I wouldn’t have guessed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the pre-election Iowa Poll could assert claims any more outlandish than the original court filing in December.

Enter U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former State Senator Brad Zaun.

The Des Moines Register’s William Morris was first to report on February 4 that Miller-Meeks and Zaun signed on as plaintiffs in Trump’s case against J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett. The suit alleges that the inaccurate poll (which suggested Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was leading Trump in Iowa) was an “unfair act or practice” under Iowa’s consumer fraud statute. It further claims defendants “engaged in this misconduct to improperly influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Adding plaintiffs who are Iowa residents will help Trump get the case moved back to state court, where he originally filed. Attorneys for Gannett used a legal maneuver in December to remove the case to federal court.

For Miller-Meeks, there’s political upside as well: demonstrating her allegiance to Trump may help her fend off a second primary challenge from MAGA Republican David Pautsch.

But let’s be clear: Miller-Meeks and Zaun have even less basis to claim the Iowa Poll harmed them than Trump does.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. The Waverly Democrat published a version of this commentary on February 6.

Old habits die hard. While many of my neighbors are checking sports scores, I’m checking the U.S. Treasury yield curve. (OK – I do follow the Cyclones closely.) Even though I’m no longer actively managing investments, I’m still interested in the economy. Over time I’ve learned that the bond market is a more focused and rational indicator of current and developing economic conditions than the stock markets.

The Treasury yield curve is simply a graph of the current interest yield on U.S. Treasury debt over a range of maturities from overnight Fed funds to 30-year bonds. The Federal Reserve sets the Fed funds rate. Longer term rates are determined by market supply and demand. Bond market watchers generally focus on the 2-year to 10-year sector of the curve.

“The grassroots of America love making America great again,” David Pautsch told me during a February 5 telephone interview. “It’s the political establishment people, including and especially the Republican establishment, that is the biggest albatross around our neck.”

Pautsch is counting on the MAGA grassroots as he prepares for a rematch against U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 2026 GOP primary for Iowa’s first Congressional district.

A minister and founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, Pautsch received just under 44 percent of the vote in the 2024 primary after running against the incumbent from the right.

I reached out to Pautsch after seeing he had booked the state capitol rotunda on February 27 for a “Congressional candidacy announcement.” Although he hasn’t officially launched his campaign, he agreed to speak on the record about his plans and prospects.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced on February 7 that she has scheduled a special election in Iowa House district 100 for Tuesday, March 11. The seat became vacant due to the recent passing of State Representative Martin Graber.

The district covers most of Lee County, including the population centers of Keokuk and Fort Madison. Like several other counties containing mid-sized cities, this part of Iowa was a longtime Democratic stronghold.

But Lee County was among the “pivot counties” that voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump in three straight presidential elections.

More recently, voters in this area have favored Republican candidates for down-ballot offices as well. GOP candidates picked up the Iowa House and Senate seats covering this territory by defeating Democratic incumbents in 2020. In the 2024 general election, a Republican challenger won the race for Lee County sheriff, a position held by Democrats for many years. Some county office-holders who used to be Democrats (such as the Lee County attorney, recorder, and former auditor) have changed their party affiliation to Republican in recent years as well.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

President Donald Trump renewed his eight-year tariff war last weekend by declaring tariffs of 25 percent on most goods from Mexico and Canada (10 percent on Canadian oil) and 10 percent on China. No sooner had the war been declared than we had a 30-day truce as Mexico and Canada promised various reinforcements of their border that supposedly will stanch the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.—policies both countries had announced weeks earlier.

Trump famously told us eight years ago that trade wars are “easy to win.” But if they’re so easy, why are we still fighting them eight years later? U.S. armed forces needed just half that time to subdue Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II.

Trump and his MAGAtoids can claim short-term victories with the Mexican and Canadian truces. But bigger hills remain to be seized. China might not be so easy to bully. Neither will be the European Union. To those of us of advanced ages, the 30-day truce was reminiscent of the occasional truces during the Vietnam War, when hopes were raised around the world only to be shattered by the resumption of bombings and guerilla ambushes.

Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.

