm election, but many state legislative seats are competitive this year, putting control of the chamber in play. As Wrage challenges Fisher again, Democrats won’t repeat their 2012 mistake of not targeting this race.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is outperforming the top of the Republican ticket and leads former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge by 53 percent to 36 percent in the latest Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. The Register’s William Petroski wrote up the key findings:

The Iowa Poll shows Grassley has broad support, leading Judge among all groups tested except for four: Democrats, Hillary Clinton supporters, former Bernie Sanders supporters and people who identify with no religion. Among political independents, Grassley leads Judge 54 percent to 30 percent. He leads among men and women and among all age, income and education groups.

Grassley’s job approval rating — with 56 approving and 30 percent disapproving among all adults, not just likely voters — is identical to where it stood in September 2010, before he cruised to victory that November, defeating Democrat Roxanne Conlin by 31 percentage points.

Among the same 642 “likely voter” respondents, Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by just 43 percent to 39 percent.

Selzer’s poll was in the field before the release of a 2005 videotape in which Trump bragged about assaulting women he finds attractive. Democrats have blasted Grassley for condemning Trump’s comments but urging Republicans to stick with the GOP ticket, because of the election’s likely impact on the U.S. Supreme Court. I doubt the Trump tape will affect Grassley’s re-election numbers, though.

Iowa Republicans have been spiking the football on this race for some time. Yesterday the Twitter accounts of Grassley’s campaign and campaign manager Bob Haus directed followers to the liberal Daily Kos website, where IA-Sen is now listed as safe Republican. Various other election forecasters see the race the same way.

Many Iowans who preferred State Senator Rob Hogg for U.S. Senate, as I did, have privately expressed frustration that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent almost no money here, after intervening in the Democratic primary to recruit and promote Judge. The DSCC’s tactical choice is understandable, because more than half a dozen other Senate seats are better pickup opportunities than Iowa’s. But I do wish they’d stayed out of the primary. Although Judge had higher name recognition, I never did see evidence that she was in a position to make this race more competitive than Hogg. She has held relatively few public events around the state since winning the nomination. Hogg would have been much a more active campaigner, which might have helped our down-ballot candidates.

Was Grassley ever truly vulnerable? Beating a six-term senator was always going to be hard in a state that generally re-elects its incumbents. Grassley has been able to spend millions more dollars on tv ads than any challenger could have managed. (I enclose below his latest positive spot.) His support took a hit from his handling of the Supreme Court vacancy, which inspired the DSCC to recruit Judge. I would guess that refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland is the main reason Grassley’s leading by “only” 17 points now. Selzer’s polls for the Des Moines Register in September and October 2010 showed him 31 points ahead of Roxanne Conlin.

A big name in Iowa Democratic politics recently moved back to our state after nearly six years in Washington and two abroad.

Dr. Christopher Peters, the Republican nominee in Iowa’s second Congressional district, announced today that he will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In a prepared statement, Peters said his “views don’t fully align with either party’s platform” and asserted that neither major-party nominee has exhibited the “character and judgment necessary to be president.” He rejected the “lesser of two evils” approach to voting, which in his view won’t “bring us closer to fixing” a “deeply flawed” political system.

Since launching his campaign in March, Peters has often promised to be an “independent voice” for Iowans, in contrast to five-term Representative Dave Loebsack, who “votes with the Democrats more than 90 percent of the time.” Up to now, he had avoided taking a clear stand on Trump’s candidacy. For example, speaking to Kevin Barry of KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids in May, Peters said, “The top of the ticket I can’t control, so I’m not going to worry about it. It’s kind of like taking the Serenity Prayer at a certain point. My focus is the second district, specifically Iowa, more broadly the country as a whole. […] I don’t think Mr. Trump cares whether I endorse him or not, because he’s rich, and I’m not that rich. So I think he’ll do just fine. […] I don’t think it affects this race too much, or in any way I can control.”

When Barry pressed Peters on whether he is behind Trump, Peters replied, “He’s got till November to earn my vote. We don’t know who all the candidates are going to be yet, and we don’t know all their policy positions. Again, if I’m an independent voice, and that’s who I am, I’ll vote [for] whoever I want to vote for in November, and I haven’t made that decision yet.”

