Every weekday through November 4, Bleeding Heartland will post updated totals absentee ballots requested and returned, statewide and in Iowa’s four Congressional districts, based on data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. The latest tables are after the jump. Previous tables are here.

Every day since September 22, Democrats have added more absentee ballot requests than Republicans, but not by much today. The Iowa GOP would be happy to reverse that trend as soon as possible.  

Every weekday through November 4, Bleeding Heartland will post updated totals absentee ballots requested and returned, statewide and in Iowa’s four Congressional districts, based on data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. The latest tables are after the jump. Previous tables are here. If turnout in this year’s election is roughly on the level of 2010, with about 1.1 million Iowans participating, than approximately 15 percent of those who will vote have already requested early ballots.

Today Nate Cohn posted his analysis of the Iowa early voting numbers at the New York Times’ Upshot blog. His main takeaways:

Over all, the early voting tallies in Iowa tell us that both Democrats and Republicans are better mobilized than in 2010 – which is no surprise in a state where there was no competitive contest that year – but not as well mobilized as in 2012. The Republicans are more obviously outperforming their past figures, but Democrats may be doing a better job of turning out marginal voters. The early vote tallies seem consistent with the polls: a close contest in which either side could prevail.

I agree with the broad conclusions but think Cohn is missing a few important factors.

First, every day since the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office started updating the absentee ballot figures, Democrats have added more ballot requests than Republicans. We don’t know whether that trend will continue for the next five weeks, but it’s encouraging for Democrats.

Second, Cohn ignores the no-party voters who have requested early ballots (about 35,000 people as of yesterday). But independents added considerably to President Barack Obama’s advantage in the early vote in 2012. On the eve of that general election, registered Iowa Democrats who had returned early ballots outnumbered registered Republicans who had done so by about 65,000. But Obama received 137,355 more early votes in Iowa than Romney, meaning he must have been supported by about two-thirds of the roughly 200,000 no-party voters who cast early ballots. Democratic canvassers have done more this year than Republicans to target independent voters, which could add to the party’s early voting advantage.

Third, Cohn repeatedly characterizes the 2010 midterm election in Iowa as uncompetitive, presumably because Terry Branstad and Chuck Grassley were heavily favored in the races for governor and U.S. senator. But aside from the national mood that favored Republicans in 2010, one huge factor driving turnout in Iowa was the first judicial retention elections following the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2009 decision allowing same-sex marriage. That motivation for social conservatives is absent this year because no one on the Supreme Court is up for retention. Branstad recruited unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate Sam Clovis to run for state treasurer right after this year’s Republican primary in an obvious attempt to give that part of the GOP base more reason to turn out. I’m skeptical that social conservatives will be as energized to vote for the Republican ticket as they were in 2010.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.  

Every weekday through November 4, Bleeding Heartland will post updated totals absentee ballots requested and returned, statewide and in Iowa’s four Congressional districts. Follow me after the jump for the latest tables. I took the numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. Previous tables are here.

As of September 28, registered Iowa Democrats have requested about 40,000 more ballots than Republicans have. Democrats also claim to have generated a higher percentage of ballot requests than Republicans among Iowans who did not vote in the 2010 midterm election.  

Thousands of Iowans took advantage of the first day for in-person early voting yesterday. The latest totals for absentee ballots requested and returned, statewide and in Iowa’s four Congressional districts, are after the jump. I took the numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. To spot trends in the numbers, you can find tables from earlier this week here.

Both parties have been pushing early voting, and both have generated more absentee ballot requests than at the same point in Iowa’s last midterm elections. For now, Democrats are running ahead in the early vote statewide and in each Congressional district, but the numbers are far from decisive.

Based on the latest data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office, I’ve updated tables showing how many absentee ballots Iowans have requested and returned, statewide and in the four Congressional districts. Democrats still lead in ballot requests statewide and in each district, as you can see below. The largest lead is in IA-02; the smallest in IA-04.

Tables from previous days can be viewed here. The number of ballots returned is creeping up slowly, but that will change very soon. Early voting in-person begins today, and every vote cast at a county auditor’s office counts as a ballot requested and a ballot returned on the same day. Also, more and more Iowans who are voting by mail will receive their ballots by this weekend.

Based on the latest data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office, I’ve updated after the jump tables showing how many absentee ballots Iowans have requested and returned, statewide and in the four Congressional districts.

Tables from previous days can be viewed here. Note that the number of ballots returned is still quite low, because most of the 99 county auditors are starting to mail ballots this week. In-person early voting begins tomorrow, 40 days before the general election.

Among the four Congressional districts, IA-02 has both the largest number of ballot requests so far and the largest difference between the Democratic and Republican numbers. That’s bad news for Mariannette Miller-Meeks in her third attempt to unseat Representative Dave Loebsack, an uphill battle in my opinion. It may also be good news for Democrats hoping to maintain or expand their Iowa Senate majority, because several of the most competitive Iowa Senate districts are located within the second Congressional district (namely, Senate district 39, Senate district 41, Senate district 15, and to a lesser extent Senate district 49).

You might be an Iowa politics junkie if you are excited to see the new absentee ballot numbers in the morning. Follow me after the jump for tables showing the absentee ballots requested and returned statewide and in each of the four Congressional districts, updated to include the latest data from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office.

I’m compiling all the tables on this page to make it easier to spot trends in the numbers. Note that the number of ballots returned is still quite low, because most of the 99 county auditors are starting to mail ballots this week.

Yesterday, some Iowa Republicans were crowing about how much better their party is doing this year on early GOTV. Although Democrats have requested more ballots than Republicans, GOP ballot requests were up by a greater percentage than Democratic requests compared to the 2010 campaign. I suspect one factor is the Republican mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms, which hit mailboxes shortly after Labor Day and created a surge in ballot requests to county auditors.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms reached supporters between September 18 and 20. Over the next week to ten days, I’ll be closely watching the Democratic numbers to see whether the “low-hanging fruit” produce a big jump in ballot requests. Since yesterday, Democrats added significantly more ballot requests than Republicans did in each of the four Congressional districts. Statewide, total ballots requested by Democrats increased from 57,869 as of September 21 to 63,485 as of September 22. Republican requests increased from 31,099 to 33,073.  

