Sometimes debate on a low-profile bill reveals a lot about how the Iowa legislature operates.

So it was on April 9, when the Iowa Senate took up House File 363, “an Act relating to the final disposition of remains.”

The bill was one of ten non-controversial measures (often called “non-cons”) that senators approved that day. But don’t be fooled by the 47-0 vote for final passage. The debate on this bill showed the Republican majority’s intensely partisan approach to legislating.

Robin Opsahl covers the state legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared. Brooklyn Draisley, Cami Koons, and Kathie Obradovich contributed to this article.

As the Iowa legislature advanced past the second major deadline of the 2025 session, conversations on pipelines, Medicaid work requirements and new higher education requirements are continuing through surviving bills—though agreements have not necessarily been reached between the two Republican-controlled chambers.

The session’s second “funnel” deadline is another checkpoint for lawmakers during the legislative session, culling the bills that remain eligible for consideration as the Legislature nears the end of session. During the first funnel, bills were required to gain approval by a committee in one chamber to survive. In the second funnel, bills must have passed in floor debate in one chamber and gained committee approval in the other chamber to remain eligible.

There are several exceptions to this deadline, such as bills involving taxes, spending and government oversight components, and they include the property tax legislation proposed by Iowa lawmakers. Legislative leaders can also sponsor a bill and bring it forward without abiding by the deadline.

In addition, the language of a bills considered “dead” because of the funnel can still be added, at any point, as an amendment to a surviving bill.

There are also several bills that remain eligible for consideration by being placed on the “unfinished business” calendar, allowing them to remain up for consideration during the remainder of the session.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

If you ask an Iowa educator what they need to be successful, you’ll get a list of things like, time to prepare, no legislative attacks, parental support, adequate supplies, administrative backing, and adequate school funding. 

What’s in House File 884 won’t be on the list. That bill allows public school districts and charter schools to hire or allow volunteer or paid chaplains, with no qualification requirements except to pass a background check. Iowa House Republicans approved the legislation on March 26, and Republicans on the Senate Education Committee advanced it on April 3, making the bill eligible for debate in the full Senate. 

Peggy Huppert retired in 2023 following a 43-year career with Iowa nonprofit organizations, including the American Cancer Society and NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) Iowa. She is also a long-time progressive political activist.

It does not surprise me, but disappoints me greatly, that the Iowa legislature is poised to adopt a policy requiring “able bodied” Medicaid recipients to work at least 80 hours a month in order to stay enrolled.

This is nothing new. Some Republicans tried to implement this in Iowa during Donald Trump’s first administration. As the head of NAMI Iowa, I successfully helped fight this legislation for four years before a reprieve during the Biden administration. Now, with an even larger majority in both the Iowa House and Senate, encouragement from our governor, and a green light from the new Trump administration, there is nothing holding the Republican majority back.

As a mental health advocate and family member of loved ones with serious mental illness, I would like to see the phrase “able bodied” (just like “It’s all in your head”) permanently retired from our lexicon.

UPDATE: On April 8, the governor set this special election for Tuesday, April 29. Original post follows.

Voters in southeast Cedar Rapids will soon elect a new member of the Iowa House. Democratic State Representative Sami Scheetz resigned from the legislature on April 1 after being appointed to fill a vacancy on the Linn County Board of Supervisors (District 2). In a news release, he vowed to “continue to fight for working people, invest in our community’s future, and make sure Linn County remains a place where families can thrive” in his new role.

Scheetz was serving his second term in the legislature, representing House district 78. A detailed map is at the top of this post or can be downloaded here.

 Ehren Leib is a laboratory technician in Coralville, Iowa. He is not a writer by profession, but dabbles when the mood fancies him.

I sent the letter enclosed below to all members of the Iowa House and Iowa Senate who voted for Senate File 418, which removed transgender protections from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, among other discriminatory provisions. It’s common to receive an automated reply from legislators, saying they prioritize emails from their own constituents.