Peters did not attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, nor has he appeared at any Trump campaign rally in Iowa. He spoke at U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride fundraiser in late August, but left that event before Trump’s featured speech and photo op with Iowa GOP leaders. A Libertarian candidate for Iowa Senate in 2010, Peters went to Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson’s rally in Des Moines over Labor Day weekend but didn’t endorse Johnson then or now.

In today’s statement, Peters said “Trump’s behavior and temperament are only a part of the problem. He has repeatedly demonstrated a poor grasp of constitutionalism, civil rights, the rule of law, the role of diplomacy versus military interventionism, and even fundamental economics. I should have spoken out against him much earlier, and regret that I failed to do so.” Scroll down to read the full commentary.

Peters and Loebsack are will attend their first candidate forum today at the Coralville Public Library, beginning at 2 pm. IA-02 leans Democratic, with a partisan voting index of D+4. The latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office indicate that the district’s 24 counties contain 171,027 active registered Democrats, 146,108 Republicans, and 172,729 no-party voters.

Although dozens of GOP members of Congress have joined the #NeverTrump ranks, Peters is the only federal candidate in Iowa willing to repudiate the party’s nominee. To my knowledge, only two other Iowa Republicans on the ballot this year have said publicly they will not vote for Trump: Hardin County Auditor Jessica Lara and State Representative Ken Rizer. State Senator Jack Whitver, who is up for re-election in 2018, has called on Trump to step aside without saying whether he would vote for Trump, assuming he remains the nominee. State Senator David Johnson, whose term also runs through 2018, left the Republican Party in June to express his opposition to Trump.

Final note: While numerous Republicans cited their concern for daughters or granddaughters when denouncing the explosive Trump videotape from 2005, I applaud Peters for condemning Trump’s “character deficiencies” as a father of three teenage sons: “if I ever learned that any of them grew up to be men who conduct themselves like Trump, I would be deeply disappointed.”

The 48 hours before tonight’s town-hall debate were unlike anything seen before in a American politics: 42 Republican members of Congress or governors had announced since Friday that they could not support their party’s presidential nominee. Daniel Nichanian (known on Twitter as Taniel) listed the Donald Trump defectors in narrative form and on this spread sheet.

Hillary Clinton had already been gaining in nationwide and swing state polls since the first debate on September 26, improving her chances of winning the presidency to above 80 percent on FiveThirtyEight.com–before massive news coverage and social media chatter about Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” videotape. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver speculated that “The Bottom Could Fall Out for Trump,” while Nate Cohn of the Upshot wondered whether the new scandal could send the whole Republican ticket “crashing down.”

Shortly before the debate, Trump staged a bizarre media stunt with three women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct and one who was allegedly raped in 1975 by a man Hillary Rodham represented. Three of those women appeared on his behalf in the post-debate “spin room.”

Republicans are cheering Trump’s performance tonight, and on a superficial level, he clearly handled himself much better than in the first debate. After an excruciating early stretch defending his taped comments as merely “locker room talk” (in contrast to Bill Clinton’s alleged “actions”), Trump repeatedly hammered home his favorite talking points about Hillary Clinton: she’s been a “disaster,” her policies would be a “disaster,” she lies, she has bad judgment like Bernie Sanders said, she’s been there for 30 years but never done anything. He also gave wavering Republican voters plenty of reasons to hang in there with him: bashing Obamacare and the “terrible” Iran nuclear deal, proposing big tax cuts, promising to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Trump also finished the debate on a stronger note, managing a surprisingly gracious answer to the “say something nice about your opponent” question.

So arguably, the Republican nominee did what he needed to do tonight. And yet…

• Trump’s body language was angry and sometimes menacing. Many viewers commented that Trump was looming or hovering behind Clinton in a creepy, threatening, and stalker-like way.

• He denied that his “locker room talk” was tantamount to bragging about sexual assault. I have no doubt more women or previously unknown recordings will come out this week to undercut his denials.

• He vowed to put his political opponent in jail if he becomes president. Bob Schieffer of CBS News lamented, “this is what they do in banana republics.”

• He admitted that he had used a $916 million reported loss on his 1995 tax return to avoid paying personal federal income taxes in subsequent years.

• He made more than a dozen false or misleading statements (see also here).

• He acknowledged that he knows “nothing” about Russia and said he disagrees with his running mate on policy toward Syria. Incidentally, the Indianapolis Star reported on October 9 that unnamed sources close to Indiana Governor Mike Pence say he is “keeping his options open”–whatever that means. Pence is stuck with Trump through November 8, for better or worse.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. In CNN’s instant poll, 57 percent of respondents said Clinton won the debate, 34 percent said Trump did. YouGov’s respondents thought Clinton won the debate by a 47 percent to 42 percent but thought she looked “more Presidential” by a 57 percent to 31 percent.