This morning the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office started posting absentee ballot statistics for this year’s general election. They will update the chart on weekdays here (pdf).

As in 2012, Bleeding Heartland will update the absentee ballot totals daily as they become available. The first set of numbers are after the jump. I’ve organized the data a bit differently from the Secretary of State’s Office. For each day’s totals, I will create two charts: the first shows the number of absentee ballots Iowans have requested, in each of the four Congressional districts and statewide. The second shows the number of absentee ballots county auditors have received from voters, in each of the four Congressional districts and statewide. (For now, those numbers are small, because most of the county auditors have not yet mailed ballots to voters who requested them.)

In-person early voting will begin on September 25 at county auditors’ offices. Some counties will open satellite locations for in-person early voting as well. When an Iowan votes early at the auditor’s office, that counts as an absentee ballot requested by the voter and as an absentee ballot received by the auditor on the same day.

Today’s press release from the Secretary of State’s Office noted that “demand for absentee ballots with 43 days before the election is much higher this year for all party affiliations than at a similar point in 2010.” Absentee ballot requests as of September 21 totaled 112,178 statewide, compared to 56,725 at this point in Iowa’s last midterm election campaign. Registered Democrats had requested 57,869 absentee ballots (versus 34,318 at this point in 2010), Republicans had requested 31,099 ballots (12,710 in 2010), and no-party voters had requested 23,043 ballots (9,664 in 2010). Click here for more information about voting early, or to download an absentee ballot request form.

Note that not every mailed-in absentee ballot will count. Some ballots mailed late will not get a postmark proving voters sent them before election day. John Deeth goes over other common errors that can lead to absentee ballots not being counted, such as voters not signing the “affidavit envelope” or re-opening the affidavit envelope after sealing it. Everyone planning to vote by mail needs to read the instructions carefully and follow them exactly.

UPDATE: I should have noted that if this year’s turnout is similar to 2010, about 1.1 million Iowans will cast ballots, meaning that roughly 10 percent of those likely to participate in the midterm have already requested a ballot. The Republican Party of Iowa’s first mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms went out in early September, while the Iowa Democratic Party’s went out last week.

SECOND UPDATE: Adding latest daily numbers after the jump.

Since the June primary, I haven’t written much about the first Congressional district campaign between former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy and longtime business owner Rod Blum. In theory, the race could be competitive. IA-01 leans Democratic with a partisan voting index of D+5, meaning that in the last two presidential elections, voters living here skewed about 5 percent more Democratic than the nationwide electorate. Crucially, this is a midterm, not a presidential year. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the 20 counties in IA-01 contain 156,344 active registered Democrats, 134,313 Republicans, and 186,446 no-party voters. Hardly an overwhelming advantage. The right Republican could win this district.

Nevertheless, I doubt Blum has a strong chance in IA-01 for three reasons. First, the hero to the “Liberty” crowd and Steve Forbes is not moderate enough to win a lot of crossover voters. Blum applauded a key vote that led to last year’s federal government shutdown. The Republican won’t be able to run up the score in his home county either, because both Murphy and Blum are from Dubuque.

Second, Bruce Braley’s Senate hopes are dead in the water if he doesn’t get a strong Democratic turnout in the Congressional district where he is best known to voters. So his campaign and the Iowa Democratic Party have incentive to focus on GOTV in the key IA-01 counties. Unless the “coordinated campaign” is an epic failure, Murphy should benefit.

Third, as in Iowa’s second Congressional district, we haven’t seen a lot of activity from outside groups in IA-01. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is committed to defending this seat, but to my knowledge has not spent any money on radio or television commercials here. Likewise, the National Republican Congressional Committee put Blum in its top tier of challengers but hasn’t reserved air time or spent significant money against Murphy. I believe they would do so if they smelled a real opportunity here.

We haven’t seen much polling on this race. In August, Murphy released partial results from an internal poll indicating that he was ahead by 51 percent to 40 percent. Blum countered with his own internal showing Murphy leading by just 40 percent to 35 percent. Take those with a grain of salt, as with all internals.

Loras College surveyed 300 voters in IA-01 earlier this month and found Murphy barely ahead, by 34.6 percent to 33.0 percent, with 32.3 percent either undecided or refusing to answer. Both candidates have been campaigning around the district, but neither Murphy nor Blum started running general election television commercials until this month, which could explain the high number of undecideds. On the other hand, Loras doesn’t have a long track record in polling, and that survey had a relatively small sample and a relatively large margin of error (plus or minus 5.6 percent). The cross-tabs included some unusual findings, such as Murphy barely ahead among women and Blum barely ahead among men. If true, that would be a big red flag for Murphy, who defeated three women candidates in the Democratic primary. While Republican blogger Craig Robinson draws big hope from this aspect of the Loras poll, I am skeptical that the gender gap we’ve seen in so many elections for decades is magically absent from this race. The margin of error for a subsample of a poll is always larger than the margin of error for the whole survey.

After the jump I’ve posted the first two general election ads for Murphy and the debut general election ad for Blum, as well as the spot Blum ran before the GOP primary. They all look solid to me. Any comments about the IA-01 race are welcome in this thread.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

The weather is perfect in Indianola this afternoon for the roughly 5,000 people expected to attend Senator Tom Harkin’s final “Steak Fry” event. At least 200 journalists will be on hand, mostly to see Hillary Clinton’s first appearance in Iowa since the 2008 caucuses. If you see a lot of “Hillary doesn’t appear to have much of an Iowa problem” stories tonight and tomorrow, remember that you heard it here first, and repeatedly.