If you support what I am requesting here, and you live in a district represented by a lawmaker who voted for SF 418 or know somebody who does, I ask you to send something along these lines to them. Here is a list of all legislators who voted for SF 418, and here is the directory where you can find your district number and the House and Senate members who represent you at the statehouse.

Matt Chapman serves on the board of Manufactured Housing Action and has been fighting for fair housing laws in Iowa for five years.

By copying the laws that govern manufactured housing parks, some Iowa legislators are trying to make illegal lease provisions legal for all Iowa rentals.

To get a good understanding of what is happening, we will start with some laws Iowa has already enacted, which are harmful for homeowners in Iowa’s manufactured housing parks. They have been inundated with private equity and vulture capitalists who want to extract as much wealth as possible and then move on.

The same trends are affecting single and multi-family rental housing, which is a much bigger sector in Iowa. This is why passing bills like Senate File 412 (or the similar House File 973) would make staying housed much harder and would cause more Iowans to suffer.

Chuck Isenhart is an investigative reporter, photographer and recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education and public affairs advocacy at his Substack newsletter Iowa Public Policy Geek, where this essay first appeared.

March 20 was the seventh anniversary of Sonia (Kendrick) Stover’s death, at age 40. The news was a blow to me and others in every way imaginable. The best I could do to mourn her passing was to make a point of personal privilege on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives, reading a story by Alison Gowans of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, to ensure that others knew of the loss the state had suffered.

First-term State Representative Brett Barker has acknowledged he made a “rookie mistake” when he authorized the distribution of a right-wing Christian pamphlet to all of his Iowa House colleagues. Barker told Bleeding Heartland he didn’t read the publication by Capitol Ministries before it was circulated in the chamber on March 19.

But Barker has not publicly disavowed the contents of the weekly “Bible Study,” which portrays political adversaries as tools of Satan, calls on believers to “evangelize their colleagues,” depicts same-sex marriage and LGBTQ existence as “satanic perversions,” and condemns “women’s liberation” as a “scheme of the devil.”

Staff for Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about their association with Capitol Ministries or the views expressed in its latest publication. Both Reynolds and Ernst are among the “Bible Study Sponsors” listed on the front page of the document distributed in the Iowa House.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Before Republicans gutted Iowa’s 42-year-old public sector bargaining law in 2017, collective bargaining was a lot like a middle school dance. At the start, there was a chasm between wannabe dancers. They huddled with their own group, talking about what might be.

Oh, so gradually they inched closer. One deal was done, then a couple more. Suddenly, the dance floor rocked until deadlines loomed, and the lights blazed on.

It’s never easy. But it worked, and the school district and association owned the results.

Fourth in a series on the new Iowa law that removed legal protection against discrimination for transgender and nonbinary Iowans, as well as any path for the state to officially recognize their gender identity.

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley has denied that GOP leaders threatened to block progress on unrelated legislation as a way to convince reluctant Republican lawmakers to vote for a bill targeting transgender Iowans.

Grassley made the comments during his weekly “gaggle” with statehouse reporters in the House chamber on March 13. Here’s the relevant exchange:

A strong Democratic ground game wasn’t quite enough to overcome the partisan lean and spending disparity in Iowa House district 100.

Republican Blaine Watkins will be the next representative for the district covering most of Lee County, after he won the March 11 special election by a surprisingly narrow margin.

Unofficial results indicate that Watkins received 2,749 votes to 2,574 for Democrat Nannette Griffin (51.5 percent to 48.2 percent). Voters living in this area preferred Donald Trump to Kamala Harris in the 2024 general election by 62.2 percent to 35.4 percent, according to Bleeding Heartland’s analysis of precinct-level results.

