Six months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged that flawed testimony about hair analysis may have caused innocent people to be convicted of crimes, the State Public Defender’s office has created a new Wrongful Conviction Division “to determine whether similar errors have occurred in Iowa cases” and to “pursue available legal remedies.” I enclose below the press release announcing the new office, which will collaborate with Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Innocence Project of Iowa, and the Midwest Innocence Project. People seeking to have their cases reviewed can submit this 12-page intake questionnaire (pdf).

State Public Defender Adam Gregg deserves credit for making this happen less than a year after Governor Terry Branstad appointed him to the job. (A former legislative liaison for Branstad, Gregg ran unsuccessfully for Iowa attorney general in 2014.) The press release indicates that Gregg repurposed a vacant position in his office using existing appropriations. Taking that route allowed him to move more quickly than if he had lobbied state lawmakers for funding to create a Wrongful Conviction Division. Gregg also hired a serious person to run the new division in Audrey McGinn, who spent four years as a staff attorney for the California Innocence Project. Scroll to the end of this post for more background on McGinn’s work.

Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson reported from the October 26 press conference,

“What’s an acceptable error rate for our criminal justice system?” State Public Defender Adam Gregg asked this morning. “Even if we get it right 99 percent of the time and only get it wrong one percent of the time, that would mean there are over 80 innocent people currently incarcerated in Iowa prisons. And at what cost? To the state, it’s about $34,000 per year per inmate. But what about to their families, to their lives and to their sanity? And at what cost to public safety?”

Gregg said when the wrong person is convicted, that means the real criminal isn’t held accountable. The first batch of cases to be reviewed by this new division date back to the 1980s and early ’90s.

Criminal defense attorney Nick Sarcone commented to Bleeding Heartland, “I think this is an important step towards ensuring the integrity of our justice system. However, we need to spend more time, energy and money fixing the substantial issues which plague our system at the trial court level. We need to ensure this new unit is not investigating cases from 2015 in 2030.”

UPDATE: Added below criminal defense attorney Joseph Glazebrook’s reaction to this news.

Governor Terry Branstad has often appointed unsuccessful Republican candidates to state positions, and this week he named Adam Gregg, the GOP nominee for Iowa attorney general, to be Iowa State Public Defender. I’ve enclosed the press release after the jump. It contains background on Gregg, who worked as a staffer in the governor’s office before running against longtime Democratic incumbent Tom Miller. I don’t anticipate Gregg having any trouble being confirmed by the Iowa Senate.

The Des Moines rumor mill says Miller will retire at the end of his ninth term as attorney general. An race for that position would likely attract many candidates in both parties. I expect Gregg to seek the office in 2018, along with Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley, who was the GOP challenger to Miller in 2010. Several Republicans in the Iowa House or Senate might give this race a look, especially if there are no open Congressional seats on the horizon.

For those wondering whether Gregg or Findley performed better against Miller, the answer depends on how you look at it. Both of the challengers raised quite a bit of money for first-time candidates seeking a statewide office. Gregg raised $191,359 in his first month and a half as a candidate, then nearly another $200,000 before the election; see here and here. Findley also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her 2010 race; see here, here, and here.

Both Gregg and Findley campaigned energetically around the state, visiting all 99 counties and attending hundreds of public events. In 2010, when total turnout was 1,133,429 for the midterm election, Miller received 607,779 votes to 486,057 for Findley (there were a smattering of write-ins and 38,605 “under votes,” meaning voters left that part of the ballot blank).

This year total turnout was a bit higher at 1,142,226, and Miller received 616,711 votes to 481,046 for Gregg (there were more write-ins and 43,016 under votes).

So Findley received a slightly higher share of the two-party vote, but she also had way more help. Branstad talked up her campaign all year and appeared in one of her television commercials. She was able to run far more radio and tv ads statewide, thanks to more than half a million dollars in transfers from the Republican Party of Iowa. Gregg didn’t get anything like that kind of assistance or exposure, so arguably he got more bang for his campaign bucks.

I’m intrigued that an ambitious young conservative politician wanted to serve as the state public defender. It’s an important job, and I hope Gregg does it well. Some of my favorite people have worked as public defenders. But there’s no getting around the fact that his office will be defending some unsavory characters. The job is risky in that next time Gregg is a candidate for public office, rivals could run “Willie Horton” ads against him highlighting onetime clients who committed horrible crimes.

Polls across Iowa close in just a few minutes, and I’ll be updating this post with results throughout the evening. Any comments about any of today’s races, in Iowa or elsewhere, are welcome in this thread.

Many races on the east coast and in the Midwest have already been called. As expected, Republicans picked up the U.S. Senate seats in West Virginia, Arkansas, and South Dakota. Louisiana will go to a runoff in December. Jeanne Shaheen held the New Hampshire Senate seat for Democrats, but Kay Hagan may be in trouble in North Carolina, and in a potentially stunning upset, Mark Warner is behind in Virginia. He needs a strong turnout in the DC suburbs.

As state-level results come in, these are the key Iowa Senate races to watch, and these are the key Iowa House races to watch. For the last four years, Democrats have held a 26-24 Iowa Senate majority. For the last two years, Republicans have held a 53-47 Iowa House majority.

UPDATE: Polls are closed and further updates will be after the jump. News organizations called the governor’s race for Terry Branstad immediately.  

Happy election day to the Bleeding Heartland community. The weather forecast looks good for most parts of Iowa. Polls are open everywhere from 7 am to 9 pm. It’s too late to mail absentee ballots, but you can still hand-deliver completed absentee ballots to your county auditor’s office, or “surrender” you ballot at your regular polling place, then vote with an ordinary ballot.