I stand by my prediction that Hillary Clinton will face only token Democratic opposition in Iowa and elsewhere if she runs for president again. But in case she doesn’t run, 2012 Harkin Steak Fry headliner Martin O’Malley is building up a lot of goodwill among Iowa Democrats. In addition to raising money for key Iowa Senate candidates this summer, the Maryland governor’s political action committee is funding staffers for the Iowa Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, gubernatorial nominee Jack Hatch, and secretary of state candidate Brad Anderson. I still don’t see O’Malley running against Clinton in any scenario.

President Bill Clinton will speak today as well. That’s got to be a tough act to follow. No one can get a crowd of Democrats going like he can. I’ll update this post later with highlights from the event and news coverage. I hope other Bleeding Heartland readers will share their impressions. C-SPAN will carry the main speeches, starting at 2:00 pm. That will be on channel 95 in the Des Moines area.

During prime-time last night, President Barack Obama spoke to the nation about the U.S. response to the terrorist group ISIS. You can read the full text of his remarks here. I don’t have a lot of confidence that airstrikes will weaken support for ISIS where they are powerful, nor do I know whether there are enough “forces fighting these terrorists on the ground” for our support to matter. At least the president isn’t sending massive numbers of ground troops back to Iraq.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from several members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation as well as candidates for federal office. I will update this post as needed later today. Feel free to share your own thoughts about the appropriate U.S. policy in the region.

UPDATE: Added more comments below. As of Thursday evening, I have not seen any public comment on the president’s speech from Senator Tom Harkin, Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01 and the Democratic nominee from U.S. Senate), IA-01 Democratic nominee Pat Murphy, his Republican opponent Rod Blum, IA-02 GOP nominee Mariannette Miller-Meeks, or Representative Steve King (IA-04). I would think anyone who represents or wants to represent Iowans in Congress would want to weigh in about this policy, at least on whether the president should be able to act without Congressional authorization.

I agree with State Senator Matt McCoy, who posted on Facebook, “The President did not make a credible case for sending 475 Americans into IRAQ. The bar should be set very high before a President takes action without Congressional authorization. This crisis needs more dialog and study.”

Part of a series on GOTV in Iowa this year

Less than two weeks remain before county auditors start mailing absentee ballots to Iowa voters. On September 22, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office will start releasing updates on absentee ballots requested and returned statewide and by Congressional district. As in 2012, Bleeding Heartland will post those totals daily.

Data from a few of the larger counties indicate that the Iowa Democratic Party’s head start on canvassing this summer has produced a clear advantage on absentee ballots requested. Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson is fretting about the GOP “getting out worked when it comes to early voting.” Former Iowa Senate GOP staffer Don McDowell is upset with conservatives who refuse to vote before election day. He has seen more than a few statehouse races lost narrowly after Republican candidates were crushed in the early vote.

However, it’s way too soon for Democrats to be over-confident about this year’s early vote lead, for three reasons.

Not being a football fan, I had never heard of Ray Rice until the Baltimore Ravens running back received a pathetic two-game suspension for beating up his fiancee Janay Palmer (now his wife) earlier this year. Rice finally lost his job yesterday, after a leaked video showed him punching Palmer in an elevator. But Louis Bien’s timeline of key events in the case underscores how many authority figures bent over backwards to help Rice avoid any serious repercussions.

For months, top management for the Ravens made clear they hoped Rice would continue to play football with minimal interruption. The team’s official twitter account promoted the idea that Palmer shared some responsibility for getting knocked out. Having given other players one-or two-game suspensions for domestic violence incidents, the National Football League didn’t ask the Atlantic City casino for video footage before deciding on an initial consequence for Rice. Unbelievably, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell interviewed Janay Rice about the incident in the presence of her husband. In a meaningless gesture, the NFL suspended Rice indefinitely yesterday–after the Ravens had ended his contract.

Instead of moving forward with aggravated assault charges, New Jersey prosecutors offered Rice a deal involving probation and anger management counseling rather than prison time. The “pretrial intervention” agreement means that Rice can avoid trial and even have the criminal charges expunged, as long as he complies with the program. I’m all for abusers getting counseling, in addition to facing legal consequences for their actions. Rice’s deal seems way too lenient, given the evidence prosecutors had on videotape. The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office says Rice “received the same treatment in the court system that any first-time offender in similar circumstances has received,” which doesn’t inspire confidence in the court system.

Rice is lucky that he’ll probably never serve a day in prison for this assault, yet football legend Mike Ditka noted sympathetcally yesterday that Rice is “not a bad guy” who has seen his life “ruined” and his earning power “destroyed.” Right-wing media darling Ben Carson loves to talk about “personal responsibility.” But when asked about Rice yesterday, Carson said, “Let’s not all jump on the bandwagon of demonizing this guy. He obviously has some real problems. And his wife obviously knows that because she subsequently married him. […] let’s see if we can get some help for these people.” In what other context would a conservative show such sympathy for a man who had beaten someone unconscious? Yes, Rice has problems. Let him get help while he faces responsibility for his crimes.

By the way, Carson spent a few days in Iowa during the last week of August. The possible 2016 presidential candidate headlined fundraisers for the Polk County Republican Party and GOP Congressional candidates Rod Blum (IA-01) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02). I hope that Blum, Miller-Meeks, and Polk County GOP Chair Will Rogers will repudiate Carson’s comments about Rice. Domestic violence is the most prevalent form of violent crime in Iowa, affecting tens of thousands of people every year.

UPDATE: Worth reading Vice President Joe Biden’s comments on Rice and our cultural attitudes toward violence. Biden was the lead author of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.

