Polls close at 9 pm, and I’ll be updating this post regularly with primary election results. Rumor has it that turnout was relatively low, even on the Republican side where there are hard-fought primaries for U.S. Senate and the third Congressional district. According to the Polk County Auditor’s office, as of this afternoon only 1,506 absentee ballots had been requested and 1,350 absentee ballots received for today’s GOP primary. Keep in mind that roughly half of all Republican voters in IA-03 live in Polk County, and six campaigns were competing for their votes. Not to mention that five U.S. Senate candidates should have been locking in early votes in Iowa’s largest county.

By comparison, 2,883 Democratic primary absentee ballots were requested in Polk County, and 2,296 of those returned by today. The lion’s share were from Iowa Senate district 17 in Des Moines, where three candidates are seeking to replace Jack Hatch (2,475 absentee ballots requested and 1,950 returned). Democratic campaigns have long pushed early voting more than Republicans, but still–that’s a shocking failure to GOTV by the various Republican campaigns.

Share any comments about any Iowa campaigns in this thread, as well as any interesting anecdotes from voting today.

UPDATE: Polls are now closed and updates will continue after the jump.

I forgot to put up this year’s primary election prediction contest earlier this week, but better late than never. To enter, post your answers to the twelve questions after the jump as a comment in this thread sometime before 7 am central time on Tuesday, June 3. It’s fine to change your mind about some or all of your answers, as long as you post a comment with your new predictions before the deadline.  

Only comments posted in this thread will be valid contest entries. Predictions submitted by e-mail or twitter will not be considered. Please try to answer every question, even if it’s just a wild guess. We’re all guessing anyway, since few polls have been published about these races.

The winner receives no cash or other prizes–just bragging rights in the Bleeding Heartland community. Can someone stop ModerateIADem from “three-peating”? He won both the 2010 and the 2012 primary election prediction contests.  

Loras College in Dubuque released its first-ever set of polls on Iowa Congressional primaries this week. Click here for the polling memo and here (pdf) for further details, including the full questionnaires.

After the jump I’ve posted my thoughts on what these polls tell us about the front-runners (or lack thereof) in each primary. Unfortunately, a big methodological flaw makes it more difficult to interpret the results.

Three candidates qualified for the Republican primary ballot in Iowa’s second Congressional district, but the latest fundraising reports suggest that Mariannette Miller-Meeks will get a third chance at beating Representative Dave Loebsack.

Follow me after the jump for details on the first-quarter reports each candidate in IA-02 filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Catching up on news from last week, Mariannette Miller-Meeks filed a formal statement of candidacy in Iowa’s second district with the Federal Election Commission (hat tip to Greg Hauenstein). An ophthalmologist based in Ottumwa, Miller-Meeks was the Republican nominee against Representative Dave Loebsack in both 2008 and 2010. She served as director of the Iowa Department of Public Health from early 2011 until resigning last month.

I have not seen any formal campaign announcement yet from Miller-Meeks, but she has been attending central committee meetings and other Republican events around the 24 counties in IA-02 for some time. During the past month, she has met with GOP central committee members in Johnson County, Marion County, and Mahaska County. She attended an off-year caucus in the Quad Cities (Scott County). Last week Miller-Meeks tweeted a photo of her campaign co-chairs in Muscatine County–the home base for State Representative Mark Lofgren, who announced his campaign in IA-02 last summer. Lofgren has a lot of support in the GOP establishment but has not raised much money for his Congressional bid.

Can someone please explain Mark Lofgren to me? If you’re going to the trouble of getting in a Congressional race early and lining up a bunch of endorsements (presumably to deter would-be rivals in your own party), why wouldn’t you work hard on fundraising? Lofgren’s year-end financial report was even weaker than his third-quarter Federal Election Commission filing, which is saying something.

Lofgren isn’t giving four-term Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack a thing to worry about, and he’s leaving the door wide open for Mariannette Miller-Meeks to come in and take the Republican primary to represent IA-02. Follow me after the jump for details from the FEC reports.  

Governor Terry Branstad’s office announced today that the governor accepted Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ resignation as director of the Iowa Department of Public Health. I’ve posted the press release after the jump. It does not explain why Miller-Meeks stepped down after nearly three years running the state agency.

Yesterday Miller-Meeks told the Des Moines Register that her false comment about Mountain Dew being the top purchase for Iowa food stamp recipients was “not political at all.”

“What I was trying to – perhaps not deftly – argue or state was: Should we have nutritional education for SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], like we do for WIC [aid for Women, Infants and Children], and some prohibition for certain items?”