Three new polls of the U.S. Senate race came out on Monday. Quinnipiac found Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst tied at 47 percent. (That pollster’s previous Iowa survey had Ernst leading by 49 percent to 45 percent.) Fox News found Ernst ahead by 45 percent to 44 percent. Public Policy Polling found Ernst ahead by 48 percent to 45 percent.

All three polls confirmed my belief that the Des Moines Register’s Iowa poll by Selzer & Co was an outlier. No other survey has found Ernst above 50 percent or ahead by such a large margin. If she does win the IA-Sen race by 7 points, I will declare Ann Selzer a polling genius.

Incidentally, the new polls also found Governor Terry Branstad ahead of Democratic challenger Jack Hatch by a smaller margin than in the Register’s final Iowa poll. Quinnipiac found Branstad ahead by 52 percent to 41 percent. That was similar to Public Policy Polling’s finding of Branstad at 54 percent and Hatch at 43 percent. Fox News found a bigger lead for the governor: 53 percent to 36 percent.

PPP has been the only firm to consistently poll down-ballot statewide races in Iowa this year. Its final poll found Democrat Brad Anderson ahead in the secretary of state race, with 44 percent support to 38 percent to Paul Pate and 3 percent each for Jake Porter and Spencer Highland. (Porter, a Libertarian, received about 3 percent of the statewide vote in the 2010 secretary of state race.)

PPP found State Auditor Mary Mosiman leading her Democratic challenger by 46 percent to 41 percent. State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald is ahead of his Republican challenger Sam Clovis by 48 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Keith Laube pulling 5 percent. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has a comfortable 51 percent to 33 percent lead over Democrat Sherrie Taha, with a minor-party candidate pulling 5 percent. Finally, Attorney General Tom Miller leads Republican Adam Gregg by 55 percent to 36 percent.

While canvassing in Windsor Heights and Clive on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I didn’t see any Republicans knocking on doors, nor did I see Republican campaign literature on doorknobs or front porches. Another Democratic canvasser in a different part of the state had a similar experience. I would like to hear from Bleeding Heartland readers about what you’ve seen of the Republican “ground game” during the final days. As far as I can tell, the GOP has relied mainly on robocalls and perhaps live-caller phone-banking. Republicans paid for many robocalls in the final days.

Speaking of robocalls, many Democratic households in the third Congressional district (including mine) received a call Monday evening recorded by Senator Chuck Grassley, making the case for David Young.

Any comments related to today’s election are welcome in this thread.

P.S. – A testy exchange with a reporter about how President Barack Obama has handled the ebola outbreak underscored why Joni Ernst’s handlers didn’t want her sitting down with most Iowa newspaper editorial boards.

The Des Moines Register dropped a hammer on Iowa Democrats this evening with the latest statewide poll by Selzer & Co. The Register’s new poll finds Joni Ernst ahead of Bruce Braley by 51 percent to 44 percent, leading Braley in all four Congressional districts, and winning independent voters by 12 points. The poll looks like an outlier to me, compared to most other surveys that were in the field these past two weeks. No other poll has found Ernst above 50 percent this fall, and no non-partisan poll has found her leading Braley by more than four points. Of the ten other polls in the field during the last two weeks, two found Braley ahead by one point, two found the race tied, two found Ernst ahead by one point, and four found her ahead by margins between two and four points.

On November 5, either Ann Selzer will look like a genius, or a bunch of other pollsters (whose surveys found a close race here) will laugh.

The problem for Democrats is that the Register’s Iowa poll always generates more media coverage than any other poll. Even if this poll turns out to be an outlier, it could depress volunteers during the final days. A good GOTV program can overcome a one-point deficit but not seven points.

The Register’s latest poll found Governor Terry Branstad ahead of Democratic challenger Jack Hatch by 59 percent to 35 percent, one of the biggest leads any poll has found for Branstad. Selzer only polled on two other statewide races. Democratic Attorney General leads challenger Adam Gregg by 50 percent to 39 percent. The secretary of state race looks too close to call, with Republican Paul Pate ahead of Democrat Brad Anderson by 44 percent to 41 percent.

P.S. – There’s still plenty of time to enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest.

UPDATE: Below I’ve added excerpts from the Register’s analysis of the Selzer poll, along with the Braley campaign’s reaction, calling the Register poll an “outlier.”

SECOND UPDATE: Added more commentary on Senate polling below.

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.  

No Republican stepped up to run against Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller in time to appear on the primary election ballot, but yesterday Adam Gregg announced that he will seek the GOP nomination for attorney general at the state party convention later this month. Gregg worked in private practice for the Des Moines-based Brown Winick law firm before joining Governor Terry Branstad’s staff as a legislative liaison in 2012. (He’s quitting that job to run for office.) His press release touted his work to help pass “the largest tax cut in Iowa’s history, historic education reform, and a state based, Iowa alternative to Obamacare.” The tax cut refers to the property tax reform approved during the 2013 legislative session. The Iowa Health and Wellness Plan is more accurately described as an alternative to Medicaid expansion rather than an alternative to “Obamacare.” Iowa is still implementing the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Gregg promised “to fight everyday for Iowa families, Iowa farmers, and our constitutional freedoms,” to “be an advocate for open government,” and to “hold Washington, DC accountable when the federal government oversteps its bounds.” Around the country, many Republican state attorneys general have used the job to grandstand against federal policies they don’t like for ideological reasons. Sounds like Gregg will be emulating that model.

I don’t give him much chance of beating Tom Miller. Four years ago, Brenna Findley got in the race early and ran a strong and well-financed campaign, only to come up well short amid a huge Republican landslide. Running a statewide campaign will raise Gregg’s profile, though, and possibly open doors to future political jobs. The Des Moines rumor mill expects Miller to retire rather than seek another term in 2018. In that case, Gregg could join Findley as prominent candidates in a much more winnable race.