First in a series of posts on GOTV in Iowa this year

Air time for television advertising has become the most expensive line-item in many election campaigns. Outside groups have spent millions of dollars already on Iowa commercials targeting U.S. Senate candidates Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst, with millions more to be spent over the next 60 days. Nevertheless, I don’t know many people who believe attack ads will determine the outcome of close races like Iowa’s U.S. Senate battle. Barring some extraordinary campaign event (such as a meltdown in the debates), the winner will be the candidate whose side does a better job of identifying its supporters and turning them out to vote.

The number of Iowans who voted in each of the last two midterm elections was about a third lower than the number who had voted in the most recent presidential election. If that trend holds, approximately 1.1 million Iowans will cast ballots in the 2014 general election. Braley and other Democrats can’t afford to have turnout resemble 2010, when only 56.5 percent of registered Iowa Democrats voted, as opposed to 69 percent of registered Republicans.

The Iowa Democratic Party has been crowing about its bigger and better “coordinated campaign,” an effort to build on the successful 2012 early voting program here. No question, Democrats got a big jump on the ground game while the Iowa GOP was mired in poor fundraising and a messy leadership transition. Democrats have had canvassers out every weekend for months, and so far have generated many more absentee ballot requests than Republicans. The Iowa GOP has stepped up its door-knocking over the past several weeks, and Governor Terry Branstad will spend part of his war chest to assist the early voting efforts.

Knocking on doors is one of the most valuable ways to volunteer for a campaign. For those willing to spend a few hours on a weeknight or a weekend afternoon, I’ve enclosed my best advice for canvassing after the jump. Please feel free to share your own experiences with canvassing (on either side of the door) in this thread. Six years ago, a guest diarist posted his top tips here.

The filing period for general election candidates in Iowa closed last Friday, so it’s a good time to review where candidates not representing either the Democratic or Republican Party are running for office. The full candidate list is on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website (pdf(. After the jump I discuss all the federal, statewide, and state legislative races including at least one independent or minor-party candidate. Where possible, I’ve linked to campaign websites, so you can learn more about the candidates and their priorities.

Rarely has any Iowa election been affected by an independent or third-party candidate on the ballot. Arguably, the most recent case may have been the 2010 election in Iowa’s first Congressional district. Final results showed that Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley defeated Republican challenger Ben Lange by 4,209 votes, while conservative candidates Rob Petsche and Jason Faulkner drew 4,087 votes and 2,092 votes, respectively.

Any comments about Iowa’s 2014 elections are welcome in this thread.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will be the star guests at Senator Tom Harkin’s final steak fry on September 14 at the Indianola Balloon Field. Doors open at 12:30 pm, event runs from 1-4. Traffic can be slow on the highway leading to the balloon field, so my advice is to allow extra time.

All of Iowa’s Democratic candidates for federal and statewide office typically speak at the steak fry, but the big crowds will be there to see Hillary Clinton in her first Iowa appearance since the January 2008 caucuses. While she’s in central Iowa, I would not be surprised to see her do an event for Staci Appel, Democratic nominee in the third Congressional district. Then State Senator Appel appeared at numerous events for for Hillary during 2007.

My opinion hasn’t changed regarding Clinton and the 2016 Iowa caucuses: if she runs for president again, she wins here. Vice President Joe Biden and everyone else are far behind in every Iowa poll I’ve seen. Other presidential hopefuls are waiting in the wings, in case Clinton decides against running, but are in no position to challenge her for the nomination.

More than a half-dozen potential presidential candidates have visited Iowa since Bleeding Heartland’s last news roundup on the field. Any comments about the 2016 Iowa caucus campaign are welcome in this thread. Lots of links are after the jump.

Lest anyone think that ordinary people are unable to influence public discourse, consider this: Rand Paul’s latest Iowa visit will likely be remembered for how he ran away from the DREAMers who confronted Representative Steve King.

The Iowa State Fair opened a few minutes ago and runs through August 17. I’m a big fan of the event, and after the jump, I’ve posted some of my favorite tips for enjoying the fair, along with the schedule for candidate appearances at the Des Moines Register’s “soapbox” on the Grand Concourse. The Register will live-stream speeches by candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, as well as a few nationally known politicians from out of state.

The fair has almost endless free entertainment, but bring cash with you anyway, because the State Fair board had to backtrack on plans to eliminate cash purchases for food. Instead, vendors have been encouraged to accept credit and debit cards. I suspect most will stick with a cash-only system.  

With all four U.S. House districts in Iowa targeted by one or both parties this year, and competitive primaries happening in three of the four races, I was eager to see where the nominees stood at the end of the second quarter.

Highlights from the Federal Election Commission filings are after the jump. After lackluster fundraising the last three quarters, six-term Representative Steve King finally managed to out-raise his Democratic challenger Jim Mowrer, but to my surprise, Mowrer retained a big advantage over King in cash on hand as of June 30.  

All four Iowa Congressional districts are being targeted by at least one of the major-party committees focused on U.S. House races. This week the National Republican Congressional Committee moved three Iowa candidates to the top tier of its “Young Guns” program: Rod Blum (IA-01), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), and David Young (IA-03). The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee moved IA-03 nominee Staci Appel to the top tier of the “Red to Blue” program in March and elevated Pat Murphy (IA-01) and Jim Mowrer (IA-04) to that status shortly after the June 3 primary.

So far the DCCC does not appear concerned about four-term Representative Dave Loebsack’s race against Miller-Meeks, whom he defeated by a large margin in 2008 and a narrow margin in 2010. In contrast to the last election cycle, Loebsack has not been added to this year’s “Frontline” program for vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

Likewise, the NRCC has not put six-term incumbent Steve King in its “Patriot” program for vulnerable Republican House members, despite the fact that Mowrer has out-raised King for the last three fundraising quarters.

Not every candidate named to the “Young Guns” or “Red to Blue” program will receive the same level of financial assistance. I expect the DCCC and NRCC to spend more money in IA-03, generally considered the only “tossup” race in Iowa, than in the other three districts combined.