Republican State Representative Ken Rizer announced on Facebook Saturday evening that he “can’t in good conscience” vote for Donald Trump and will write in Mike Pence for president. Rizer, who supported Jeb Bush before the Iowa caucuses, said he had “aggressively prosecuted Airmen who sexually assaulted women” and is aware of “groping” and “lewd conduct” his college-aged daughters face. He concluded that Trump’s comments in a recently-released 2005 video “reveal an arrogant lack of character unfitting for a college undergrad, for an Airman, and most certainly for our Commander in Chief.”

Rizer represents House district 68, a swing seat in the Cedar Rapids suburbs. He defeated Democrat Daniel Lundby in 2014, but Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney here in the last presidential election cycle by 54.45 percent to 44.08 percent. The latest voter registration numbers show the district contains 6,596 active registered Democrats, 6,103 Republicans, and 7,384 no-party voters. As of October 7, Democrats in Rizer’s district lead Republicans in absentee ballots requested by 1,698 to 844 and lead in early votes cast by 672 to 221.

I enclose below more comments from Rizer this evening, a map of House district 68, and background on the incumbent and his Democratic challenger Molly Donahue. She’s on the web here and on Facebook here.

The precincts in House district 68 also lie in Iowa Senate district 34, where Democratic State Senator Liz Mathis faces Rene Gadelha in a race both parties are targeting.

I will update this post as needed if other sitting Iowa Republican lawmakers announce that they won’t support Trump. On the morning of October 8, State Senator Jack Whitver posted on Twitter, “The comments and actions by Donald Trump are inexcusable and despicable. He should step down.” However, Whitver did not clarify whether he will vote for Trump, assuming he stays in the race.

Also on October 8, State Senator David Johnson issued a statement calling on Governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds to “condemn Trump publicly” now that “Trump’s true anti-women sickness has been revealed.” Johnson is the only Iowa legislator affiliated with neither party, having left the GOP in June to protest Trump’s impending nomination for president.

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 43 percent to 39 percent in the new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register. It’s the first Selzer poll here since before the June 7 primary elections, and its findings are in line with other recent statewide surveys showing Trump ahead. Some 6 percent of respondents favored Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2 percent Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

This poll was in the field from October 3-6, before Friday’s explosive news that Trump was videotaped in 2005 bragging to an entertainment reporter about how he liked to assault women he found attractive (“I just start kissing them. […] I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. […] Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”). Jason Noble’s write-up notes that Trump’s attitude toward women was already among the biggest concerns for Iowa voters about the GOP nominee.

I enclose below excerpts from that story and from others about the latest Trump uproar. A separate post is in progress about the hole Iowa Republican leaders have dug for themselves by fully embracing Trump’s candidacy. All of our state’s top GOP elected officials are standing behind their party’s nominee, even as they condemn his comments in the 2005 video.

At tonight’s Reagan dinner in Des Moines, Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann said the country has “two flawed candidates” but confirmed he will vote for Trump. Republican National Committeeman Steve Scheffler offered a prayer expressing hope that people will understand “elections are not always about perfection.” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley didn’t mention Trump in his speech, which framed the election as a battle over the direction of the Supreme Court for the next 40 years. Senator Joni Ernst bashed Clinton’s character while not discussing Trump, whom she praised at the Republican National Convention and invited to headline her biggest event of the year. Governor Terry Branstad, whose son Eric is Trump’s campaign manager in Iowa, told the Reagan dinner crowd, “We need to elect Donald Trump and Mike Pence to make America great again!”

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. UPDATE: Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson posted the audio from most of the Reagan dinner speeches. The featured guest speaker, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas,

said Trump has let the GOP down “again.”

“The words on that tape were demeaning and they were shameful,” Cotton said and, as he continued, one woman yelled “Impeach Hillary” and others grew agitated. “Donald Trump doesn’t have much of a choice at this point. Tomorrow night at that debate, he needs to throw himself on the mercy of the American people. He needs to take full responsibility for his words and his actions and he needs to beg for their forgiveness and he needs to pledge that he’s going to finally change his ways.”