I would guess that her resignation is related to plans to run for Congress in Iowa’s second district, not any gaffe about food stamps. Heck, in the Republican Party what Miller-Meeks said probably isn’t even a gaffe.  

In an excellent two-part series on food stamps and the need for food assistance in Iowa, Mike Wiser caught Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks in an embarrassing lie:

“The No. 1 food item bought with food stamps in Iowa is Mountain Dew,” said Miller-Meeks, director of the Iowa Department of Public Health [in a speech to the World Food Prize Hunger Week symposium in October].

Several in the audience of a few hundred — an international crowd of academics, journalists and nonprofit types — shook their heads or smiled with bemusement. Phones came out, tweets were sent.

But what Miller-Meeks said wasn’t true.

At least not in any verifiable way. The Iowa Department of Human Services — the state agency that oversees the food stamp program, correctly called Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, in Iowa — doesn’t track food purchases down to the brand of soft drink. Asked where she came up with the statistic, Miller-Meeks later said through a spokesperson she “found it online” but couldn’t remember where.

Bleeding Heartland has long argued against cutting food assistance for many reasons. The SNAP program addresses real need efficiently and is rarely abused. In addition, government spending on food assistance has tremendous “bang for the buck” compared to most other policies designed to stimulate the economy. I recommend reading the full text of Wiser’s latest reports on the rhetoric and reality of the food stamp debate and on reasons private aid agencies are struggling to help all the hungry Iowans.

Today I want to speculate on how a fake “fact” about food stamp purchases landed on Miller-Meeks’ radar.

I’ve heard several accounts of a push-poll going around Iowa’s second Congressional district since shortly before Thanksgiving. The call apparently asks about four-term incumbent Dave Loebsack, his declared Republican opponent Mark Lofgren, and his 2008 and 2010 opponent Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who appears likely to run for Congress again. Some Republican-aligned entity clearly paid for the calls, because the script alleges that millions of people have lost their health care (a reference to many health insurance plans being cancelled for not meeting new federal requirements). The script also suggests that Loebsack lied about the health care reform law he voted for in 2010.

I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to stay on the line and take notes whenever you receive a push-poll or a legitimate survey testing messages for or against any candidate. If you received a call like this recently in IA-02, any details you can remember would be helpful, such as the question wording, question order, or who paid for the call (should be mentioned at the end). You can either post information in this thread or contact me confidentially: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

One person thought the call came from “Victory Polling.” The Davenport-based political consulting firm Victory Enterprises has a polling division and has been doing work for Lofgren’s campaign. It’s also possible that the National Republican Congressional Committee or some conservative group that gets involved in House races would pay for calls hitting Loebsack on health care reform.  

Kevin Hall reported for The Iowa Republican blog yesterday that a fourth candidate is planning to seek the GOP nomination in the open Iowa House district 91. Republican State Representative Mark Lofgren is vacating the seat to run for Congress against four-term Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack. It’s a swing district where President Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, even as Lofgren was re-elected.

Hall provided some background on Gary Carlson:

Carlson is an executive with HNI, the parent company of HON Furniture in Muscatine. HNI is a global company, with 10,000 employees. Prior to being a vice-president at HNI, Carlson was the president and CEO of the Muscatine Chamber of Commerce. He also served as the vice-president at the Bandag Corporation, where he managed Bandag operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa from 1974-1997.

I wonder whether all three other declared GOP candidates in House district 91 (Emily Lofgren, Mark LeRette, and Mark Cisneros) will follow through before the filing deadline next March. So far only one Democratic candidate has announced in the district, John Dabeet.

Speaking of Mark Lofgren, I find it pathetic that ten days into the federal government shutdown, he’s said nothing about the situation on his Congressional campaign website, twitter feed, or Facebook page. Most of the Iowans running for Congress have given some idea of whether they favor a “clean” continuing spending resolution to fund the federal government, or whether they would insist on conditions such as defunding/delaying the 2010 health care reform law. Lofgren is doing lit drops and attending Republican fundraisers, but he has nothing to say to a wider audience about the most important job of Congress: passing a budget. If Mariannette Miller-Meeks takes another shot at IA-02 (and I think she will), I hope she destroys Lofgren in the primary. She crushed three GOP rivals in 2010 before losing the general election to Loebsack.

UPDATE: Bleeding Heartland user Columcille points out in the comments that Emily Lofgren dropped out of the House district 91 race on October 11. She says she will focus on getting her father elected to Congress. Lofgren ran her father’s 2010 Iowa House campaign against a Democratic incumbent.

It’s time for a new post on how Iowa’s representatives in the U.S. House and Senate are handling the ongoing shutdown of non-essential federal government operations. (Click here for details on Congressional votes and Iowa political reaction up to October 1.)