Any comments about this year’s Iowa Congressional races are welcome in this thread. After the jump I’ve posted the latest voter registration totals for all four districts. Those numbers explain in part why various forecasters have categorized the seats in IA-01 and IA-02 as leaning or likely Democratic, while Republicans are favored to hold IA-04.

Next week, federal candidates must file financial reports for the second quarter. I’ll be particularly interested to see how much Murphy, Young, and Miller-Meeks were able to raise between the June 3 primary and the end of the quarter. Although Young had to spend heavily and loan his own campaign $250,000 to get through the GOP primary, I expect his connections to Senator Chuck Grassley’s network and multitudes of career lobbyists and Congressional staffers will allow him to keep pace with Appel, who has raised a lot of money and didn’t have to spend much in her uncontested Democratic primary. I’m skeptical that Blum will be able to match Murphy in IA-01, even though Murphy wasn’t the strongest fundraiser in the Democratic field there. I also wonder whether we’ll see signs of King taking Mowrer’s challenge more seriously than he has up to now.  

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right not to provide contraception coverage in its health insurance package for employees. The Obama administration had already exempted some religious organizations and non-profits from the contraception mandate in the 2010 health care reform law. Today’s ruling allows a closely-held (that is, not publicly traded) for-profit corporation to claim religious rights that override the rights of their employees, not to mention the need to comply with federal law.

You can read the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision and dissents here (pdf). Justice Samuel Alito wrote the “opinion of the court,” joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy. Strangely, Kennedy wrote a separate concurring opinion “in an attempt to show how narrow the Court’s decision was.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer dissented. The majority ruling appears to apply only to contraception health care services, as opposed to other medical procedures to which some groups have religious objections (such as vaccinations or blood transfusions). Still, Ginsburg seems on track when she warns that the court “has ventured into a minefield” by “approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation.” Analyzing today’s decision, Lyle Denniston predicted more litigation will be needed to clarify the limits of the new religious exemption for closely-held companies.

For background on the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case (formerly Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius) and the implications of the ruling, check the Alliance for Justice and SCOTUSblog websites.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from various Iowa elected officials and candidates. So far Iowa Democrats have been quicker to respond to the Hobby Lobby ruling than Republicans. I will update this post as needed.

Now that Republicans have selected a nominee in the third Congressional district, it’s time to examine results from Bleeding Heartland’s primary election prediction contest. You can view all the entries in this comment thread.  

The National Republican Congressional Committee has elevated the GOP nominees in Iowa’s first and second Congressional districts to the second level of their “Young Guns” program supporting challengers. Rod Blum will face former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy in the open IA-01. Mariannette Miller-Meeks will face four-term Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack for the third time in IA-02. As official NRCC “contenders,” Blum and Miller-Meeks now have a chance to move up to the top level (“young guns”) if they meet certain targets for fundraising and campaign organization.

Only some of the “young guns” will receive major financial assistance from the NRCC. So far, the group has reserved tv time for independent expenditures in seventeen Democratic-held U.S. House districts, none in Iowa. During the last election cycle, the NRCC paid for a small amount of advertising against Loebsack and against Representative Bruce Braley in IA-01 but never made a big commitment to either race.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch announced today that Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon will be his running mate. In addition to following the Iowa tradition of female lieutenant governors, Vernon balances the ticket geographically and ideologically. An elected official in Iowa’s second-largest city for seven years, she has been campaigning around northeast Iowa since last summer as a Democratic candidate for Congress. She carried Linn County and finished a strong second to Pat Murphy district-wide on June 3.

Some Democrats are grumbling that Vernon is a longtime Republican who joined our party just five years ago. But frankly, Hatch isn’t running in a Democratic primary. He needs to appeal to a statewide electorate including thousands who have become disaffected from the GOP, just like Vernon did. Anyway, she is arguably more progressive than Governor Chet Culver’s running mate, lifelong Democrat Patty Judge. Despite the complaining, there shouldn’t be any major snags when the Iowa Democratic Party’s statewide convention officially nominates Vernon for lieutenant governor this Saturday.

After the jump I’ve posted background on Vernon and other recent news from the Hatch campaign, including his first television commercial for the general election and highlights from his weekend appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program.

Past time for a post-mortem on the five-way Democratic primary in the open first Congressional district. Here are the unofficial results from June 3:

A few thoughts struck me as I reflected on this campaign and looked more closely at the results.  

Earlier this year, I would have predicted high Republican turnout for Iowa’s June 3 primary elections. The five-way race for the U.S. Senate nomination was highly competitive, as was the six-way contest in the open third Congressional district. Multiple candidates contested GOP primaries in the first and second Congressional districts too. The 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses, which involved going out for an hour or more on a cold night in January, attracted a record turnout of roughly 122,000 people.

Yet according to unofficial results, just 158,031 Iowans cast ballots in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, and 156,275 cast ballots in the governor’s race, where Terry Branstad had a token challenger.

The 2010 midterm election saw much higher Republican turnout, with some 227,404 people voting for one of the three GOP gubernatorial candidates. There weren’t any high-profile statewide Republican primary contests in 2006, but in the 2002 midterm year, 199,234 Iowans cast ballots in the three-way GOP primary for governor, and 197,096 Iowans cast ballots in the two-way GOP primary for U.S. Senate.

In IA-03, five of the six Republican candidates raised enough money to run district-wide campaigns before this year’s primary. Yet only 42,948 Iowans voted in a Congressional district with 160,660 active Republican voters as of June 2014. The seven-way 2010 GOP primary in IA-03 attracted more than 46,000 votes in a district that included only one-fifth of the state’s population at the time and 118,850 active Republican voters. (Iowa lost one of its Congressional districts after the 2010 census).

A similar story took shape in IA-02, where about 30,500 people cast ballots in this year’s GOP primary, compared to nearly 40,000 who voted in the 2010 primary, at a time when the district covered one-fifth of the state’s population rather than one-fourth.