These days, Iowans may wonder how our elected officials, who should prioritize protecting and caring for the most vulnerable, can live with themselves or even look at themselves in the mirror. More than 50,000 Iowans live in the state’s more than 400 nursing homes. Most of those facilities are for-profit enterprises, funded by tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. These residents, their families, those of us approaching our own long-term care needs—and frankly, all Iowans—should be able to count on responsible individuals of both political parties to fulfill their oaths. 

Not in Iowa.

Republicans have had full control of state government (the Iowa House, Senate, and governor’s office) since 2017. In her recent Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds made it sound as if we were now living in the State of Nirvana, thanks to her and her party.

They say anything can happen in a low-turnout special election. And on January 28, voters in Iowa Senate district 35 elected Democrat Mike Zimmer to represent them through the end of 2026. Zimmer defeated Republican nominee Katie Whittington by 4,812 votes to 4,473 (51.7 percent to 48.1 percent), according to unofficial results.

Most Iowa political observers expected Republicans to hold the seat easily. Former State Senator Chris Cournoyer was re-elected in this district with about 61 percent of the vote in 2022. (She resigned from the legislature to become Iowa’s lieutenant governor last month.) In the most recent general election, voters living in Senate district 35 preferred Donald Trump to Kamala Harris by a 21-point margin, and preferred GOP incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks over Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by a 9-point margin. The GOP has a voter registration advantage too.

Yet Zimmer performed well in every part of Senate district 35. He carried Clinton County, where most of his constituents live, by 3,411 votes to 3,169 (51.7 percent to 48.0 percent). Trump won that formerly blue county in November with 58.5 percent of the vote to 39.7 percent for Harris.

The Democrat carried the Jackson County precincts by 555 votes to 446 for Whittington (55.4 percent to 44.6 percent). Voters in the same area favored Trump by 60.3 percent to 38.2 percent in November, according to Bleeding Heartland’s analysis of the precinct-level results.

Also impressive: Zimmer nearly matched his opponent in the Scott County portion of the district, gaining 846 votes to 858 for Whittington (49.6 percent to 50.3 percent). Trump’s advantage over Harris in the same precincts: 64.2 percent to 34.1 percent.

How did the Democrat pull it off?

The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to hear former U.S. Representative Steve King’s appeal in a case stemming from his Congressional campaign’s unauthorized use of the popular “Success Kid” meme in 2020.

SHORT-LIVED POST LED TO LONG LEGAL BATTLE

Laney Griner took the photo of her son Sam on a beach in 2007 and registered the copyright for the “Success Kid” meme in 2012. While numerous people have used the image to create memes without compensating the Griners, various corporations have paid to license the photo for use in advertising.

A January 2020 post on the King for Congress Facebook page put Sam’s defiant image in front of the U.S. Capitol with the message “FUND OUR MEMES!!!” The post linked to a fundraising page.

King’s campaign took the “Success Kid” Facebook post down within hours after receiving a warning from Griner’s attorney. Griner told the New York Times at the time, “Steve King is just the worst of the worst,” and “bigotry is just the antithesis of what we want to be the association with this meme.”

Governor Kim Reynolds hasn’t faced an opponent in a Republican primary since 2008, when she ran for state Senate. But if she seeks a third term in 2026, she will likely compete against a challenger from the right: former State Representative Brad Sherman.

The Iowa Standard reported last month that Sherman intends to run for governor. Speaking to Bleeding Heartland at the state capitol on January 23, Sherman declined to discuss specifics but indicated he has a campaign kickoff planned for February.

His campaign Facebook page was recently updated after a stretch of 21 months with no new posts. His refreshed campaign website is recruiting volunteers to “spread the word about the upcoming primary.” His latest campaign financial disclosure shows no fundraising for the first eleven months of 2024—when Sherman wasn’t seeking re-election to the state House—followed by ten donations totaling $4,030 in December. That month, the campaign committee paid $6,000 to a Republican consulting firm.

To put it mildly, Sherman would face long odds against Reynolds. The governor’s campaign raised $1.8 million last year and started 2025 with more than $3 million cash on hand. Reynolds would have massive establishment support—not only in state, but from the Republican Governors Association, where her former chief of staff serves as executive director. In addition, Iowans are famous for re-electing incumbents.

