A few days ago, the final recounts ended in Iowa legislative races, and the last Congressional campaign was resolved. It’s time to reveal the winner of Bleeding Heartland’s general election prediction contest.

Now that almost all Iowa precincts have reported, I’ve enclosed more detailed results from the four Congressional races after the jump. All numbers come from this page on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.  

Polls close at 9 pm in Iowa, but there are already plenty of other election returns coming in to discuss. I’ll update this post after the jump throughout the evening. Spoiler alert: the media have already called Pennsylvanian for President Barack Obama.

10:10 pm: Iowa has been called for Obama. No path to 270 electoral votes remains for Romney.

12:34 am: Not all of the Iowa House races have been called yet, but it looks like Republicans may end up with a 53-47 majority, and several Democrats lost very close races. If the House Democrats had had the resources to contest more districts, they could have won a majority. Most of the money flowed to Iowa Senate candidates for obvious reasons.

1:09 am: Iowa Senate Democrats sound confident that they have won 26 seats. The last few results aren’t yet official on the Secretary of State’s website, however. Details are below.

WEDNESDAY: Unofficial returns show 1,558,252 Iowans cast ballots in the 2012 general election, an increase from 2008. That’s about 72 percent of the state’s eligible voters.

I planned to write several posts this fall about the third Congressional district race between Representatives Tom Latham and Leonard Boswell. Instead, every time I sat down to write about the campaign, I found myself turning to other topics. Central Iowa radio and television stations have been so over-saturated with cookie-cutter attack ads against both candidates. If a political junkie like me finds it off-putting, I can’t imagine how disengaged other people feel when they hear the beginning of yet another negative commercial.

Neither Latham nor Boswell has offered a compelling case for re-election, but after the jump I review the main messages from both campaigns and from various outside groups that have been advertising in Des Moines and Omaha.

To enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest, post your guesses as comments in this thread before 7 am on November 6. Predictions submitted by e-mail will not be considered. It’s ok to change your mind, as long as you post your revised predictions as an additional comment in this thread before the deadline.

No money’s at stake here, just bragging rights like those enjoyed by Bleeding Heartland users ModerateIADem (twice), American007, Johannes, and tietack. This isn’t “The Price is Right”; the winning answers will be closest to the final results, whether they were a little high or low. Even if you have no idea, please try to take a guess on every question.

Minor-party or independent candidates are on the ballot for some races, so the percentages of the vote for Democratic and Republican nominees need not add up to 100. You can view the complete list of candidates for federal and state offices in Iowa here (pdf).

Good luck, and remember: you can’t win if you don’t play.

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show larger numbers of registered Democrats, Republicans, and no-party voters statewide compared to last month. Democrats and no-party voters gained more registrants than Republicans, possibly because of voter registration drives on college campuses around the state. As of November 1 (pdf), Iowa had 694,558 active no-party voters statewide, 629,443 active Republicans, and 628,043 active Democrats. That’s the smallest GOP voter registration advantage since April.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. Any comments about next Tuesday’s elections are welcome in this thread. Iowans can register to vote on election day by bringing photo identification and proof of residency (like a utility bill or bank statement) to their local precinct.

This thread is for any comments about Congressional races you are following, whether in Iowa or in other states. Steve King and Christie Vilsack held their seventh (!) debate tonight, but I was unable to listen, because Windsor Heights holds trick-or-treating the night before Halloween.

Democrats are starting to talk about a net gain of U.S. Senate seats, but I am not that optimistic. While some races are trending toward the Democratic candidates, others where Democrats led last month are tightening (Virginia, Wisconsin).

To me, the most amazing development in a Congressional race is President Bill Clinton campaigning for Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and recording a television commercial for her. Bleeding Heartland readers who are old enough to remember 1990s politics, could you ever have believed that Bill Clinton would be considered an asset to a Democratic candidate in North Dakota a week before the election?  