If Trump will not act contrite, Cotton said Trump needs to consider stepping aside so an “elder statesman” may run in his place. That declaration was initially greeted with silence, then many in the crowd applauded.

The non-profit news site Midwest Energy News has honored two Iowans on its second annual 40 Under 40 list of “emerging leaders” working on “America’s transition to a clean energy economy.” From last week’s announcement:

Erin Buchanan works as an Energy Services Coordinator for Cedar Falls Utilities in Cedar Falls, Iowa. In 2011, Buchanan was named a “rising star in public power” by the American Public Power Association. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, with a B.S. in mathematical decision sciences. She also holds an M.S. in statistics from Iowa State University. […]

Josh Mandelbaum is a Des Moines-based staff attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC). Before joining ELPC, Mandelbaum practiced law with Lane & Waterman LLP in Davenport, Iowa. He previously served as a senior policy advisor to Iowa Governor Thomas J. Vilsack and Lt. Governor Sally J. Pederson. Before his work in the Governor’s office, Mandelbaum held a fellowship at the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Secretary’s Policy Office. Mandelbaum is a 2000 Truman Scholar, a 2001 magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, and a 2009 honors graduate from the University of Iowa College of Law.

I wasn’t familiar with Buchanan’s work before learning about this award. I was impressed to see all the resources Cedar Falls Utilites provides for customers seeking to use less energy, purchase wind-generated electricity, buy units in a community-owned solar garden, or install small-scale wind or solar systems.

I’ve known Mandelbaum for many years and am an active supporter of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. The non-profit’s legal team has contributed to major public policy victories in the renewable energy field, from a solar power case that went to the Iowa Supreme Court to mostly below-the-radar battles with intransigent rural electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities Alliant and MidAmerican. Mandelbaum and his colleagues have also been involved in important water policy fights, such as a 2014 Iowa Supreme Court case that kept state “anti-degradation” rules alive. Earlier this year, an Iowa District Court ruled in favor of ELPC’s lawsuit on behalf of the Iowa Environmental Council, seeking to force the state Department of Natural Resources to enforce those rules, “an important part of the [federal] Clean Water Act.”

Iowans Paritosh Kasotia and Dwight Stewart were part of the first Midwest Energy News 40 Under 40 cohort last year.

Iowa House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow has plenty of reasons to worry about being re-elected in House district 43. During the last presidential election year, he won his race by fewer than two dozen votes, and the district has fewer registered Republicans now than it did in November 2012. His well-qualified challenger Jennifer Konfrst has been working hard, and Democrats in the district have submitted nearly 1,000 more absentee ballot requests than have Republicans.

Hagenow didn’t run any positive television commercials during the 2012 election cycle and only started airing a misleading ad against his opponent in late October.

In contrast, a few weeks ago the majority leader went up with a bizarro world tv ad portraying himself as an advocate for education. That spot was ludicrous on several levels, as Bleeding Heartland discussed here and Iowa Starting Line chronicled here. Hagenow has been part of a leadership team that for several years in a row ignored Iowa law on setting K-12 education funding. He and his fellow House Republicans have repeatedly refused to appropriate enough money to help school districts keep up with rising costs. Although Hagenow postures as a supporter of preschool in his tv ad, he voted to eliminate the state preschool program in early 2011. Furthermore, because House Republicans insisted on only a small increase in K-12 school funding this year, the West Des Moines school district (where most of Hagenow’s constituents live) cut its 3-year-old preschool program.

But as deceptive as Hagenow’s positive ad is, the hit piece he started running against Konfrst on October 5 is even more mendacious.

By Tom Witosky

Donald Trump’s reported avoidance of paying federal income taxes – possibily for almost two decades – raises a simple, but interesting question for Iowa voters.
Does it matter? And, if it doesn’t matter to voters in 2016, then why did it matter when Gov. Terry Branstad and his supporters made such a big deal of it in his campaigns against Democrat candidate Roxanne Conlin in 1982 and Jack Hatch in 2014?

Jim Leach, who represented parts of southeast Iowa in the U.S. House for 30 years, is among 30 former Republican members of Congress who are publicly opposing Donald Trump for president, Nolan McCaskill reported today for Politico. In a joint statement, the Republicans described Trump as “manifestly unqualified” and a “man who makes a mockery of the principles and values we have cherished and which we sought to represent in Congress.”