On the other hand, a sizeable number of Iowa Republicans are open to anti-establishment candidates. Then State Senator Jim Carlin ran for U.S. Senate on a shoestring budget but received 26.5 percent of the 2022 primary vote against Senator Chuck Grassley. Last year, Kevin Virgil received nearly 40 percent of the vote against U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, and David Pautsch managed just under 44 percent against U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, even though both members of Congress massively outspent their GOP challengers.

Four groups would be particularly important for Sherman if he seeks the nomination for governor next year.

John Morrissey is a freelance writer in Des Moines.

State Senator Michael Bousselot’s proposal that Iowa purchase the lower tier of counties in Minnesota sounds comical, at first blush. But President Donald Trump’s rumblings about purchasing Greenland and taking back the Panama Canal, along with observations about the artificiality of sovereign boundaries, may indicate a serious purpose.

Is there some partisan political mischief behind this proposal? And what sort of political goods are on offer that might make this worth pursuing?

Dennis Hart has worked at TV stations in Fresno, Buffalo, Phoenix, Atlanta, Detroit, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Well, that didn’t take long, did it?

Just a few days ago, word came out that the Allen Media Group—which owns more than two dozen stations, including KIMT in Mason City and KWWL in Waterloo—was getting rid of its on-air weather people.

All of them.

But now, the Allen Group has backed off, after what is said to have been negative reactions from both viewers and advertisers.

I have to admit, Allen’s plan was a new one on me.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

A recent Iowa Court of Appeals decision could substantially change how Iowa’s local government bodies—including county supervisors, city councils, and school boards—conduct meetings.

The decision centers on the legitimacy of closed sessions by those public bodies. The law at issue is Iowa Code Section 21.5(1)(i), part of the state’s open meetings law. Section 21.5 contains a list of conditions that permit closed meetings. The exemption at the heart of this case reads as follows:

To evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation and that individual requests a closed session.

Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

At long last the Iowa Department of Education released school enrollment numbers for the current school year on January 17. Public school enrollment took another dip this year as a total of 480,665 students attended Iowa schools. That’s a decrease of 3033.3 students from the previous year. Private schools, however, continued their growth with a total of 39,356 students. That’s an increase of 3,144 students or 8.7 percent from the previous year.

For years, private school enrollment decreased statewide. Since “Education Savings Accounts” (more commonly known as vouchers) have become widely available, that trend had reversed. Not only has enrollment increased, but more private schools have been opening statewide. This year saw an additional 21 accredited private schools open, bringing the total number of private schools to 211. Almost 80 percent of all private schools in the state saw enrollment gains. Compare that to public schools where only 36 percent saw an increase in enrollment.

What had been obvious for weeks became official on January 14. Hours after Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Joni Ernst announced in an interview with WHO Radio’s Simon Conway and later in a news release that she would vote to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense.

It never seemed likely Ernst would stand in Hegseth’s way. However, she had suggested in early December that he needed a “thorough vetting,” and she wasn’t ready to commit. Facing a barrage of attacks from conservative influencers and threats of a 2026 GOP primary challenge, the senator quickly changed her tune, saying in a statement, “As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”

In the end, Ernst conducted a selective search for the truth about Hegseth. She discounted facts that raised doubts about his fitness while playing up a testimonial from someone with a stake in the outcome.

Her approach was quite different in 2019, when she considered a controversial Trump nominee for another military role—in the absence of any coordinated effort to influence her decision.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson caused some angst in the House Republican caucus this week when he removed Representative Mike Turner as chair of the Intelligence Committee, supposedly due to “concerns from Mar-a-Lago,” among other considerations. But there were no unpleasant surprises for Iowa’s delegation as committee assignments were finalized for the 119th Congress.

The Iowans rank low in seniority among House Republicans, with Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) beginning his second term, and Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) each starting their third terms. Nevertheless, all will continue to serve on influential panels.

Senator Chuck Grassley is the longest-serving U.S. senator in Iowa history and among the ten longest-serving members of Congress from any state. He returned this month to two prominent roles as chair of the Judiciary Committee and Senate President pro tempore—the third in line for the presidency after the vice president and U.S. House speaker. Meanwhile, Senator Joni Ernst now chairs a committee for the first time.

