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.

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.

Marty Ryan previously published a version of this essay in the November 2024 issue of the Prairie Progressive.

Campaign strategist Jim Carville coined the phrase “[It’s] the economy, stupid” back in 1992 when he worked on Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. That phrase “was directed at the campaign’s workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on.”

Evidently, the intent, if not the quote, has come back to the 2024 campaign. U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been insisting in one of her campaign’s television commercials that “we gotta bring these prices down.” Good luck!

As misinformation about the federal response to natural disasters hampers relief efforts in the southeast U.S., several Iowa Republicans have seized the opportunity to spread lies about the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Echoing “pants on fire” claims from former President Donald Trump, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Ashley Hinson (IA-02) have repeatedly asserted that FEMA lacks the resources needed to help those harmed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, because it has spent too much supporting undocumented immigrants. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst have likewise claimed Americans are being shortchanged due to FEMA’s allegedly excessive spending on migrants.

Those lies are part of a national effort by Trump supporters and the leading pro-Republican cable news network to assist Trump’s campaign. For Iowa Republicans as well, the false talking points direct voters’ attention toward immigration and border security, topics perceived to boost GOP candidates up and down the ballot.

Nunn, Miller-Meeks, and Hinson all invested in election-year messaging about immigration long before the hurricanes made landfall.

We often hear that Iowans like to re-elect their incumbents. But when it comes to members of the U.S. House, Iowa’s office-holders have less job security than many of their peers.

Across the country, voters have re-elected more than 90 percent of U.S. House incumbents in most elections over the past five decades. Here in Iowa, where our four districts are not gerrymandered, challengers defeated two sitting members of Congress in 2018, two in 2020 (one in the primary, one in the general election), and one in 2022.

Incumbents still enjoy inherent advantages in a Congressional campaign: higher name recognition, larger contributions from political action committees, more opportunities to generate news coverage, and an official budget that can fund outreach to constituents. But not all House members use the available tools the same way.

This post, the first in a series, will explore how Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has used her office to boost her re-election chances in Iowa’s first Congressional district.

Notably, Miller-Meeks has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on messages to constituents, with much of the spending going through her top campaign vendor. She has also built up goodwill by being one of the chamber’s most frequent floor speakers, and has used the earmark process to help fund projects in her district.

Every Iowa Democratic candidate had reason to celebrate the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, showing former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by just 4 points (47 percent to 43 percent). But arguably none had more grounds for optimism than Lanon Baccam, the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

According to calculations by the Daily Kos Elections team (now publishing as The Downballot), Trump outpolled Joe Biden across the IA-03 counties by 49.3 percent to 48.9 percent in 2020, while winning the state by an 8-point margin. So if Harris trails by only 4 points statewide now, she likely leads Trump in the third district.

Assuming the Selzer poll is off by the margin of error (plus or minus 3.8 percentage points), and Trump has an 8-point lead statewide, the major-party presidential nominees may be roughly tied in the IA-03 counties.

In other words, Baccam won’t have to overcome strong headwinds at the top of the ticket in order to beat first-term Republican Representative Zach Nunn, who carried this district by 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent in 2022.

I’ve been thinking about what else needs to happen for the challenger to win in November.

National Democratic groups are investing significant funds in Iowa’s first Congressional district race, suggesting they believe Christina Bohannan has a solid chance to defeat two-term Republican incumbent Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

The House Majority PAC, a super-PAC connected to House Democratic leadership, has reserved another $2.3 million in television advertising time for the IA-01 race, Ally Mutnick reported for Politico on September 9. Those funds will be divided among the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Quad Cities markets, which collectively reach seventeen of the district’s 20 counties.* Mutnick noted the super-PAC “reserved just $350,000 in that district in July.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which also spends heavily to influence U.S. House races, has already reserved $1,551,000 in tv air time in Des Moines, $534,000 in Cedar Rapids, and $438,000 in Davenport. Much of the DCCC’s Des Moines market buy will be directed toward the third Congressional district, where Democrat Lanon Baccam is challenging first-term Republican incumbent Zach Nunn.

