Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

The results of the 2024 elections are in and the dust is settling—quite a bit faster than we expected it to—and we as citizens have a lot to consider about what it means to be in the United States of America.

This must be a reckoning of what we are dealing with as a purported democratic people that enjoy equal protections under the law and unprecedented personal liberties. This must be a reckoning of what and who we are as a people.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com   

The corpse of the losing presidential campaign isn’t cold, and they’re sharpening knives for the autopsy. As always, according to the know-it-all people the losing campaign was rife with mistakes, missteps, and was generally inept. The winning campaign was flawless, brilliant, and ordained by God. If you don’t believe me, open Facebook and you’ll see it.

I don’t have the expertise or stomach for a full autopsy. I’ll leave that to professional political pundits. I do have a couple of observations about the 2024 campaign, though.

Jack Hatch is a retired state senator and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor.

As a well-used phrase suggests, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.”

Our Democratic message was strong, and our attention to our deeply held values of equality, inclusion, and freedom was spot-on. But in Iowa, our organizational structure is off base.  

We lost seats in the Iowa House and Senate and lost two very close races for Congress. Without a strong party organization that represents our coalition, Democrats will continue to lose. This is not a reflection on our party leaders, as much as, it is a reflection of the organization at all levels. We can’t move voters if we don’t engage in a conversation, and we must reach out to them.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

Recent news articles have reported on NexEra’s interest in restarting the Duane Arnold nuclear plant. We need to consider the consequences of such an action.

Restarting a closed reactor in decommissioning status has never been attempted. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admits there are no regulations authorizing the restart of a closed reactor. In order to restart Duane Arnold, NextEra will have to cobble together a daisy chain of existing regulations that is of doubtful legality, as is being attempted at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Nor is there any assurance that the operation could be done safely.

Third in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Donald Trump’s mastery of Iowa in the 2024 election is no more apparent than his performance in a batch of counties that border the Mississippi River.

For the last eight years, this region has been clearly in Trump’s corner. But it shifted even more decisively in his favor Tuesday.

Trump won these ten counties by more than 34,000 votes, according to unofficial results.

There were still a small number of ballots to be counted, but Trump’s victory in this region approached Barack Obama’s historic wins in 2012, at least in numeric terms. And, compared to four years ago, Trump won this stretch of Iowa by more than double the number of votes than he did against Joe Biden.

Second in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections. This post has been updated with certified results as of December 2.

The successful Republican effort to knock Libertarians off the ballot in three U.S. House districts may have influenced the outcome in at least one of them.

All three affected Libertarian candidates—Nicholas Gluba in the first Congressional district, Marco Battaglia in the third, and Charles Aldrich in the fourth—indicated that they would continue to run as write-in candidates. Unofficial results show write-in votes for Iowa’s four U.S. House races this year totaled 3,616—about 0.23 percent of the 1,602,409 ballots cast for a Congressional candidate.

When Libertarian candidates have been on the ballot for recent Iowa Congressional elections, they have typically received 2-3 percent of the vote.

AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE FIRST DISTRICT

In IA-01, unofficial results show Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks leads Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by 796 votes (49.98 percent to 49.79 percent). Bohannan has not conceded, and the race has not been called. But it’s unlikely that enough provisional ballots remain to be counted for her to overtake Miller-Meeks. Iowa no longer counts absentee ballots that arrive after election day.

Patrick Swanson has been restoring a Harrison County prairie.

The fourth iteration of the multi-day LoHi (Loess Hills) Trek was held October 16-20 in Mills and Fremont counties of southwestern Iowa. This was my third LoHi Trek, joining about 45 others hailing from Colorado to Ohio, Minnesota to Missouri, and various points in between on this unique supported camping and hiking adventure. 

Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), assisted by many other partners and volunteers, organized the event and recently posted an excellent synopsis and great action photos of the daily activities. Here I will offer my own experiences as a complement to what has already been written, and reflect a bit on this journey and how it compared to the two previous treks I attended in 2021 and 2023.

First in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Two years ago, Iowa appeared to be on a different trajectory than much of the country. As Democrats won many of the midterm election races, including in our Midwestern neighboring states, Iowa experienced yet another “red wave.” Six of the last eight general elections in Iowa have been GOP landslides.