One of the biggest spenders on behalf of U.S. House Democrats launched digital advertising this week targeting U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn in Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts. The ads, enclosed in full below, claim the GOP incumbents “could cost you more,” because they support President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The House Majority PAC’s 501(c)4 affiliate, House Majority Forward, is funding the 30-second spots, part of a $10 million campaign targeting nine potentially vulnerable House Republicans.

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

For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has overruled the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on the state’s impaired waters list.

Pam Mackey Taylor, director of the Iowa Chapter of Sierra Club, explained in a Bleeding Heartland post from November that last year, the EPA objected to the impaired waters list the DNR submitted. The EPA added seven segments in the Cedar, Des Moines, Iowa, Raccoon, and South Skunk Rivers to the list, because DNR staff had not used all existing and readily available water quality data. The DNR had refused to add these seven segments during the preparation of the list, even after the EPA told them the omission of those segments would not be approved.

Before Sierra Club and two other ad hoc groups filed a lawsuit in 2000, Iowa had never prepared an impaired waters list, even though the federal Clean Water Act required the state to do so. As a result of that lawsuit, EPA created Iowa’s first impaired waters list. But the federal agency had not overruled the DNR’s submission of the state’s impaired waters list until last year.

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

When the Iowa legislature reconvenes in Des Moines on January 13, fifteen state House members and six state senators will be sworn in for the first time. But one of them is marking more than a personal milestone.

Aime Wichtendahl will make history as Iowa’s first transgender state lawmaker. She starts her new job as a Democrat outnumbered by the largest GOP majority in the Iowa House since 1970. Not only that: House Republicans have recently approved or considered numerous bills that would discriminate against LGBTQ people broadly and transgender Iowans in particular. Wichtendahl has spoken against those bills in subcommittee meetings and at rallies.

Iowa’s first trans legislator spoke to Bleeding Heartland in November and December about her campaign, takeaways from the 2024 elections, and plans for legislative work.

A year-end review from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s office boasted that the senator’s oversight “touched on 97% of all taxpayer-funded agencies” during 2024. “Nearly every corner of government received Grassley’s thorough inspection – it’s all part of Grassley’s constant efforts to ensure the government is a service to the American people,” the report added.

One area that escaped Grassley’s “thorough inspection” was the collapse of bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. For months in 2023, Grassley publicized an FBI informant’s explosive claims about the Bidens.

But he’s had nothing to say since Alexander Smirnov, the original source of those allegations, pleaded guilty in December to making up the whole story.

The nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announced on January 7 that it will defend longtime Iowa Poll director J. Ann Selzer at no charge in the lawsuit Donald Trump filed last month. Trump sued Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 points. The Republican later carried Iowa by a 13-point margin.

FIRE’s chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a news release, “Punishing someone for their political prediction is about as unconstitutional as it gets,” adding, “This is America. No one should be afraid to predict the outcome of an election. Whether it’s from a pollster, or you, or me, such political expression is fully and unequivocally protected by the First Amendment.”

One of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers on judicial and legal matters stepped away from a University of Iowa alumni advisory board late last year. Mike Davis has long been an aggressive Trump ally, known for his “combative presence on right-wing media.” Some of his posts on the X/Twitter platform prompted calls in November for the university to remove him from the political science department’s alumni advisory board. But in a statement provided last month, Davis said, “With President Trump’s victory on November 5th, I will not have the necessary bandwidth to serve on this important volunteer board, so I decided on my own to step down.”

The Article III Project, which Davis leads as founding president, told Bleeding Heartland that no one from the university asked Davis to resign from the advisory board or take down any of his social media posts.

Communications staff for the University of Iowa declined to comment on the situation. Professor Brian Lai, the interim department chair listed as the point of contact for the alumni advisory board, did not respond to inquiries.

“You suck, Joni! That’s just the nicest way I can summarize how we’re all feeling about your reign so far,” says Joshua Smith in the first digital ad promoting his Republican campaign for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat.

The video previews what will be an aggressive campaign by Senator Joni Ernst’s 2026 primary challenger from the right.

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

Phil Montag is a Des Moines area activist, serves on the Iowa Unity Coalition Board of Directors, and is one of the founders of Veishea Analytics.