The planned spending is a huge contrast to the 2022 cycle, when Democratic-aligned groups spent less than $100,000 on the IA-01 race, while GOP-aligned groups spent more than $2.7 million on messaging that supported Miller-Meeks or opposed Bohannan. Ad reservations on this scale indicate that internal Democratic polling shows Miller-Meeks is vulnerable.

UPDATE: Unofficial results show Brown won this primary by 2,546 votes to 2,273 (52.8 percent to 47.1 percent). Original post follows.

Two Iowa state senators and six state representatives face competition for their party’s nomination in the June 4 primary. The most intriguing match-up is unfolding in Senate district 30.

Two-term Republican State Senator Waylon Brown has a huge financial advantage and the backing of powerful interest groups. His opponent Doug Campbell, a retired pharmacist and former Mason City school board member, is running a low-budget campaign powered by grassroots outrage over a proposed CO2 pipeline.

The outcome should signal whether the controversy over property rights in rural Iowa is salient enough in GOP circles to overcome the advantages of incumbency. If Campbell prevails, Senate Republicans may feel pressure to consider eminent domain legislation in 2025, after blocking all such bills in the Commerce Committee for the last several years.

It’s a textbook example of spending to influence an election.

A brand-new organization, “Citizens For Des Moines,” was registered with the Iowa Secretary of State on October 20. Its president, Doug Gross, is a prominent Republican attorney and major donor to city council member Connie Boesen’s mayoral campaign. The group paid to print and send at least two mass mailings attacking Boesen’s main rival in the mayoral race, which reached numerous Des Moines voters less than a week before the November 7 election.

Iowa law requires disclosure of independent expenditures that support or oppose a candidate for office, and requires political action committees to periodically report on their fundraising and spending. But Citizens For Des Moines exploited gaps in the law, so voters will be unable to find out who donated to the group or how much was spent on mail targeting city council member Josh Mandelbaum.

Iowa Republicans have seen more advertising against former President Donald Trump this year than GOP voters anywhere else in the country.

The Win It Back PAC, a super-PAC with “close ties” to the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, spent more than $4 million over the summer to run six different television commercials in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City markets. The Republican Accountability PAC kicked in $1.5 million on its own series of tv ads in Iowa. AFP Action, an arm of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity network, has sent numerous mailings with anti-Trump messages to Iowa households and paid for dozens of Facebook ads seeking to convince Iowans the former president is unelectable. New groups have popped up to fund direct mail in Iowa attacking Trump on issues ranging from LGBTQ rights to COVID-19 policies to crime.

Nevertheless, Trump is as well positioned for the 2024 caucuses as ever, according to the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, NBC News, and Mediacom. Among those likely to attend the GOP caucuses in January, 43 percent support Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley are tied for second place at 16 percent. No other candidate was in double digits.

Selzer’s findings are consistent with other recent polls of Iowa Republican caucus-goers, showing Trump ahead of DeSantis by at least 20 points and in most cases by more than 30 points.

One could argue the barrage of anti-Trump messages dented the front-runner’s appeal. His numbers in Iowa are lower than his support nationally, where he’s been hovering at or above 55 percent lately in presidential GOP primary polls.

But any early success from the television, direct mail, and digital ad blitz seems to have dissipated. Selzer’s polling suggests Trump’s level of support held steady among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers: 42 percent in August, 43 percent in October. His lead over the second-place candidate grew from 23 points in August to 27 points this month. Trump’s supporters are also more enthusiastic and “locked in” than those leaning toward other presidential candidates.

The latest Iowa Poll validates the conclusions of research Win It Back PAC conducted this summer: most ads seeking to drive Republicans away from Trump either have no effect or increase his support among the target audience.

John Morrissey is a freelance writer in Des Moines.

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed this summer that the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie College of Business has signed on as a sponsor of the 6 pm newscasts on KCCI-TV 8 and WHO-TV 13. Those viewers may also be mystified about why the ads are running

The business school has placed 15-second sponsorship ads during the Des Moines television newscasts along with radio, print, billboard, and digital ads in order to reintroduce the Tippie College of Business to central Iowans, College Dean Amy Kristof-Brown told Bleeding Heartland.