THE WINNING FORMULA FOR WATKINS

Griffin carried the early vote and two of the six precincts where polls were open on March 11: one in Fort Madison, where she has owned and operated a business for many years, and one in Keokuk. Watkins carried the other four election-day precincts by margins large enough to overcome Griffin’s advantage in absentee ballots. His best precinct was in Donnellson, where he grew up.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

(With apologies to the Twilight Zone creators)

You’re about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of anger and fear but of hypocrisy. A journey into a place where bipartisan thought is extinguished by blind obedience. A dimension that diminishes a state. It refuses to listen to cries for moderation and compromise. It’s a place where no position is too extreme. Bizarre becomes reality. There’s a signpost up ahead. 

You’ve entered the Golden Dome Zone.

There’s certainly something weird happening under that Golden Dome. Senate File 360 would have made it a simple misdemeanor in Iowa to provide or administer a gene-based vaccines like the mRNA ones for COVID-19. Republicans on a subcommittee advanced this bill, but it did not get through the full Senate Health and Human Services Committee before the “funnel” deadline on March 7.

But did it really die?

Third in a series on the new Iowa law that removed legal protection against discrimination for transgender and nonbinary Iowans, as well as any path for the state to officially recognize their gender identity.

Given the choice, most legislators will not cast a potentially career-ending vote—especially when they know the outcome isn’t riding on their decision.

But on February 27, five Republican members of the Iowa House voted against Senate File 418, the bill that laid the groundwork for future discrimination against transgender Iowans and others. A sixth GOP lawmaker (who left the capitol during the floor debate) later put a note in the House Journal to confirm he would have voted no.

These lawmakers come from different political backgrounds but have a couple of things in common. All represent heavily Republican areas, not swing districts—which means they are at greater risk of losing to a GOP primary challenger than to a Democrat in a general election. In addition, all have opposed at least one other high-profile bill the House approved during the past few years.

This post is mostly about the six Republicans who took a public stand against Senate File 418. I also discuss eight of their colleagues, who signaled they were uncomfortable with discrimination against transgender Iowans but eventually fell in line.

Second in a series on Iowa’s wide-ranging law that removed legal protection against discrimination for transgender and nonbinary Iowans, as well as any path for the state to officially recognize their gender identity.

Iowa Republicans made history in the worst way last week.

Effective July 1, 2025, the Iowa Civil Rights Act will no longer prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, or credit on the basis of gender identity. The state of Iowa also will stop issuing birth certificates that reflect a transgender person’s gender identity, and will officially recognize separate-but-equal accommodations as lawful.

Republicans sped up the legislative process to pass Senate File 418 in both chambers on February 27, only seven days after the bill text became public.

The Iowa Senate approved the bill on a party-line vote of 33 to 15. Less than an hour later, the House passed the bill by 60 votes to 36, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 418 on February 28.

Forthcoming articles will analyze this law’s impact on Iowans and the inevitable court challenge over some potentially unconstitutional provisions.

For now, I want to highlight a selection of compelling appeals the majority party ignored: six from Iowans whom this law will directly harm, and six from allies of the trans community.

All of the videos enclosed below came from either the floor debates or the Iowa House public hearing held on the morning of February 27. It was very hard to choose just a few testimonies. You can watch the entire public hearing here or here, the full Iowa Senate floor debate here, and the Iowa House debate here.

Linda Schreiber is a member of the League of Women Voters of Johnson County.

This past week, Iowa’s legislature rolled back human rights for transgender people. Senate File 418 was rushed from draft bill to passage within a week and sent to Governor Kim Reynolds, who signed it on February 28.

Iowans should ask questions.

This law is not about transgender women playing sports. Fewer than ten collegiate student-athletes out of more than 500,000 across the country identify as transgender, Charlie Baker, the N.C.A.A. president, said in January.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

We’ve all attended parties living two hours beyond when it should die. The conversation ends, the chip dip separates, there’s more empty beer cans than full. But there’s always someone trying to keep it alive. 

We all know that guy.  He tells another loud, obnoxious joke.  As yawns drown out the music, he shouts, “Let’s play a drinking game.” 

There’s a mad dash for the door. It’s time to go home.

Tanya Keith is an activist and small business owner in Des Moines.