Every election cycle produces a wealth of public data, from polling station statistics to voter turnout figures, campaign fundraising and spending data, absentee ballot requests, and audited results. This data exists not just for politicians and media outlets, but for the public as well. It provides transparency, accountability, and evidence-based debunking of misinformation that is prevalent today. With this analysis of the 2024 Iowa State House races, we are hoping to present the data in a new way that will be easy for everyday voters to understand.

In the Iowa State House races that concluded a few weeks ago, the Republican Party of Iowa was able to campaign with a serious cash advantage, although Democrats had much more success at promoting absentee ballot requests and turning out early votes.

The combined fundraising totals for Republican candidates running for the Iowa House was a little more than $12 million. For Democrats it was $6.7 million. Those totals represent what was donated to campaigns directly as well as in-kind contributions that other organizations spent on their behalf. The fundraising graphs enclosed below represent only what was raised in 2023 and 2024. Incumbent candidates whose campaigns started 2023 with cash on hand may have spent more.

A years-long effort to expand the federal judiciary faltered this week when President Joe Biden vetoed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024. The JUDGES Act would have increased the federal district court bench by about 10 percent over the next twelve years, adding 63 new permanent federal judgeships in thirteen states, along with three temporary judgeships in Oklahoma. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa was slated to receive one of the first eleven positions to be created in 2025.

The veto leaves Iowa’s Northern District with two District Court judges (Chief Judge C.J. Williams and Judge Leonard T. Strand), along with Senior Judge Linda R. Reade and two magistrate judges. That number hasn’t changed since 1990, when the last major expansion of the federal bench allocated a third judgeship to Iowa’s Southern District. The 1990 law also assigned a judge who had previously divided his time between the state’s two districts to the Northern District on a permanent basis.

Biden may not have the last word on this subject, given the Republican Party’s commitment to putting more conservatives on the bench.

UPDATE: Zimmer won the special election. You can read about how he did it here. Original post follows.

Central DeWitt School Board president Mike Zimmer announced on December 23 that he will seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa Senate district 35, where voters will choose a successor to Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer on January 28. In a statement enclosed in full below, Zimmer promised to “champion Eastern Iowa’s public schools, working families, and our middle class” by fighting for “stronger public schools, better wages, and opportunities that foster real financial stability.”

According to a guide from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, candidates have until 5:00 PM on January 14 to file nominating papers with the secretary of state. Before then, Democrats and Republicans will hold nominating conventions, where delegates from the 36 precincts across the Senate district will choose a nominee. Third-party or independent candidates need to collect at least 100 signatures from eligible voters residing in the district, and submit those petitions with their nominating papers.

While others could compete for the Democratic nomination at the special convention, Zimmer’s proven electoral track record would give him an advantage.

Chris Gloninger is a meteorologist and climate communicator with 18 years of broadcast experience, AMS dual certifications, and a master’s in Emergency Management, specializing in making complex climate topics accessible. He first published this essay on his newsletter, Weathering Climate Change.

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s clear something extraordinary—and unsettling—has been happening in Des Moines. With just five days to go, the city is tied for the second warmest year on record. Highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s ensured the year would cement its place in the top three warmest years since record keeping began in 1879. But this isn’t just a story of numbers; it’s a narrative about change—rapid, undeniable, and deeply concerning.

Weather records in Des Moines stretch back nearly 150 years, offering a rich tapestry of data that helps to understand long-term climate trends. In a stable climate, one might expect the warmest years to be evenly distributed across time—half occurring before 1951 and half after. But that’s not what’s happening. Of the top ten warmest years in Des Moines, seven have occurred since 1951. Even more telling, six of those years have happened since 2010. That’s not just a trend—it’s a flashing red warning light.

Charles Gaba is a health care policy wonk, advocate, and blogger who mixes data analysis with snark at ACASignups.net, where this article first appeared. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, or X/Twitter.

In early 2021, Democrats in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded and enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The changes brought the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place more than a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 percent to 400 percent of Federal Poverty Level income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned “Subsidy Cliff” at 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Before 2021, a household earning even $1 more than that amount had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

COMPARING THE ORIGINAL ACA SUBSIDIES WITH ENHANCED SUBSIDIES

Here’s what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

They were so close.