A new group has sent a second mass mailing to Iowa households, purporting to praise former President Donald Trump as an advocate for LGBTQ rights. The latest mailer from Advancing Our Values, incorporated in late June, describes Trump as a “Trailblazer for Trans Rights!” and opponent of “bathroom bills,” which prohibit transgender people from using facilities that align with their gender identity.

Advancing Our Values sent its first mailer to Iowans earlier this month, highlighting Trump’s supposed backing for marriage equality and trans rights.

An Iowa reader provided the following images to Bleeding Heartland on July 15:

July seems early for Iowa caucus dirty tricks, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

As most polls show former President Donald Trump with a comfortable lead among Republicans in Iowa and nationwide, a mailing sent to some Iowa households this weekend purports to thank Trump “for standing up for LGBTQ+ rights!”

An Iowa reader provided the following images.

Editor’s note: This post has been corrected to note that Priorities for Iowa, Inc., a group that does not disclose its donors, was responsible for the television ad buy.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years. He is also the co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational non-profit promoting systems-based thinking and grassroots organizing in education. This essay first appeared on Medium.

On January 9, Priorities for Iowa, Inc., a 501(c)4 organization in Des Moines, announced a six-figure ad buy in support of Governor Kim Reynolds’ school voucher program. The super-PAC Priorities for Iowa Political Fund is registered at the same address.

Priorities for Iowa claims to have the interests of Iowa parents at heart, but a brief look at the super-PAC’s donor disclosures tells us otherwise.

Governor Kim Reynolds, the state legislature, and Iowa Supreme Court rulings inspired the majority of Bleeding Heartland’s most-read posts from this year.

This list draws from Google Analytics data about total views for 570 posts published from January 1 through December 29. I wrote 212 of those articles and commentaries; other authors wrote 358. I left out the site’s front page and the “about” page, where many people landed following online searches.

In general, Bleeding Heartland’s traffic was higher this year than in 2021, though not quite as high as during the pandemic-fueled surge of 2020. So about three dozen posts that would have ranked among last year’s most-viewed didn’t make the cut for this post. Some honorable mentions from that group:

Editor’s note: This analysis has been updated with unofficial results from all the races. Original post follows.

The major parties have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the most competitive 2022 Iowa House and Senate races.

This post highlights seven state Senate districts where one or both parties have spent large sums, and another seven where even without a big investment by Democrats or Republicans, the results could shed light on political trends.

All voter registration totals listed below come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, as reported on November 1. All absentee ballot figures come from the Secretary of State’s office, as reported on November 7. All past election results come from the map Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App.

All figures for in-kind spending by the Iowa Democratic Party or Republican Party of Iowa come from filings with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. I focus on in-kind spending, because candidates in battleground Iowa legislative races typically give most of their funds to the state party. The party then covers the bulk of the large expenditures for direct mail and/or television, radio, and digital advertising.

“Here in this field of dreams that we call home, anything is possible,” Governor Kim Reynolds declares near the end of her last television commercial before the November election.

Although the ad is superficially upbeat, its script and carefully chosen images convey an exclusionary message. To Reynolds, the place “we call home” is for people like herself: straight, white Christians from rural areas.

It’s another divisive move for a candidate who already spent heavily to bring racist tropes to Iowans’ tv screens.

Bruce Lear: Voters must stop reacting to red meat appeals and start voting like compromise isn’t a dirty word.

A few times during my career, a problem-solving meeting morphed into a scene from the Walking Dead. 

Adrenaline surged and the sides shifted into attack mode. Anger trumped reason. Both sides worked to score a knockout. By the end, no one remembered why we met. Everyone was hungover from anger and worn out from attacks. Nothing was solved.

What happened in those meetings reminds me of what our elections have become. Based on recent polling, it’s not a surprise. 

According to a recent NBC News nationwide poll, 80 percent of Democrats and Republicans “believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.”

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.

“It could be worse.”

At the start of 2022, friends may have uttered those four words to console or comfort us.

As the midterm elections approach, those four words may be prophetic.

Every election in a democracy —from township to presidency — is threatened by voters who are ill-informed, misinformed, and/or uninformed.

When Governor Kim Reynolds made news in May by pleading with supporters to help her get her “own” attorney general and a state auditor who wouldn’t scrutinize her actions, Republican Party of Iowa state chair Jeff Kaufmann defended the appeal. In a written statement, Kaufmann said the governor “should be promoting Republican candidates up and down the ticket,” because “Iowans know how worthless our current state auditor, state treasurer and attorney general have been.”