I got a text from my oldest, who is currently in college in Massachusetts, asking me to go stand up for trans rights as the state capitol this week. Republicans in the Iowa legislature have proposed through House File 583 and Senate File 418 to strip trans and non-binary people of their civil rights. I wanted to go for my own reasons, but my child asking me to go made it an essential errand for me.

John Kenyon is the executive director of the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization.

Last week I read a book from the Iowa City Public Library that depicted a sex act. Actually, more than one. According to a bill proposed in the state legislature this session, it would be illegal for the library to have that book in its collection.

That’s it. The presence of one scene negates everything else in the book in their eyes. There is no allowance for context, nuance, or artistic merit. It would simply be gone.

UPDATE: Following committee passage, this bill was renumbered House File 583. The companion legislation is Senate File 418. Both chambers approved the bill on February 27, and Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 418 into law the following day. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2025. Original post follows.

Republican members of the Iowa House and Senate have introduced dozens of bills targeting LGBTQ people since the GOP gained full control of state government in 2017. But the latest bill to drop broke new ground in several ways.

House Judiciary Committee chair Steven Holt introduced House Study Bill 242, “an Act relating to sex and gender,” on February 20. He intends to put it on a fast track to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk. A subcommittee meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 24, at 11:00 a.m. Republican State Representative Brian Lohse posted on Facebook that the plan is for the full Judiciary Committee to consider the bill on Monday afternoon, and for leaders to bring it up for a House floor vote on February 27.

On its face, the bill would ensure that transgender and nonbinary Iowans have no legal protection against discrimination and no official recognition of their gender identity.

In addition, the bill’s impact could extend beyond the LGBTQ community to threaten civil rights protections for other groups.

Khayree Duckett is a Mount Pleasant, Iowa native with ties to Republican campaigns and elected officials. He does advocacy work with a national developer, owner, and manager of affordable housing and lives in Carrollton, Texas with his wife and son.

One byproduct of our polarized and fragmented public discourse is that public service rarely produces “giants” of bipartisan acclaim. There was a time when figures like U.S. Senator Bob Dole and U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill—partisans to their core—were still respected across the aisle as leaders who could bridge divides.

That era is fading, but Dave Heaton was one of its last practitioners, a statesman who understood that effective governance requires both conviction and compromise.

With his passing this month, Mount Pleasant lost one of its best, and I have lost one of my idols. When describing my high school years, I often joke that I didn’t play football, but I got to practice with the team. As a dorky teenager, politics was my passion instead, and Dave was my mentor from an early age, guiding me as I first got involved—going all the way back to middle school.

On numerous occasions, Dave and I would sit at Dickey’s while he humored my thoughts and opinions on things I knew so little about. We would spend an entire Saturday morning in these discussions while he drank black coffee, and I imagine he held back a few laughs as he watched me attempt to do the same.

Peggy Huppert retired as the executive director of NAMI Iowa in 2023 after 43 years serving nonprofits as a communications, development, government relations and executive director. She has been active in Democratic politics since 1984.

It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune. -Sophocles

Dave Heaton was the definition of a Good Man.

He lived his life with honor and in service. He was loyal, hard working and dedicated. He was compassionate and empathetic. He followed through with things to the end. He didn’t care about praise or recognition. He cared about helping others.

Dave left this world on February 12 at the age of 84. He will be remembered and missed by many, including some you might not expect.

Dr. Shawn Ellerbroek, Wartburg College Professor of Biochemistry and Direstor of Student Research, previously was a full-time cancer research scientist at the University of North Carolina and remains active in cancer research. He currently serves as a member of the Waverly-Shell Rock School Board. This essay first appeared in the Waverly Democrat on February 13.

Cancer sucks. And Iowa, once again, has the second highest cancer rate in the country. Our cancer rates are rising faster than any state, so unfortunately we could soon be number one in America. 

Sometimes I hear, “Oh, it is because Iowa has more old people.” Age does matter when it comes to cancer, but that is not the reason; Iowa’s median age (39.1) is near the national median (39.2) and the same as states whose cancer rates are dropping. 