In this thread, please share your thoughts on why Republicans didn’t show up to vote in larger numbers this year. Julie Stauch, a veteran of many Democratic campaigns, speculated that the low turnout “is the cumulative result of every extreme and outrageous statement over the last four years. The current Republicans in Iowa are only talking to those who agree with them 100 percent, which creates a rapidly shrinking base as every outrageous statement drives away a few more people. We can see the effect of this from the loss of 40 percent of the 2010 participants. That’s a serious decline over any range of time, but very bad over four years.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included Pat Murphy (IA-01) and Jim Mowrer (IA-04) in the latest group of candidates promoted to the highest level of the “Red to Blue” program. (Staci Appel, the Democratic nominee in the open IA-03, was already promoted in the Red to Blue program earlier this year.) Mowrer is running in a tough district for any Democrat but raised more money than incumbent Steve King for the last three quarters. The DCCC had previously named IA-04 as an “emerging race.”

Murphy just won a five-way primary in the Democratic-leaning first district. His opponent will be Rod Blum. Technically, IA-01 isn’t a “Red to Blue” district because it’s not Republican-held now; it’s the open seat Bruce Braley is vacating in order to run for U.S. Senate.  

Red to Blue candidates are eligible for the highest level of support from the DCCC, although the committee won’t necessarily spend much money in every named district. Last week the DCCC reserved television air time in IA-03 and IA-04, though ad buys are subject to change. Details are after the jump.

To my knowledge, the DCCC hasn’t reserved any air time in IA-01 media markets. I doubt Murphy will need major independent expenditures to beat Blum. By the way, Murphy’s four rivals in the Democratic primary endorsed him in statements released by the Iowa Democratic Party today. I’ve enclosed that press release below as well.

Polls close at 9 pm, and I’ll be updating this post regularly with primary election results. Rumor has it that turnout was relatively low, even on the Republican side where there are hard-fought primaries for U.S. Senate and the third Congressional district. According to the Polk County Auditor’s office, as of this afternoon only 1,506 absentee ballots had been requested and 1,350 absentee ballots received for today’s GOP primary. Keep in mind that roughly half of all Republican voters in IA-03 live in Polk County, and six campaigns were competing for their votes. Not to mention that five U.S. Senate candidates should have been locking in early votes in Iowa’s largest county.

By comparison, 2,883 Democratic primary absentee ballots were requested in Polk County, and 2,296 of those returned by today. The lion’s share were from Iowa Senate district 17 in Des Moines, where three candidates are seeking to replace Jack Hatch (2,475 absentee ballots requested and 1,950 returned). Democratic campaigns have long pushed early voting more than Republicans, but still–that’s a shocking failure to GOTV by the various Republican campaigns.

Share any comments about any Iowa campaigns in this thread, as well as any interesting anecdotes from voting today.

UPDATE: Polls are now closed and updates will continue after the jump.

I forgot to put up this year’s primary election prediction contest earlier this week, but better late than never. To enter, post your answers to the twelve questions after the jump as a comment in this thread sometime before 7 am central time on Tuesday, June 3. It’s fine to change your mind about some or all of your answers, as long as you post a comment with your new predictions before the deadline.  

Only comments posted in this thread will be valid contest entries. Predictions submitted by e-mail or twitter will not be considered. Please try to answer every question, even if it’s just a wild guess. We’re all guessing anyway, since few polls have been published about these races.

The winner receives no cash or other prizes–just bragging rights in the Bleeding Heartland community. Can someone stop ModerateIADem from “three-peating”? He won both the 2010 and the 2012 primary election prediction contests.  

Loras College has released its latest polls of the Democratic and Republican primaries in the first Congressional district. On the Democratic side, not much has changed the first Loras poll in April: State Representative Pat Murphy has a big lead and is close to the 35 percent he would need to win the primary outright on June 3. The latest poll memo is here, and full results are here (pdf). Among 300 likely Democratic primary voters surveyed on May 14 and 15, 34.7 percent plan to support Murphy, with 28.7 percent undecided. The next three candidates are still bunched close together: Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon and former State Senator Swati Dandekar both have 11.3 percent support, State Representative Anesa Kajtazovic has 9.3 percent, and Cedar Rapids attorney Dave O’Brien has 3.3 percent. Some may argue that Loras doesn’t have a track record of Iowa polling. But it’s notable that first-quarter financial reports indicated that all of the Democratic candidates had paid for survey research, yet only Murphy’s campaign has released partial results from internal polling.

All five Democrats are running paid advertising and direct mail in the final weeks before the primary. Bleeding Heartland will survey the main messages from each candidate in a future post. The other candidates need to hope that no candidate wins 35 percent on primary day, though even in that scenario, I think the nomination would go to Murphy.

The latest Loras Republican poll in IA-01 shows a big shift toward Rod Blum since last month’s survey. Among the 300 Republican respondents surveyed on May 15, 48.7 percent are undecided, but Blum is knocking on the door with 31.4 percent support. Steve Rathje is far back at 15.6 percent, and Gail Boliver barely registers at 2.4 percent. For months, I haven’t doubted Blum’s ability to win the GOP nomination. He is the only candidate in  a position to run a strong district-wide effort, and the National Republican Congressional Committee recognizes that fact.

Any comments about the IA-01 race are welcome in this thread. Most election forecasters, with one exception, see this open seat leaning Democratic. The latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office indicate that the 20 counties in the Congressional district contain 158,580 active registered Democrats, 133,229 Republicans, and 192,921 no-party voters.

If Blum and Murphy win their respective party’s nominations, the Dubuque area would be sending its first resident to Congress since Republican Tom Tauke (coincidentally a Loras College graduate) represented the area from 1979 through 1990.