But since Mary Ann Hanusa (the insiders’ pick for state auditor) unexpectedly lost the GOP primary in June, top Iowa Republicans have done virtually nothing to support the party’s nominee Todd Halbur. He goes into the home stretch of the campaign with little money or media exposure. Meanwhile, the incumbent Rob Sand is on track to spend more than a million dollars on various forms of advertising.

Halbur did not respond to phone or email messages seeking comment on the lack of support from his party, and whether it’s related to the whistleblower lawsuit he filed, naming one of Reynolds’ appointees.

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.

“You can’t handle the truth!”

Many Bleeding Heartland readers will recall those words of contempt that U.S. Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessup—played by Jack Nicholson— shouted from the witness stand in the 1992 movie, A Few Good Men.

Col. Jessup was alluding to the death of a young Marine, a killing that “saved lives,” he claimed. Those outside the U.S. Marine Corps supposedly couldn’t handle his distorted view of “the truth.”

That contempt called to mind the political commercials that contaminate our television viewing these days. Judging by the smears and deception in so many ads, the phrase “Iowa nice” (like many of the targeted candidates or policies) would now be considered “too liberal for Iowa.”

Republicans seeking Iowa’s federal offices take some important advantages into the November election. Most are incumbents with more money to spend than their challengers. Recent history suggests midterms favor the party out of power in Washington, and President Joe Biden has low approval numbers in Iowa.

One wild card complicates the equation for GOP candidates here, as in many other states. Republicans are on record supporting near-total abortion bans, while a majority of voters favor keeping abortion mostly legal.

Republican campaign messaging has emphasized other topics, such as inflation, taxes, or unpopular Washington politicians. When they can’t avoid talking about abortion, Republicans have claimed their Democratic opponents are the real extremists on the issue.

Several races may hinge on whether moderate voters buy into that distortion of the facts.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ re-election campaign continues to air a television commercial that plays on racist tropes in order to boost the governor among the largely white Iowa electorate.

Reynolds’ campaign spokesperson Pat Garrett has not replied to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about the commercial. But after Iowa Democratic Party chair Ross Wilburn denounced the ad as “a cheap, racist and dangerous stunt using harmful stereotypes to score political points,” Garrett told some other reporters that the spot “contrasts the failed policies supported by liberal Democrats across the country with the common sense leadership of Gov. Reynolds.”

Visual evidence shows the ad-makers were determined to create negative associations with Black women. The tactic would undermine the governor’s Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear.

The Republican Party of Iowa has reserved more than $1.1 million in television air time for six candidates seeking Iowa legislative seats in the Des Moines metro area, and will likely spend hundreds of thousands more to promote them on television during the final stretch of the campaign.

Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show the GOP plans to spend more than $650,000 on broadcast tv supporting Jake Chapman and Mike Bousselot, who are running in the party’s top two central Iowa Senate targets.

The party also will spend six-figure sums on tv ads for four Iowa House candidates in Polk or Dallas counties, whose commercials began airing last week.

Those numbers do not include any funds the GOP will spend on direct mail, radio, or digital advertising for the same candidates.

This post focuses on early tv spending on legislative races in the Des Moines market. Forthcoming Bleeding Heartland posts will survey other battleground Iowa House or Senate districts.

Nothing happens in a campaign commercial by accident. Strategists plan every word and image, with the candidate’s approval. Directors may film many takes to get the perfect cadence for every line.

So Iowans should understand: the racist tropes in Governor Kim Reynolds’ latest tv ad are deliberate.

Herb Strentz examines Chuck Grassley’s recent political messaging and low points from his record in the Senate.

The home stretch of this midterm election campaign is unfolding in in 3-D format — Dire, Divisive, and Despairing. That’s particularly true of the U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley, seeking his eighth term at age 89, and Democrat Michael Franken, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, who will be 65 on election day, November 8.

That 3-D nature of our Iowa politics was illustrated well in one of the Grassley campaign’s recent television commercials.

In a backhanded way, Grassley acknowledged why it is time for Iowans to vote him out of office.