Iowans have requested a record number of early ballots for the general election with more than a week left to vote by mail or early in person. As of October 24, 565,986 Iowans had requested absentee ballots–more than the number of Iowans who cast early votes in the 2008 general election (545,739).  

Iowa Democrats have requested about 75,000 more absentee ballots than Republicans and lead in ballot requests in three of the four Congressional districts. On October 23, Republicans finally overtook Democrats in absentee ballot requests in IA-04, where the GOP’s voter registration advantage is more than 50,000.

After the jump I’ve posted early voting numbers from the last three presidential elections in Iowa, along with the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested by voters and returned to county auditors. I’m updating the absentee ballot totals every weekday here, using data posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

Adrian Gray, a veteran of the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign, has been commenting on early voting trends in various states on twitter. I disagree with some of his Iowa observations and explain why below.  

It’s time for another discussion thread on any competitive U.S. House and Senate races. More detailed posts about the four Iowa Congressional districts are in progress, but after the jump I’ve posted the latest information on independent expenditures for and against the major-party candidates. Bleeding Heartland covered the third-quarter financial reports for the Iowa Congressional candidates here. Early voting totals for each of the four Congressional districts are here.

I’ve also added a few links on U.S. Senate races around the country. I’m amazed that Democrats still appear to be favorites to hold a small Senate majority. For me that has been one of the most surprising political stories of the year. Republicans could still win a majority, but they would have to run the table in the tossup races.

Twenty days before the general election, 463,219 Iowans had requested absentee ballots–more than the number of Iowans who cast early votes in the 2004 general election (460,059).

Also as of October 17, Iowa county auditors had received 284,569 completed absentee ballots, more than the number of Iowans who cast early votes in the 2000 general election (276,836).

Iowa Democrats have requested about 70,000 more absentee ballots than Republicans and lead in ballot requests in all four Congressional districts (though only barely in IA-04, where Republicans have a large voter registration advantage).

After the jump I’ve posted early voting numbers from the last three presidential elections in Iowa, along with the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested by voters and returned to county auditors statewide and in the four Congressional districts. I’m updating the absentee ballot totals every weekday here, using data posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

P.S.- There are three ways to vote early in Iowa. Voting in person at a county auditor’s office or satellite station has a lower error rate than mailing your absentee ballot.

The latest Federal Election Commission disclosure reports are out, covering money raised and spent by Congressional candidates between July 1 and September 30. Details from Iowa’s four races are after the jump, along with information on groups that have made independent expenditures in each of the districts. The latest voter registration totals in the Congressional districts are here, and I’m updating absentee ballot totals for each district on weekdays here.

Any comments about these campaigns are welcome in this thread. I’d be particularly grateful if some Bleeding Heartland reader could explain what Tom Latham has been saving his money for, and why the PAC of the Credit Union National Association is supporting both Latham in IA-03 and Christie Vilsack in IA-04.

In a few moments Representatives Tom Latham and Leonard Boswell will debate live on KCCI-TV in Des Moines. KCCI and the Des Moines Register are live-streaming the event. It’s the second debate between Boswell and Latham, who debated in Creston last night.

I taped the fifth debate between Representative Steve King and Christie Vilsack last night, but haven’t had a chance to watch yet. Nor have I been able to listen to today’s Iowa Public Radio program featuring Representative Bruce Braley and Ben Lange.

Any comments about any debates in the Iowa Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Added some thoughts about the IA-03 debate after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: The Braley-Lange debate is worth a listen. I posted my take in this news roundup on the IA-01 race.

Thirty-four days before the general election, the number of Iowans who had requested absentee ballots (292,694) already exceeds the number of Iowans who cast early votes in the 2000 general election (276,836). At this point, Democrats have requested about twice as many absentee ballots as have Republicans and have returned more than three times as many ballots to county auditors.