“Given the enormous power of the office, every candidate for president must be judged rigorously in assessing whether he or she has the competence, intelligence, knowledge, understanding, empathy, judgment, and temperament necessary to keep America on a safe and steady course,” they wrote. […]

“Every day brings a fresh revelation that highlights the unacceptable danger in electing him to lead our nation,” they said. […]

“It is in that spirit that, as Donald Trump’s unfitness for public office has become ever more apparent, we urge our fellow Republicans not to vote for this man whose disgraceful candidacy is indefensible,” they said. “This is no longer about our party; it’s now about America. We may differ on how we will cast our ballots in November but none of us will vote for Donald Trump.”

Leach was a leading Republican endorser of Barack Obama in the 2008 general election. Most of the others to sign today’s statement have never publicly opposed a GOP presidential nominee.

In an embarrassing oversight on my part, Leach was not among the dozens of moderate Iowa Republicans I’ve contacted in recent months about Trump’s candidacy. Most of these current or former elected officials have not responded to my requests for comment. I am hopeful that in the final weeks of this campaign, as Trump continues to find new ways to disqualify himself, more prominent Iowans will follow Joy Corning’s example and make their opposition to Trump known. A few years from now, many Republicans will regret that they lacked the courage to speak out before this election.

On a related note, Michael Chertoff has revealed that he will vote for Hillary Clinton. He was the lead Republican counsel for the U.S. Senate’s Whitewater investigation during Bill Clinton’s presidency and a secretary of Homeland Security in George W. Bush’s administration. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Monthly has endorsed Clinton in an editorial headlined, “Against Donald Trump.” The magazine’s editors have taken a stand on the presidential election only twice before: for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. I enclose below some of Chertoff’s comments and excerpts from the Atlantic editorial.

Over the last few years, this weekly series has inspired me to visit many natural areas for the first time on the hunt for new (to me) Iowa wildflowers, such as wild blue sage, dwarf larkspur, and wood betony. Today’s featured plant was hiding in plain sight, barely a quarter-mile from my home. I’d noticed it before this summer, but for some reason assumed it wasn’t native and never learned its name until a couple of months ago.

Tall blue lettuce (Lactuca biennis) is native to most of Canada and the United States. Sometimes called blue wood lettuce, biennial blue lettuce or woodland lettuce, the plant thrives in shady, wet habitats, including woods, swamps, and stream banks. I took all of the enclosed pictures on the Windsor Heights and Urbandale bike trails, which run along North Walnut Creek.

The latest revelations about Iowa State University President Steven Leath’s use of university aircraft took up more of my brain space on Tuesday than the only debate between vice presidential nominees Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. Most voters make up their minds on the presidential candidates, not the running mates, and the debate wasn’t exactly gripping television. My mind wandered so much that I didn’t even notice when Pence made up a Russian proverb. (Later, I dragged out my Russian-English dictionary of idioms and can now confirm there is no traditional saying along the lines of “the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.”)

This thread is for any thoughts about the Kaine/Pence skirmish. Like many commentators, I felt that Pence performed better as a debater. He appeared calm, while Kaine was over-excited and too eager to interrupt with scripted talking points. However, Kaine struck me as more effective, because:

• He stopped Pence from getting into a groove that could be used for Trump campaign clips.

• He kept bringing up statements or actions by Donald Trump that Pence denied or was reluctant to defend. Meanwhile, the Republican absurdly claimed Hillary Clinton is running the “insult-driven campaign.”

• He cited Trump’s offensive comments about Mexicans and an Indiana-born federal judge so many times that Pence eventually complained in a memorable exchange, “Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again.”

• He repeatedly brought up Trump’s ties to Russia, while Pence took the surreal position of blaming President Barack Obama and Clinton for supposedly encouraging Russian aggression. (Earth to Pence: which presidential candidate has floated the idea of recognizing the annexation of Crimea and not defending our NATO allies?)

• He delivered a strong statement of personal Catholic faith while articulating the pro-choice position exceptionally well. I only wish moderator Elaine Quijano had asked Pence about the Indiana woman jailed for having a miscarriage, or the state law he signed requiring burial or cremation for all aborted, miscarried, or stillborn fetuses.

CNN’s instant poll showed that by a 48 percent to 42 percent margin, viewers thought Pence won the debate. But it’s not a plus for the Republican ticket when the takeaways are all about Pence running away from Trump, throwing him under the bus, or hanging him out to dry. CNBC’s John Harwood cited an unnamed Trump adviser as saying, “Pence won overall, but lost with Trump,” who “can’t stand to be upstaged.”