After weeks of negotiations, U.S. House and Senate leaders had agreed on a year-end spending bill that would fund the federal government through March 14, extend the 2018 Farm Bill through next September, and provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid. The legislation included numerous other policies, including at least two that had been priorities for Iowa’s members of Congress. The bill would have legalized year-round sales of higher ethanol blends known as E-15 in all states. It also contained new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which could have saved consumers billions while helping small pharmacies.

All of the Iowans in Congress have talked up E-15 as a path to U.S. energy independence. (In reality, only about 3,400 of some 198,000 gas stations across the country dispense higher ethanol blends.) Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Senator Chuck Grassley have been among the most vocal proponents of PBM reform, calling for action on prescription drug middlemen in draft bills, press releases, news conferences, House and Senate hearings, floor speeches, and taxpayer-funded radio ads.

Little did they know that President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk were about to blow up the deal.

Iowa’s all-Republican delegation voted the same way on almost every bill that came before both chambers during the 118th Congress, which wrapped up its work in the early hours of December 21. But one of the last bills sent to President Joe Biden, the Social Security Fairness Act, revealed an unusual disagreement among the Iowans serving in the U.S. House and Senate.

When the House approved the bill by 327 votes to 75 in November, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) were part of the bipartisan majority.

When the Senate passed the bill by 76 votes to 20 shortly after midnight on December 21, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the 20 Republicans who voted no.

The Iowans’ comments on the Social Security Fairness Act illustrate how differently politicians with similar ideologies can view a complex public policy fix.

Iowa is projected to maintain four U.S. House districts after 2030, according to population estimates the U.S. Census Bureau released on December 19. If that pans out, it would be our state’s longest stretch without losing a Congressional district in 100 years.

Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, posted a map on social media on December 19, showing how reapportionment would affect each state. Iowa is among 36 states that would neither gain nor lose any U.S. House districts after the 2030 census, if population trends from the past two years hold. Three neighboring states—Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—are each expected to lose one seat, in line with a decades-long trend of relatively slower population growth in the Midwest and Northeast, compared to the South and West.

Lyle Muller is a board member of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Iowa High School Press Association, a trustee of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, former executive director/editor of the Iowa Center for Public Journalism that became part of the Midwest Center, former editor of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, and a recipient of the Iowa Newspaper Association’s Distinguished Service Award. In retirement, he is the professional adviser for Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black newspaper. This article first appeared on his Substack newsletter.

So, Donald Trump is suing The Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer for consumer fraud, which he claims was willful election interference. Bring it on, I would like to say—but I don’t run The Register and my subscription does not entitle me to make such a challenge. I would be doing Selzer no favors, either. 

It would be like pushing the weakest sucker in your group of eighth-grade buddies to the front of the group after mouthing off to a bully. And, make no mistake, a bully is involved in this lawsuit. The kind you thought you left behind in eighth grade.

President-elect Donald Trump followed through this week with his threat to sue pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent.

Many others have pointed out that Trump’s lawsuit is part of his broader “revenge tour” and “war on journalism.” In Greg Sargent’s words, the case is “putting people in the media and polling on notice that they will face real legal harassment if they anger or criticize Trump.” The president-elect admitted during a December 16 press conference that he will use lawsuits to influence news coverage: “I think you have to do it, because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media, we need a fair media.”

This post will focus on the legal, factual, and logical problems with the court filing.

UPDATE: On December 23, Governor Kim Reynolds scheduled the special election for Tuesday, January 28. Democrat Mike Zimmer won that election. You can read about how he did it here. Original post follows.

Voters in Iowa Senate district 35 will soon elect a new senator, now that Chris Cournoyer has resigned from that role to become Iowa’s lieutenant governor.

Under state law, when a vacancy in the Iowa House or Senate arises within 45 days of the next legislative session convening, “the governor shall order such special election at the earliest practical time, giving at least eighteen days’ notice.” Governor Kim Reynolds’ spokesperson Mason Mauro said on December 16 he could not answer questions about the timing of the special election. But it’s likely to happen sometime in January. The winner will serve out the remainder of Cournoyer’s term, which runs through 2026.

Republicans will be heavily favored to hold the seat, which would give them a 35-15 majority in the chamber.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

In an era when sex and religion are politicized, it was inevitable that food would follow.