Looking at the daily numbers I’ve archived here, you can see that as promised, Republicans have made up ground on early GOTV since the Secretary of State’s Office started releasing absentee ballot totals on September 17.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested by voters and returned to county auditors statewide and in each of the four Congressional districts.  

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show larger numbers of registered Democrats, Republicans, and no-party voters statewide compared to last month. Democrats and no-party voters gained more registrants than Republicans, possibly because of voter registration drives on college campuses around the state. As of October 1 (pdf), Iowa had 675,171 active no-party voters statewide, 622,176 active Republicans, and 611,284 active Democrats.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. Any comments about the Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

Following a month-long summer recess, members of the U.S. House and Senate worked for less than three weeks before adjourning in late September until after the general election. Congress will hold only “pro-forma” sessions for the next month, presumably to prevent President Barack Obama from making recess appointments.

Follow me after the jump for a review of how the Iowans voted (or did not vote) on the most significant legislation that came up during the past few weeks.  

JANUARY 2013 UPDATE: Boswell dropped this lawsuit.

I don’t know whether anyone connected to Representative Leonard Boswell dangled a job in front of Ed Fallon in early 2008. But I’m confident that the defamation lawsuit Boswell filed against Fallon won’t end in a courtroom victory for the man who won the contentious 2008 Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district.  

Early voting begins today in Iowa, 40 days before the general election. Bleeding Heartland covered the three ways to vote early here and is updating absentee ballot numbers every weekday here. After the jump I’ve posted more links and news related to the early voting process.

Although the Harkin Steak Fry took place last weekend, the Jewish new year interfered with my plans to write a post immediately after the event, and the rest of the week flew by. I’ve posted some notes from the steak fry after the jump, along with other links about the featured speaker, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. That won’t be his last speech in front of a crowd of Iowa Democratic activists.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

About one-third of the 1,528,715 Iowans who cast ballots in the 2008 general election voted early. Absentee voting saved several Democratic incumbents in the state House and Senate that year. Bleeding Heartland will update these tables on weekdays until election day, using figures posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website (click the elections tab, then voters, then 2012 general election).

SEPTEMBER 27 UPDATE: Now adding totals for absentee ballots received by county auditors as well as absentee ballots requested each weekday.

SEPTEMBER 28 UPDATE: When an Iowan votes early in person at the auditor’s office, that counts as an absentee ballot requested by the voter and as an absentee ballot received by the auditor on the same day.

OCTOBER 21 UPDATE: Recent polls by NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist and Public Policy Polling suggest that President Barack Obama has a 2:1 lead among Iowans who have already voted. For that to be true, the majority of no-party voters who cast early ballots would have to be supporting the president.

Early voting starts in Iowa on September 27, but candidates have been encouraging supporters to request early ballots for months. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show that registered Democrats have submitted far more absentee ballot requests than have Republicans, statewide and in all four Congressional districts. Details are below.

UPDATE: Added a table with the latest numbers as of September 18. SECOND UPDATE: Will be updating the absentee ballot totals daily here.

The Siemens corporation announced today that “it will lay off 407 of the 660 workers at the blade manufacturing plant that is one of the five largest employers” in Fort Madison, Iowa (Lee County). Follow me after the jump for more details and reaction from Iowa elected officials and Congressional candidates.

The air war in Iowa’s first Congressional district is fully engaged, with four new television commercials in the last week alone. Three-term Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley started running a spot about veterans last week and went up on the air yesterday with a response to a new ad about Medicare, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Last week Republican challenger Ben Lange launched his second tv spot, which depicts the national debt as unfair to the next generation.

More details on the new commercials, including videos and transcripts, are after the jump. Bleeding Heartland covered Braley’s opening tv spot here and Lange’s here.  

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office (pdf) show 666,279 active no-party voters statewide, 620,868 active Republicans, and 602,636 active Democrats. That represents slightly larger gains for Democrats than Republicans since the beginning of August. After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district.