On November 5, Donald Trump improved on his 2020 performance almost across the board: in blue states like New York and New Jersey, swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, and red states like Texas and Iowa. He gained in rural counties, suburban counties, and urban centers, in states where both presidential candidates campaigned intensely, and in states where there was no “ground game” or barrage of political advertising. He gained among almost every demographic group except for college-educated women. He may become the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004, and only the second GOP nominee to win the popular vote since 1988.

The Trump resurgence isn’t unique to Iowa, or even the U.S.—grievance politics has been winning elections all over the world lately.

But that’s no comfort to Democrats here, who probably won’t win back any Congressional districts and suffered more losses among their already small contingents in the Iowa House and Senate.

This post has been updated with the unofficial results from each race. Original post follows.

Democrats go into the November 5 election with the smallest Iowa House contingent they’ve had in five decades. But even though control of the chamber is not in question, this year’s state House races matter.

Despite having a 64 to 36 advantage for the past two years, Republicans struggled to find 51 votes for some of their controversial legislation, such as Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to overhaul the Area Education Agencies. So chipping away at the GOP majority could help limit further damage to public education or civil rights.

Conversely, a net loss of Democratic-held seats would allow the majority to govern with even fewer constraints.

This post highlights nine Iowa House seats most at risk of flipping, plus seven districts that could be competitive, or where the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. I will update later with unofficial results from all of these races.

Arnold Garson is a semi-retired journalist and executive who worked for 46 years in the newspaper industry, including almost 20 years at The Des Moines Register. He writes the Substack newsletter Second Thoughts, where this article first appeared.

Presidential endorsements in American newspapers had a good run—more than 150 years—and America is the better for it.

Their disappearance, beginning five to ten years ago and mushrooming this year, has been a product of changing times for newspapers and newspaper ownership, and the increasing divisiveness in our society. Though explainable, it is sad and unfortunate. 

It is worth remembering that newspapers got into the endorsement business because the owners and editors knew an informed electorate would be advantageous to the country as well as the newspaper industry.  

DSM Lawyer is an attorney in central Iowa.

When will we stop politicizing the judiciary? I practice in Polk County District Court Associate Judge Rachael Seymour’s courtroom all the time and have thoughts about why she received low marks in the Iowa State Bar Association’s judicial performance review.

Yes, hearings in her courtroom tend not to run on time, and she can take a long time to issue a written ruling. Why? Because she’s extremely thorough when we’re in court, and she gives a complete verbal ruling while you’re there. She wants to have all the possible information before making decisions that affect families, and she takes time to review all of the written evidence as well as review her notes prior to finalizing the written ruling.

Even the Iowa Court of Appeals recently noted the thoroughness of one of her rulings. This is a good thing, because it ensures everyone has all the same information rather than relying on our own individual recollections of what happened. I generally find that if I just pad my own schedule a little there’s no issue.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Out of desperation, as a fearful election day looms, let’s grasp at some straws to try to make sense of what we’ve been through and, even worse, what might be ahead.

For example, some political campaigns have had musical themes.

Few, if any Bleeding Heartland readers were around in 1932 to sing along with “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the theme of Franklin’s D. Roosevelt’s anti-Depression campaign against President Herbert Hoover.

More of us may recall Marilyn Maye’s catchy version of “Step to the Rear (and Let a Winner Lead the Way)” sung on behalf of Governor Robert D. Ray. (Warning: Before listening to Ms Maye, be prepared for tears if you are subject to emotional responses in recalling the more congenial, bipartisan days of the Ray administrations, when Democrats generally accepted letting Ray “lead the way.”)

Sami Scheetz represents Iowa House district 78, covering part of Cedar Rapids.

When we brought our daughter home from the hospital a few months ago, and I watched our baby swaddled in her bassinet, sleeping peacefully, I couldn’t help but think about the future my wife and I are building for her. Now, with the November 5 election a few days away, I wonder: What kind of place will Iowa be for families today and for generations to come?

When my daughter grows up, will she find an Iowa that is as inclusive, welcoming, and safe as the one I inherited—or will she find an Iowa neither of us recognize, a place where people feel they have little in common with their government, and their voices are not heard?