Bruce Lear highlights misguided messages in Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Bird’s tv ad, now airing in heavy rotation.

The old saying, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” seems true. TV executives find the formula for a hit medical show and then order five more imitators. If one Marvel movie superhero captures our imaginations, why not dig a little deeper into the comic book vault for a dozen more?

Political commercials also imitate. For example, how many right-wing politicians shooting guns can the voters watch? How many east or west coast politicians running for president do Iowans need to see dressed in flannel shirts sitting on bales of hay proclaiming their undying love for ethanol? If it worked once, consultants repeat, repeat, and repeat again.

One political imitation ad recently caught my attention. It tries to catch the vibe of Joni Ernst’s “Make ’em squeal” ad from her first U.S. Senate campaign in 2014. Shock the viewer with crude humor, but with smiles all around. After all, if it worked for a little-known state senator from Red Oak, maybe it will work for a little-known county attorney from Guthrie County.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Televisions are getting larger, but that does not make it easier to decipher the political ads that are as common these days as gnats at a picnic.

There is one thing we should understand about these ads: Their purpose is not to educate voters or inform them about the finer points of a candidate’s views. Instead, their purpose is to scare us, or mislead us, or just confuse us.

One such example tells Iowa viewers that U.S. Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat from Iowa’s third district, refuses to sign a pledge to support term limits for members of Congress. (Term Limits Action is spending $157,203 to run the ads.)

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks spent more than $63,000 from her office budget to pay for radio advertising highlighting top campaign issues for House Republicans. The expenditures, using the “franking privilege” available to all members of Congress, were legal during the five weeks Miller-Weeks bought the ads, taking advantage of a little-noticed provision allowing such taxpayer-funded media promotions.  

Bleeding Heartland’s review of Iowa radio station political files, archived on the Federal Communications Commission’s website, showed Miller-Meeks used franking funds to place 60-second commercials on at least eight Iowa radio stations in August or September.

Staff for Miller-Meeks did not reply to inquiries about the advertising campaign, which marked a departure from how the Republican allocated her office budget during her first year and a half in Congress.

Ten Democratic and ten Republican U.S. senators have agreed to a framework for bipartisan legislation on gun violence, they announced in a June 12 news release.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are not part of the negotiating group.

Retired Admiral Mike Franken decisively won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on June 7, taking about 55 percent of the vote to 40 percent for former U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer and just under 5 percent for Dr. Glenn Hurst.

The nominee will face Senator Chuck Grassley, who defeated GOP challenger Jim Carlin by 73.5 percent to 26.5 percent.

While Franken appeared to have momentum in recent weeks, Iowa politics watchers weren’t expecting this margin of victory in the Senate race. Several factors were working in the winner’s favor and against Finkenauer as the primary approached.

State Senator Roby Smith is on track to outspend State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, if the latest reports filed with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board are any guide.

A news release from the Republican’s campaign boasted that its donations, totaling $213,391.15 so far this election cycle, “have set an all-time record” for a candidate for Iowa state treasurer. Smith raised substantially more than Fitzgerald during the latest reporting period and had nearly three times as much cash on hand.

But it would be premature to conclude, as Smith’s news release asserted, “Our historic fundraising number and Fitzgerald’s lack of support shows Iowans are clearly ready for change.”

Each candidate takes advantages into what could be Iowa’s most competitive state treasurer’s race in four decades.

Iowa Democrats have only two competitive statewide primaries this year: for U.S. Senate and for secretary of state. Both Democrats running for the latter office are long-serving county auditors who are not widely known outside their home counties (Linn County for Joel Miller and Clinton County for Eric Van Lancker).

Van Lancker began introducing himself to a wider circle of voters this week with his first digital ad. The 60-second spot highlights the benefits of early voting. According to an April 5 news release, the campaign will release a 30-second version of this ad for television in May. Under a law Republicans enacted last year, Iowa’s early voting period will begin on May 18, just 20 days before the June 7 primary.

Governor Kim Reynolds delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union from a government building terrace that is currently closed for rentals, and her office paid nothing to use the space.

