After another disappointing election cycle, Iowa Senate Republicans chose Bill Dix to be the new leader of their caucus yesterday.

Public Policy Polling’s last Iowa survey before the general election suggests that both Governor Terry Branstad and Senator Tom Harkin are favored looking ahead to possible re-election campaigns in 2014.  

Republican Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama in Public Policy Polling’s latest survey of likely voters in Iowa by 49 percent to 48 percent. For Romney, that’s a big improvement since PPP polled Iowa in late September and a much better finding than yesterday’s poll from NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist.

PPP’s new poll also suggests Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins might not be retained. More details are below.

UPDATE: On October 21, PPP released a different Iowa poll conducted during the same period, which showed Obama leading Romney by 49 percent to 48 percent. I’ve added excerpts from that polling memo at the end of this post.

Governor Terry Branstad will seek legislative action to increase pension contributions from Iowa’s police officers and professional firefighters. The change would offer relief for city budgets while cutting into the paychecks of public safety workers.

Many Iowa Democrats have been expecting Senator Tom Harkin to retire when his current term expires in 2014. However, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions indicated yesterday that he plans to run for re-election at least one more time.