With less than two weeks remaining before June 3, interest groups with a preference in competitive primaries have presumably made their views known by now. On the Democratic side, labor unions are most likely to get involved in primaries, so I wanted to compile in one place the full list of candidates in competitive Democratic races who have been endorsed by one or more organized labor group. None of the Democrats seeking statewide office in Iowa this year has a primary opponent, and I’ve omitted county-level races. The list below includes candidates running for Congress in the first district and seeking various Iowa House and Senate seats.

I will update this post as needed if I learn of other labor union endorsements. Note that many other Democratic candidates already have or will have organized labor’s official support for the general election campaign. Blog for Iowa posted all of the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO’s endorsements for 2014 here. A complete list of candidates who will appear on primary ballots is on this page of the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

Iowa Republicans are shouting from the social media rooftops about the Washington Post’s new “Election Lab” forecast, which predicts Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat. You can read about the Election Lab methodology here; it includes metrics such as U.S. Senate election results from 1980 to 2012 and President Barack Obama’s share of the vote in a given state in 2012. The Election Lab gurus are not factoring opinion polls into their model yet but plan to do so later. Candidate quality does not seem to be reflected in their model, although weak Republican nominees clearly blew several winnable Senate elections in 2010 and 2012. I’m sure the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Bruce Braley would rather run against some of the Republicans candidates than others.

Over at the New York Times blog The Upshot, Nate Cohn, Josh Katz, and Amanda Cox compared Senate forecasts from six prominent websites or political analysts. Iowa was one of the few states where the Election Lab forecast was markedly different from the rest of the group. For now, the New York Times model gives Democrats an 83 percent chance of holding Iowa’s Senate seat. Nate Silver’s website 538.com has put those odds at 75 percent. The Cook Political Report, Rothenberg Political Report, and Larry Sabato’s website all list IA-Sen as a “lean Democratic” race.

Granted, several of those projections came before Republicans made hay from Braley’s comments about Senator Chuck Grassley, but a couple of public polls since then have suggested the Iowa Senate race will be very tight. I wouldn’t give either party a clear advantage right now, certainly not a 65 percent advantage. (For what it’s worth, Silver hedged his bets on whether Braley’s gaffe will be a “game-changer.”)

Incidentally, the Election Lab’s forecast for Iowa’s U.S. House races was even more strange. The Washington Post’s analysts give Republicans a 60 percent chance of winning the open first district. I will eat my hat if likely nominee Rod Blum pulls that off. The Iowa Democratic Party and Braley’s campaign will be pushing GOTV extremely hard in the key IA-01 counties. I believe any of the five Democrats running for that seat could beat Blum. Election Lab sees Republicans with an 80 percent chance of winning the open third district. To my mind, some of the GOP candidates in IA-03 would be much tougher opponents for Staci Appel than others. Election Lab gives four-term Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack a 90 percent chance of winning IA-02 and six-term Republican incumbent Steve King a 99.8 percent chance of winning IA-04.

Republican Party of Iowa State Central Committee member David Chung wrote a must-read post at his Hawkeye GOP blog about Saturday’s dispute over marriage language in the first district Iowa GOP platform. Excerpt:

In the platform committee multiple attempts to add a pro-marriage plank failed. [Liberty faction State Central Committee member] Tony [Krebsbach] only proposed the government-out-of-marriage plank because he did not want the platform to be silent on the issue. In the committee, Tony wanted a pro-marriage plank included. So in the committee (and on the convention floor) he wanted a pro-marriage plank to appear in the platform as it has for several years. As a compromise, he proposed the current plank taking the more libertarian position.

The floor votes happened because somehow the “government-out-of-marriage plank did not make it into the printed version of the proposed platform that was distributed to delegates.” Three times IA-01 delegates rejected amendments that would have restored language opposing same-sex marriage rights. Eventually the wording about keeping the government out of marriage was added to the platform.

Delegates to the statewide GOP convention are not ready for a real debate on marriage equality yet, but it will happen by 2018 or 2020 at the latest. Chung is committed to making sure the statewide party platform includes a “one man, one woman marriage” plank, even though he recognizes that “traditional marriage is probably a losing issue today” and “is one of the biggest issues that keeps young people out of the Republican Party.” At some point a critical mass of party activists will get tired of fighting this battle.

Meanwhile, the governor’s office is trying to straddle the fence.

“The governor and lieutenant governor believe in traditional one-man and one-woman marriage,” spokesman Jimmy Centers told the Register. “(They) do not try to influence or counsel delegates on what planks they should or should not offer and support.”

So they agree with social conservative activists on “traditional marriage,” but they don’t care whether the Republican platform reflects that position? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. But then, they’ve never been coherent on this issue. In 2010, Branstad’s campaign spokesman had to backpedal fast after the candidate indicated he had no problem with gay couples adopting children. Soon after Reynolds joined the ticket, she got in trouble for comments indicating support for civil unions.

UPDATE: Added more Republican reaction below.

Loras College in Dubuque released its first-ever set of polls on Iowa Congressional primaries this week. Click here for the polling memo and here (pdf) for further details, including the full questionnaires.

After the jump I’ve posted my thoughts on what these polls tell us about the front-runners (or lack thereof) in each primary. Unfortunately, a big methodological flaw makes it more difficult to interpret the results.

Since the last quarterly fundraising reports came in, the Republican primary race in Iowa’s open first Congressional district has settled into a predictable win for Rod Blum. The Democratic primary is still highly competitive, though, with all five candidates in a position to run a district-wide race before June 3.  

I’ve lived in Cedar Rapids since high school (I attended the same high school at the same time of Monica’s daughters). Anyone who knows Cedar Rapids is fully aware that there are parts of town that have been depressed for many years. We know the neighborhoods on the southeast side of town that have been plagued with high crime rates and poverty. The folks in these neighborhoods who are working hard jobs for low wages are in the throes of an epic and unfortunate struggle.