The governor’s spokesperson Alex Murphy confirmed on March 2 that Reynolds gave the speech from the State Historical Building terrace. Five days and several emails later, Murphy confirmed the building “did not charge a fee for the Governor’s use of the space.”

Communications staff for the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs did not respond to messages over the past week seeking to clarify who approved the unusual arrangement for the governor.

One of the leading Democratic-aligned political action committees endorsed three Iowa candidates this week. EMILY’s List, which backs pro-choice Democratic women seeking federal, state, or local offices, endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer on December 15 and U.S. House candidates Christina Bohannan and Liz Mathis in the new first and second Congressional districts on December 16.

The PAC endorsed U.S. Representative Cindy Axne for re-election in the third district in March.

This week’s announcements were no surprise, since EMILY’s List supported Axne and Finkenauer in their 2018 and 2020 U.S. House campaigns, and said in April that Senator Chuck Grassley was one of three Republicans the group planned to target in 2022 Senate races.

Backing from EMILY’s List helps candidates raise money through the organization’s large network of donors. Perhaps more important, it indicates the group is prepared to pay for advertising on behalf of endorsed candidates or against their opponents.

The big question is whether EMILY’s List will keep its messages positive before the June 2022 Senate primary, or also target Democratic rivals. I couldn’t get an answer from the group yesterday.

Cedar Rapids residents will elect either Amara Andrews or Tiffany O’Donnell to be city’s third woman mayor on November 30. O’Donnell received about 42 percent of the votes cast in the November 2 general election. Andrews advanced to the runoff with about 28 percent of the vote, just 41 votes ahead of outgoing Mayor Brad Hart, who endorsed O’Donnell the following week.

While O’Donnell has to be considered the favorite going into Tuesday, the general election leader has lost Cedar Rapids runoff elections at least two times in the recent past. Anything can happen in a low-turnout race, and voter participation usually drops in runoffs.

Although Iowa’s local elections are nonpartisan, some candidates have revealed their party affiliations as one way of expressing their values. Andrews has been campaigning as a progressive Democrat who will make the city more equitable and fair. In contrast, O’Donnell has downplayed her Republican affiliation and presented herself as a candidate for “all of Cedar Rapids.”

Republican Mike Bousselot won the September 14 special election in Iowa House district 37 with 51.6 percent of the vote to 48.3 percent for Democrat Andrea Phillips, according to unofficial results from the Polk County elections office. Those numbers should change very little, since late-arriving absentee ballots mailed before the election can no longer be counted under the voter suppression law Republicans enacted this year.

Once Bousselot is sworn in to represent this district covering part of Ankeny and northern Polk County, the GOP will again hold 59 of the 100 Iowa House seats. Democrats currently hold 40 seats, and an October 12 special election will fill the vacancy in House district 29.

I’ll have more to say about today’s race once more details become available on the partisan breakdown of the electorate. For now, a few quick hits:

The short special election campaign in Iowa House district 37 has been a costly affair, as expected. Disclosures filed last week show the Iowa Democratic Party has spent $306,470.21 on behalf of Andrea Phillips, while the Republican Party of Iowa has spent $234,327.12 supporting Mike Bousselot.

As is typical for targeted Iowa legislative races, the bulk of the spending has gone toward television and digital advertising: roughly $285,000 on the Democratic side and just under $230,000 from Republicans.

Bleeding Heartland analyzed the introductory ads for Phillips and Bousselot here. During the last two weeks of the campaign, I’ve seen more negative advertising about both candidates on Des Moines-based broadcast and cable television. The difference is that the Democratic ads highlight truthful claims about Bousselot’s past work, whereas the Republican ads are wholly false–much like the spots they ran against Phillips in 2020.

Early voting has begun in Iowa House district 37, where voters in parts of Ankeny and northern Polk County will choose a new state representative on September 14. Bleeding Heartland previously covered the recent voting history of this suburban area, as well as background on Democrat Andrea Phillips and Republican Mike Bousselot.

Both candidates and many of their supporters (including other Iowa House Democrats and U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer) have been knocking doors in the district. Direct personal contact has long been considered one of the most effective ways to drive turnout in a state legislative race.

Phillips and Bousselot are also advertising in the Des Moines market on broadcast and cable television. Both introductory ads tap into voters’ feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation policies.