As a cancer research scientist, I’ve read and heard many opinions about what might be causing Iowa’s cancer problem. Cancer is multifactorial, meaning many chemicals (and UV light) can cause and promote it, making it a big challenge to pinpoint primary causes. 

Legislative clerk Blaine Watkins will be the Republican candidate for the March 11 special election in Iowa House district 100, covering most of Lee County. Three other Republicans also competed for the nomination at a February 13 special convention. Watkins easily won with more than 70 percent of the delegates’ weighted votes on the first ballot.

Chuck Vandenberg reported for the Pen City Current that Watkins “told the convention that he had three issues he wanted to tackle right away, if elected”: property taxes, school choice and parental rights, and economic growth and jobs.

According to his LinkedIn page, Watkins graduated from Grand View University in December 2024, having majored in political science with a minor in business. He has clerked in the Iowa Senate for the past five years—first for former State Senator Craig Williams in 2021 and 2022, then for State Senator Jeff Reichman (who represents this part of southeast Iowa) since the 2023 session.

Watkins continues a trend of Republican legislative candidates who previously worked as clerks for Iowa GOP lawmakers. The most recent example was David Blom, the successful 2024 GOP challenger in House district 52, covering the Marshalltown area. Candidates with clerking experience are already steeped in the culture of the Golden Dome and will likely be reliable votes for leadership.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com  

In the fall of 1975, I was a freshman at Central College in Pella, Iowa. I had spent the summer detasseling corn, so college rescued me from dew-drenched mornings and sweat-dripping afternoons.

I graduated from high school with twelve other students. I wasn’t the valedictorian or even salutatorian, but I was in the top ten. With that academic record, graduation from college was the goal, but it certainly wasn’t a given.

Like all freshmen, I first had to conquer general education requirements. One of those was a religion class. I attended Sunday school and church my whole life, so I registered for New Testament.

Nannette Griffin announced on February 10 that she will seek the Democratic nomination for the coming special election in Iowa House district 100. A lifelong resident of southeast Iowa, Griffin is the founder and owner of Griffin Muffler & Brake Center, a longstanding auto repair business in Fort Madison. She has been active in numerous civic organizations and received an award for women entrepreneurs from the Small Business Development Centers of Iowa.

Griffin was the 2024 Democratic challenger in Iowa Senate district 50, which includes this area as well as House district 99, covering the city of Burlington and its surroundings.

In a news release, Griffin said, “I decided to run for the Iowa House because I know that Lee County families and workers need a real voice in the state legislature.” She added,

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.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com  

In 1989, the movie Field of Dreams painted an idyllic picture of Iowa. The most iconic scene was when a ghostly player asks, “Is this heaven?” Ray, played by Kevin Costner, answers, “No, it’s Iowa.”

More than three decades later, even those with rose colored glasses wouldn’t mistake Iowa for heaven. It’s changed. 

Once, both political parties valued protecting children. It was a core value.

But that’s gone. It’s buried next to “Iowa nice.”

Here’s what led to its death.

Iowa House members were shocked and saddened on January 31 as news spread that their colleague, Republican State Representative Martin Graber, had died of a heart attack. Graber had been at the capitol the previous day, voting for the first three bills debated on the House floor during the 2025 legislative session.

A financial adviser in Fort Madison and former brigadier general in the Iowa National Guard (now retired), Graber was first elected to the Iowa House in 2020, defeating a Democratic incumbent. He just won a third term by more than a two-to-one margin in November.

Graber chaired the new Federal and Other Funds Appropriations subcommittee (established before the 2025 legislative session) and also served on the Local Government and Economic Growth and Technology committees. He previously chaired the Economic Development Appropriations subcommittee and served on the Commerce and Veterans Affairs panels.

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.

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

As Iowa legislature began its 2025 session on January 13, members of the LGBTQ community held more seats than ever, and representation for people of color matched the record set following the 2022 elections.