Adrian Carrasquillo posted a good summary of the vice presidential candidates’ back-and-forth on immigration during the debate.

Critics on the right and the left didn’t find much to admire in Quijano’s moderating skills.

Iowa State University’s contention that President Steven Leath never violated university policy on using state property for personal gain is looking increasingly implausible. Leath tried last week to end the controversy over his piloting adventures, saying he had done nothing wrong but would not fly the university’s Cirrus SR22 anymore “to allay any future concerns.”

However, Ryan Foley reported today for the Associated Press that some of Leath’s flights on the university’s larger King Air 350 “potentially violate policies that require travel expenses to be reasonable and business-related.”

The new revelations not only call into question Leath’s compliance, but could also raise red flags for the Internal Revenue Service about “excess benefit transactions” by ISU’s Foundation.

The Des Moines Register ran a lead editorial two weeks ago about “Blurring the lines between news and public relations” in Iowa’s third-largest city:

But rather than create a website to issue press releases or connect directly to the public, the city of Davenport went a step further, creating a site called Davenport Today and packaging the information as if it was independently produced journalism rather than information crafted and disseminated by the same public entity that was being “covered.”

[…] From the outset, Davenport Today was criticized for being nothing more than a taxpayer-funded propaganda machine — which it was. That meant all of the information it shared with the public, no matter how solid, was tainted in the eyes of some readers. Even the articles that appeared to present an unvarnished look at city operations were viewed as self-serving since they emanated from City Hall itself.

At least the now-defunct Davenport Today site openly published material authored by official sources.

Over the weekend, the Des Moines Register and Cedar Rapids Gazette ran a barely-rewritten Iowa State University press release under reporters’ bylines.

For the first time in his six re-election campaigns, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is on the air with a second commercial criticizing his Democratic challenger.

And in a move without precedent for a major-party candidate in Iowa, Grassley backed out of participating in a scheduled debate on Iowa Public Television, which would have been broadcast statewide.

Rescinding his acceptance of Iowa Public TV’s invitation looks like a risk-averse strategy. After several polls during the summer found Grassley 9 or 10 points ahead of former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, the last four public surveys showed double-digit leads for Grassley: 55 percent to 43 percent according to Quinnipiac, 56-39 according to Monmouth, 54-37 according to Loras College, and 50-37 according to RABA Research.

On the other hand, confident incumbents typically stay positive in their own tv ads, as Grassley has done in every previous re-election campaign.

Follow me after the the jump for the video and transcript of Grassley’s latest negative tv ad, along with statements from both campaigns and Iowa Public Television regarding the senator’s change of heart about the debate.

Who could have predicted that after his poor performance in Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump would spend most of the past week re-litigating his fat-shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, culminating in an overnight tweet-storm that Hillary Clinton described as “unhinged, even for Trump”?

Trump’s “aggressive bullying” is textbook behavior for a narcissist–so much that many survivors of domestic violence and emotional abuse found his behavior during the first debate triggering their traumatic memories. Even more disturbing: look how easily Trump fell for the “trap” Clinton set during the debate, validating the narrative that he “lacks the temperament and emotional stability to be president.” Foreign adversaries would have a field day manipulating this guy.

No wonder the Arizona Republic, which had never supported a Democrat for president since its creation in 1890, endorsed Clinton this week, saying Trump is “not conservative” and “not qualified.”

Today’s New York Times features tax documents showing Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995, which “would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.” The Trump campaign did not deny the authenticity of what they called “illegally obtained” documents but said in a statement,

Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required. That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that [sic] knows how to fix it.

The New York Times scoop doesn’t point to any illegal tax avoidance by Trump, but David Fahrenthold’s reporting for the Washington Post has uncovered several Trump Foundation practices that appear to violate federal and state law.

Clinton was already gaining ground in some polls before the first debate. As of September 30, she led Trump in all eleven swing-state polls that were in the field after the debate. None were from Iowa, where Trump has led the latest public surveys and is slightly favored, according to various election forecasters. I wonder whether Clinton will get a bounce here as well. I’m disappointed not to see a new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co this weekend. Usually during election years, the Des Moines Register commissions a Selzer poll to run in late September.

Speaking of public opinion, Charles Franklin of PollsandVotes.com gave me permission to post below graphs he created, comparing President Barack Obama’s second-term job approval rating with that of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.