I recently saw an ad released by Monica Vernon’s campaign that began with the narrator claiming Monica Vernon “understands the struggle.”  From what I know about Monica, she comes from a wealthy home, was the previous owner of a successful business, is married to a well-to-do attorney, and lives a stone’s throw from the country club.

My question to Monica Vernon is simple: what exactly do you know about the struggle? I came from extraordinarily humble beginnings, where you’d be hard pressed to find anyone with a country club membership let alone a home right next to one. I’d like to know where Monica Vernon’s struggle experience originated.

Monica’s ad is everything that is wrong with politics because it is willfully dishonest and leads people to believe that she has experience with real struggles, and had to work doubly hard just to get by, and raise her daughters largely on her own. This is the sort of thing that cheapens our politics and Iowans deserve better.

In my opinion, Monica’s largest struggle will come after she loses this Primary and must decide whether or not to remain in the Democratic Party, or revert back to the Republican Party, where she undoubtedly is more comfortable. 

Here’s your weekend open thread: all topics welcome.

I’d like to hear views from the Bleeding Heartland community on a question that’s been on my mind lately, as the “Liberty” movement ceases to be the dominant force in the Republican Party of Iowa. Why haven’t more people from the large contingent of Ron Paul/Rand Paul admirers stepped up to run in this year’s Iowa Republican primaries?

Despite plenty of speculation, no one associated with Ron Paul’s presidential campaign went for Iowa’s first open U.S. Senate seat in 40 years. Why not? This opportunity won’t come around again soon, not with Senator Chuck Grassley already planning to seek a seventh term in 2016. Did fundraising concerns or some other factor keep Drew Ivers, David Fischer, or others from believing they could run a strong Senate campaign?

In Iowa’s open third Congressional district, none of the six Republican candidates publicly endorsed Ron Paul for president, as far as I know. Nor did any of the three Republicans running against Representative Dave Loebsack in IA-02.

Iowa’s most prominent “Liberty” candidate is Rod Blum in the open first Congressional district. There are a few Paulinistas running in GOP primaries for the Iowa House and Senate, but not as many as I would have expected, given the Liberty movement’s takeover of the Iowa GOP apparatus in 2012.

Politics ain’t beanbag. As a talk radio host with a sizable conservative audience in northwest Iowa, Sam Clovis must have been a valuable ally for former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum during the 2012 Iowa caucus campaign. Clovis has explicitly modeled his U.S. Senate campaign on Santorum’s grassroots effort. But speaking to Iowa reporters yesterday, Santorum indicated that for now, he is staying out of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate.

“I have a very, very good friend who’s in the race – Sam Clovis who’s a terrific guy, is a good friend and someone who was a great support of mine, you know, Sam’s a #1, top-flight kind of guy,” Santorum says. “Right now I have sort of not gotten engaged in that race. I may.”

But Santorum said he is being selective about his endorsements because, he said, “the more you do, the less effective you are.”

You mean, less effective like endorsing State Representative Walt Rogers for Congress, only to see Rogers bail out of the IA-01 primary?

Santorum was in town yesterday to raise money for Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s Congressional campaign in IA-03. I wasn’t surprised when Santorum backed Schultz, but arguably, Clovis did a lot more to promote Santorum’s presidential aspirations than Schultz with his 11th hour endorsement. For sure Clovis was more influential than Rogers during the Iowa caucus campaign.

Unfortunately for Clovis, money talks, and he hasn’t raised enough of it to run an effective statewide Senate campaign. How tough to be blown off by Santorum, though. As a consolation prize, Clovis got the endorsement of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum yesterday. I wonder how many rank and file Iowa Republicans remember Schlafly, a conservative icon of the 1970s and 1980s.

UPDATE: David Bossie’s group Citizens United just endorsed Clovis as “the only full-spectrum conservative” in the IA-Sen race.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced its latest batch of candidates for the “Young Guns” program today. Dubuque-based business owner Rod Blum, one of three GOP candidates in Iowa’s open first Congressional district, is among 50 Republicans on the bottom rung, called “on the radar.” Candidates who meet certain benchmarks for fundraising and campaign organization have a chance to move up to “contender” status and perhaps eventually to “young gun” level, which entails more direct support from the NRCC.

During the 2012 primary in IA-01, the NRCC favored establishment candidate Ben Lange over Blum. At this point, Blum is the obvious favorite to win the GOP nomination, with State Representative Walt Rogers out of the race and the other contenders way behind Blum financially.

Last year, the NRCC put IA-02 on its long list of targets and indicated that it was ready to defend Tom Latham in IA-03. None of the three registered GOP candidates in IA-02 or the six registered candidates in the open IA-03 are on the NRCC’s radar yet. Depending on fundraising, the winner of the IA-03 primary has a strong chance to become a “contender” or a “young gun” by this fall. The NRCC will almost surely spend money to defend that seat. I am skeptical that IA-02 will become a serious target for Republicans, though.

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

Most gun-related bills failed to make it through in the Iowa legislature’s first “funnel” last week. The list of proposals that are dead for this year included efforts to restrict access to firearms (such as Senate File 2179 to close the gun show loophole) and several bills aimed at making guns more available: House File 384 to authorize possession of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns; House File 169/Senate File 251 to allow Iowans with permits to carry concealed weapons on school grounds; House File 172 to allow school employees to carry guns in school; and House File 2012 to allow children as young as 12 to possess handguns.

The trouble is, many incumbents don’t want to face the gun lobby’s wrath in an election year. Many lawmakers want to have something to brag about when pro-gun activists compile scorecards and endorsement lists. Such concerns prompted Iowa House and Senate leaders to revive and eventually pass a 2010 bill to make it easier for Iowans to carry concealed weapons.

I believe the same dynamic prompted Iowa House members to vote overwhelmingly yesterday to legalize firearm suppressors, better known as “silencers” popular for many decades among snipers and assassins.