Any comments about the 2012 elections in Iowa are welcome in this thread.

The Rothenberg Political Report’s latest rankings of competitive House districts does not include the IA-01 race between incumbent Bruce Braley and challenger Ben Lange. Rothenberg considers the IA-02 contest between incumbent Dave Loebsack and challenger John Archer to be “Democrat favored.” He puts the the “Toss-up/tilt Republican” label on both the IA-03 clash of incumbents Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham and the IA-04 race between incumbent Steve King and challenger Christie Vilsack. Although I haven’t seen internal polling from any of the Congressional races, I doubt that Vilsack has as good a chance of winning as Boswell. True, Boswell can’t keep pace with Latham’s fundraising. But he is an incumbent who’s represented most of the counties in IA-03 before and has outperformed the top of the Democratic ticket in previous presidential elections. He also faces a much smaller GOP voter registration advantage in his district, as you can see below.

Getting out the vote early was a major theme of President Barack Obama’s campaign rallies in Urbandale and Sioux City yesterday. Democratic candidates for other offices need a strong early vote as well, but there’s no sign the president is concerned about electing Democrats up and down the ticket.

At this time four years ago, Barack Obama’s campaign had about 30 field offices up and running in Iowa, compared to six offices for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Obama’s campaign has had eight Iowa field offices open this summer and is rolling out another 26 offices around Iowa this weekend. So far, Mitt Romney’s campaign has ten Iowa field offices, in addition to the unified Republican headquarters in Urbandale.

After the jump, I compare the field office locations for each presidential campaign, grouped by Iowa Congressional district. Where relevant, I’ve also noted competitive Iowa House and Senate districts near the Obama and Romney field offices, although I doubt either presidential campaign will do much for down-ticket Democratic or Republican candidates.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his running mate this morning: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chair of the U.S. House Budget Committee. The two men are launching a four-day bus tour today. I don’t know what surprises me more: Romney not choosing Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, or Ryan’s willingness to give up his committee chairmanship for a shot at the vice presidency.

Democratic House incumbents and challengers have already been running against the Ryan budget. Iowa’s representatives split on party lines when the House approved this plan in April 2011, and Representative Leonard Boswell was eager to draw this contrast between himself and IA-03 opponent Representative Tom Latham. Having Ryan on the Republican ticket ensures that tax and budget issues will be at the center of the presidential campaign discourse this fall. Ryan’s approach to solving the long-term deficit problem asks virtually nothing of wealthy people but would devastate Medicaid, not to mention the Medicare program for future retirees. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a new report on the Ryan plan’s impact on state budgets, along the Iowa Policy Project’s comment on how the Ryan budget would affect Iowa in particular.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I will update this post with Iowa reaction and more news and links after the jump. Representative Steve King was enthusiastic about the pick.

The Iowa State Fair opens this morning and runs through the evening of August 19. This thread is for any comments about the fair or advice for enjoying what can be an overwhelming experience. I’ve posted my suggestions after the jump.

All the Democratic and Republican candidates from Iowa’s four Congressional districts are scheduled to speak at the Des Moines Register’s “soapbox” between August 13 and 17. That schedule is at the end of this post. UPDATE: Some of the speaking times have changed on the soapbox schedule, and a few new speakers have been added, including Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

For the fifth month in a row, registered Republicans in Iowa outnumber registered Democrats. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office (pdf) show 659,838 active no-party voters statewide, 620,584 active Republicans, and 598,995 active Democrats.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. The most evenly-split county is still Decatur in south-central Iowa, with 1,723 registered Democrats, 1,791 Republicans, and 1,751 no-party voters as of August 2.

Any comments about the 2012 elections in Iowa are welcome in this thread.  

The U.S. House responded to this year’s widespread drought by passing an agricultural disaster assistance bill yesterday with unanimous support from Iowa’s five representatives. However, not all the Iowans were enthusiastic about the effort.