Two bookend events in 2025 may catapult our eating habits off the Food Network and onto mainstream cable and broadcast news. First will be the confirmation hearing for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Then an ad hoc committee of experts must release the legally-required rewriting of the federal government’s food and nutrition dietary guidelines, which are due by the end of 2025.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird will again ask the Iowa legislature to increase state penalties for assaulting law enforcement officers, she told reporters on December 12. But she did not condemn the idea of pardoning those who assaulted police during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Bleeding Heartland asked Bird whether people who assaulted law enforcement or damaged federal government property on January 6 should be pardoned. She replied, “Well, that’s up to President Trump to decide once he’s in office.”

Would she support Trump if he issues those pardons? “As someone who has worked on pardons at the state level” with former Governor Terry Branstad, Bird said, “I think those decisions are best made on an individualized basis.”

Bird served as Branstad’s legal counsel from his return to the governor’s office in 2011 until early 2015. Elected attorney general in 2022, she was the highest-ranking state official to endorse Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign before the Iowa caucuses.

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

It’s a startling statistic, but it’s not true.

Joni Ernst has gotten a lot of attention recently for her claim that only 6 percent of federal employees work in person on a full-time basis.

The New York Post ran with it. So did Elon Musk. The Des Moines Register quoted it, too.

It’s not true.

Before I dig into the details, a little background:

The House Majority PAC, one of the biggest spenders supporting Democrats in U.S. House races, has confirmed Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts are among its “top targets” for the 2026 election cycle.

The PAC also put IA-02 on a list of sixteen House districts that “could become competitive” in 2026.

UPDATE: Smith fleshed out his message against the incumbent in a digital ad launched on December 31. Original post follows.

Senator Joni Ernst has her first declared 2026 primary challenger. Joshua Smith announced on X/Twitter on December 5 that he plans to run against Ernst as a Republican in 2026. The “blue-collar, working-class veteran” and father of seven promised he would be “the most pro-life, pro-family, small government candidate running for a federal office” next cycle.

So far, Smith’s campaign looks more like a bid for online engagement than a serious threat to Ernst’s career. But in a December 9 telephone interview, he explained why he’s confident he can build a strong GOP primary campaign.

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

Many factors helped Iowa Republicans expand their already large state legislative majorities in 2024. Two of the most important were Donald Trump’s dominance in the presidential race, and the continued decline in ticket-splitting.

By my calculations, Trump carried 71 of the 100 Iowa House districts, up from 63 state House districts the last time he was on the ballot in 2020. In all four Democratic-held House districts that flipped this year, voters preferred Trump. That helped Republican Ryan Weldon defeat State Representative Molly Buck in House district 41 (Ankeny), David Blom defeat Sue Cahill in House district 52 (Marshalltown), Jennifer Smith defeat Chuck Isenhart in House district 72 (Dubuque), and Christian Hermanson win the open House district 59 (Mason City).

Trump also carried 20 of the 25 state Senate districts that were on the ballot, including both where Democratic incumbents lost: Mike Pike defeated Nate Boulton in Senate district 20 (eastern Polk County), and Dave Sires defeated Eric Giddens in Senate district 38 (mostly located in Black Hawk County). The only Iowa GOP lawmaker to lose in 2024, State Senator Brad Zaun, faced Matt Blake in a district where voters preferred Kamala Harris for president.

Ticket-splitting used to be more common in Iowa. Republicans maintained control of the state House in 2012, even as Barack Obama carried 61 of the 100 districts that year. (No wonder few observers expected Iowa’s hard shift to the right, beginning in 2016.)

But in 2020 and again this year, only seven Iowa legislators managed to win in districts where voters preferred the other party’s presidential nominee.

I calculated the 2024 numbers using certified precinct-level vote totals from the Iowa Secretary of State’s election results website. Figures on the 2020 presidential vote in each district come from the Iowa House and Iowa Senate maps Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App.

This post covers the six Iowa House members and one state senator in descending order, by how much they outperformed the top of their own party’s ticket.

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

Across the country, voters elected a record number of women to serve in state legislatures in 2024. About a third of all U.S. state lawmakers will be women next year, and in seven state legislative chambers, women will comprise 50 percent or more of members.

In contrast, the 2024 elections moved the Iowa legislature further away from gender parity. The decline was steeper in the state House, where Iowans elected fewer women than at any point since 2014. A retirement produced a smaller drop in female representation in the upper chamber.