However, fewer women now serve in the Iowa House and Senate. Religious diversity will also decline, even though State Senator Janice Weiner became the highest-ranking Iowa legislator to adhere to a non-Christian faith tradition.

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.

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.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. A version of this essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

Here we are again.

We saw this last year with them calling for the Satanic Temple of Iowa’s holiday display “objectionable.” We saw this in the last few years with Governor Kim Reynolds signing the “religious freedom restoration act,” which critics correctly claimed would privilege Christianity and religion over other faiths and irreligion.

We saw this with the Republican administration taking public dollars from public schools and sending them to unscrupulous and unaccountable religious institutions. We saw this with the state legislature mandating an oath to a deity in classrooms statewide with the pledge of allegiance in public schools.  We saw this in the last ten years with the Muslim ban from President Donald Trump. We saw this in the last decades when the atheists wanted to run some bus ads or put up billboards.

Time and again we see the Republican Party, particularly the Republican Party of Iowa, finding new and ever more egregious ways to privilege their favored flavor of religion—Christianity—at the public’s expense.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

The autopsy

Belatedly, I listened to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast released on November 28. I say “belatedly” because, since the election, a new “breaking news” story surfaces every day, usually one more shocking than the day before. It has been doubly true in the week since Thanksgiving. 

News not available to the Down Ballot panelists at the time of their forum is the full lineup of nominees President-elect Donald Trump has chosen for his cabinet. It is each day’s big news story. Matt Gaetz (“a” before “e” except after “c”) is already old news, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth (I hope I never have to learn to spell or pronounce that name) seems to be the worst of the bad boys.

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.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. He first published this essay on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

A common refrain, particularly in centrist-to-liberal spaces, is that in order to make any kind of progress or reach consensus, we must always be conciliatory and tread lightly when discussing topics with folks who oppose the prevailing Democratic viewpoint.

The post-election analysis of 2016 was a good example of this, when “economic anxiety” became a stand-in for folks who were just uninformed on the issues. We saw it again in 2020 with folks being “skeptical of COVID” instead of simply uninformed.

Already, we are seeing it again—but notably, a lot less—in the aftermath of the 2024 election. We hear folks were “worried about the economy” despite, once again, folks just being uninformed.

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.

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

Iowans could reasonably view the 2016 general election as an anomaly. Diverging sharply from the national mood, this state voted for Donald Trump by more than a 9-point margin, even as Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular vote by a little more than 2 points. But maybe that was a one-off; Iowa had been a swing state for the previous six presidential elections.

When Joe Biden failed to flip a single Iowa county in 2020—even heavily Catholic counties where he should have done substantially better than Clinton—I concluded that Iowa was no longer a swing state. That post got some pushback from Democrats who thought I was reading too much into the results.

Trump’s third win in Iowa, by his largest margin yet, underscores how far this state has moved from the center of the national electorate. As Democrats search for a way back to winning more statewide and down-ballot races, they need to recognize that reality.

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

The 2024 elections could hardly have gone worse for Iowa Democrats. Donald Trump carried the state by more than 13 points—a larger margin than Ronald Reagan managed here in either of his campaigns, and the largest winning margin for any presidential candidate in Iowa since Richard Nixon in 1972. The GOP swept the Congressional races for the second straight cycle and expanded their lopsided majorities in the legislature.

Support for Democrats has eroded in Iowa communities of all sizes—from large metro areas like Scott County (which voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time since 1984) to rural counties that were always red, but now routinely deliver more than 70 percent of the vote to GOP candidates.

This post highlights the growing problem for Democrats in Iowa’s mid-sized cities. I focus on eleven counties where Democratic candidates performed well in the recent past, but now trail Republicans in state and federal races.

Changing political trends in mid-sized cities explain why Democrats will have smaller contingents in the Iowa House and Senate than at any time since 1970. Voters in six of these counties also saved U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks from a strong challenge by Democrat Christina Bohannan in the first Congressional district.