Meanwhile, four of Iowa’s five House members voted against adjourning for the August recess yesterday, in large part because of unfinished work on a farm bill. Details on those and other House votes affecting the agricultural sector are after the jump.

The U.S. House voted yesterday to extend for one year all the tax rates established by the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Without Congressional action, those tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012. Once again, three-term Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and eight-term Representative Leonard Boswell (IA-03) were among a small group of Democrats to vote for a GOP bill.

For every Congressional vote this year on a bill that might become law, there are lots of votes designed solely to make a political point. So it was with yesterday’s U.S. House vote on a bill to ban late-term abortions in Washington, DC.

For a good example of gamesmanship on Capitol Hill, look no further than yesterday’s U.S. House votes on offshore oil drilling. Republicans pushed a bill that won’t go anywhere in order to score points against the president’s energy policy. Democrats added language about U.S. sanctions against Iran and Syria to their motion to recommit in order to accuse Republicans of showing “reckless disregard for American national security.”

Yet again, Representatives Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) were among the Democrats who voted with Republicans on legislation affecting the oil industry.

Iowa’s five U.S. House members helped approve one of Representative Ron Paul’s top legislative priorities yesterday.  

Four of Iowa’s five Congressional incumbents go into the final months of the campaign with far more cash on hand than their opponents. Details from the second quarter filings with the Federal Election Commission are after the jump.

The latest round of reports cover funds Congressional candidates raised and spent between May 17 and June 30. Bleeding Heartland covered the first-quarter FEC reports here and the “pre-primary” reports covering April 1 to May 16 here.

The U.S. House approved a defense budget for fiscal year 2013 yesterday by 326 votes to 90 (roll call). Four of the five members of Iowa’s delegation supported the bill. After the jump I’ve posted details about how the Iowans voted on key defense budget amendments as well as on final passage. Statements released by each of the representatives are at the end of this post.

The U.S. House voted today to repeal the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as health care reform.  

The U.S. House is back in session this week, and it’s time for Bleeding Heartland to catch up on Congressional news from before the July 4 recess. After the jump I’ve posted details about how the Iowans voted on various bills and motions related to energy policy.

As a bonus, I’ve included some textbook sleight of hand by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. DCCC press releases hammered Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King for backing “Big Oil” interests during House debate on the Strategic Energy Production Act. But the DCCC glossed over the fact that Latham’s opponent in Iowa’s third district, Representative Leonard Boswell, was one of 19 House Democrats to vote with Republicans for final passage of that very bad bill.  

For the fourth month in a row, registered Republicans in Iowa outnumber registered Democrats. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office (pdf) show 655,457 active no-party voters statewide, 619,452 active Republicans, and 598,074 active Democrats. The number of registered Democrats rose slightly during the past month, but Republican ranks grew by much more, probably because of the many competitive GOP primaries on June 5.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. The most evenly-split county is still Decatur in south-central Iowa, with 1,741 registered Democrats, 1,799 Republicans, and 1,753 no-party voters as of July 2.

Any comments about the 2012 elections in Iowa are welcome in this thread.  

Happy 4th of July to the Bleeding Heartland community! I am celebrating the occasion with photos of red, white, and blue Iowa wildflowers. Click “there’s more” to view oswego tea, white snakeroot, and blue vervain.

The heat has been oppressive across Iowa lately. This afternoon I felt sorry for everyone in the Windsor Heights July 4 parade, including Representative Tom Latham, Representative Leonard Boswell, State Representative Chris Hagenow, his Democratic challenger Susan Judkins, and Democratic Iowa Senate candidate Desmund Adams.

I hope everyone stays safe and hydrated, and I am thinking of the veterans for whom today is a difficult holiday.

This is an open thread.

U.S. House Republicans voted yesterday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to release documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. Representative Leonard Boswell (IA-03) crossed party lines on that vote and on a related resolution authorizing civil court action to enforce a subpeona against the Justice Department.