Andy Johnson works in the locally-owned clean energy transition, and farms with his wife and three daughters in rural Winneshiek County, northeast Iowa.

Is Kamala Harris angry? I sure as hell hope so, and I wish she’d say so.

The angry American right does its darnedest to paint her as an angry Black woman. This angry white male Iowa farmer wishes she’d get mad, in a good way.

Here is what I imagine she might say.

“Fellow Americans, I’m angry!

“I’m angry that so many of us blindly picture our two candidates for national leadership as either an angry white man or an angry black woman. We’re better than that.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

In November of last year, I asked, “Are Republicans really gaining among Black voters?” Since then, political reporters have written article after article on the subject. A New York Times story about a recent poll declared, “Black voters drift from Democrats, Imperiling Harris’s Bid.” This week, Newsweek wrote about a different poll using the headline, “Donald Trump sees surge in support among Black Virginia Voters.”

Before I get the data, I want to make a serious point. These stories insulate Trump from the plain meaning of his language. See, he tells his supporters, I am not a racist: Black people are voting for me. So, while this question may seem like something only data nerds should care about, media coverage of the African-American vote has very real consequences for the political conversation in this country.

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

In 1990, Michael Godwin observed a phenomenon on internet and proposed a concept known as “Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies.” It stated, “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches one.” Godwin’s law quickly spread to all forms of conversations and debates on hot-button issues.

Folks like me, who did not grasp the meaning of the phrase “approaches one,” have explained it as either “you know the discussion has gone on too long” or “that thread is over and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.” As a writer in the Guardian once reframed it, “The longer an argument runs, the greater the likelihood Hitler gets mentioned.”

The point of this rule is that Nazi analogies are over the top. They are a kind of hyperbole that trivializes an argument, using reckless and thoughtless comparisons to win.

Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on My Gaia, an email newsletter “about getting to know nature” and “giving her a helping hand in our own backyards.” Diane also maintains the Birdwatching Dot Com website and bird blog.

If I indulge my fantasy, I imagine asters as sentient beings, each with its own personality. If that were the case, then Willow Asters would be aristocrats, with their subtle lavender petals, slender leaves, and graceful poses.

If she were a lady, she would host gracious, elegant parties by a lake. Suitors would long for her attention.

There are indeed beings who visit her every hour of the day. She is always attended by bees, butterflies, and myriad other insects.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com   

Before malls became teen hang outs, there were drive-in theaters. In the 1970s, they attracted teens and were a place to dream about bench seat heaven with a date. After all, they were known as “passion pits.”

The crowd at the local “passion pit” didn’t really care about deep plot lines and moving themes. When you pulled into a spot with a date, you were showing your world, you were stepping out. There were always a few families, but the place was filled with teens.

Movie makers knew what their audience craved, and they fed them. You could watch three movies in one night, and they were the weirdest, wildest horror films ever made.

This post has been updated with unofficial results from the November 5 election, as well as the final pre-election campaign finance disclosures and absentee ballot totals as of November 2. Original post follows.

Republicans currently hold 34 Iowa Senate seats—the largest GOP contingent in that chamber since 1973. Democrats are not realistically contending to regain the Senate majority in November. So why pay any attention to these legislative races?

Although the most competitive state Senate races won’t determine control of the chamber, they could reveal a lot about each party’s strengths with certain kinds of voters. A good night for Republicans would indicate that the Trump-era realignment has moved further into Iowa’s former blue regions. A good night for Democrats could pull the GOP below the two-thirds threshold, which has allowed Senate Republicans to confirm all of Governor Kim Reynolds’ nominees without any support from the minority party.

This post highlights four state Senate districts at most risk of flipping, and another seven districts where even without a big investment by Democrats or Republicans, the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. A forthcoming article will cover state House races to watch in 2024.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

It’s a challenge, but not impossible, to find topics on which Republicans and Democrats share the same view these days. Here’s one: election day means we can all celebrate the end of those infernal television commercials. 

My tolerance for these ads has never been high. One reason is the way their assertions oversimplify the pluses (or the minuses) of one candidate’s or the other’s stand on some issue.

It is not really a surprise, however, because politicians have long claimed they will solve some problem or their opponent is to blame for that problem.