Thousands of Iowans who work for the federal government or serve in the National Guard still have no idea when they’ll receive their next paycheck. The best news I’ve heard all week is that an estimated 66,000 Iowa women and children who receive benefits through the WIC program will get their checks for October, at least.  

Although there has been no progress toward an agreement on a continuing spending resolution, I’ve noticed one big change in Iowa Congressional voting during the last few days. Whereas Representatives Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were sticking with most of their fellow Democrats in earlier votes on federal spending, this week both Braley and Loebsack have joined House Republican attempts to fund the federal government in bits and pieces. Follow me after the jump for more details.

The 2014 fiscal year began at midnight. Congress is ringing in the occasion with the first partial federal government shutdown since the mid-1990s. The U.S. House and Senate have been unable to agree on a continuing spending resolution, because most House Republicans insist on defunding or delaying the 2010 health care reform law as a condition of funding most government operations.

Details on Iowa Congressional votes on budget resolutions are after the jump, along with comments from all the Iowans in Congress and many of the candidates for U.S. House or Senate.

Authorization for most federal agricultural programs also expired at midnight, and it’s not clear when Congress will be able to agree on a short-term extension or a new five-year farm bill. Toward the end of this post I’ve enclosed some comments on the failure to pass a farm bill.

A few months ago, Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks confirmed that she is considering a third Congressional campaign against Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02). I am becoming more and more convinced that she will enter the Republican primary, where she would face State Representative Mark Lofgren.

Public policy has been slow to make a dent in the obesity epidemic, which turns out to be “a lot more deadly than previously thought.” But a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that Iowa is one of eighteen states where obesity among low-income preschoolers declined by a statistically significant amount from 2008 through 2011. An estimated 14.4 percent of low-income two- to four-year-olds in Iowa were obese in 2011. Iowa Department of Public Health officials credited several programs with helping to reverse the trend.

Adult obesity is still a major health problem, according to the latest “F as in Fat” report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Iowa had the twelfth-highest adult obesity rate in the country at 30.4 percent in 2012. The sort-of good news was that for the first time in decades, obesity rates held steady in most states. But it’s depressing to see that the adult obesity rate exceeds 20 percent in even the “healthiest” state of Colorado now. As recently as 1991, not a single state had an obesity rate that high.

Speaking to Radio Iowa about the new obesity estimates, Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks had sensible advice:

“People don’t have to go out and do a programmed physical aerobics program for 30 minutes or an hour or two hours a day. […] Just eating less, a plant slant to your diet, and trying to get in 30 minutes of exercise a day.”

Mark my words: the Iowa Farm Bureau and other groups representing industrial agriculture will go nuts over Dr. Miller-Meeks encouraging Iowans to bring “a plant slant” to their diet, especially if she runs for Congress a third time in Iowa’s second district. But here’s an inconvenient truth for Big Ag: peer-reviewed research shows that “meat consumption is associated with obesity” in U.S. adults.

Here’s the second inconvenient truth: even if everyone ate responsibly and exercised regularly, Americans would be more prone to obesity because of exposure to certain chemicals, such as the endocrine disruptors Bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates, and some organotins used in pesticides. Long-term, low-level exposure to the prevalent herbicide atrazine can cause insulin resistance and obesity too (click here for an explanation of that research in layman’s terms).

Three years ago, a White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity called on federal and state agencies to “prioritize research into the effects of possibly obesogenic chemicals.” That won’t happen in my lifetime, at least not in Iowa.

P.S.- For anyone wondering, Iowa Department of Public Health Medical Director Dr. Patricia Quinlisk warns against ingesting a tapeworm as a weight-loss method.

State Representative Mark Lofgren of Muscatine will formally announce tomorrow that he is running against four-term Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district, James Q. Lynch reported today for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. After the jump I’ve posted Lofgren’s official bio and material from the “issues” and “endorsements” pages of his campaign website. Of the seventeen current Iowa House Republicans and four former state representatives who have endorsed Lofgren, four live in Loebsack’s district. Dan Dolan, who lost last year’s GOP primary in IA-02 to John Archer, has also endorsed Lofgren.

As of June 2013, the 24 counties in IA-02 contain 170,130 active registered Democrats, 138,390 Republicans, and 180,950 no-party voters. Loebsack defeated Archer by a comfortable margin in 2012, but in the 2010 midterm election he needed help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to fend off a challenge by Mariannette Miller-Meeks, winning by only about 11,000 votes in what was then a more Democratic-leaning district.

Governor Terry Branstad appointed Miller-Meeks to lead the Iowa Department of Public Health in 2011. The GOP challenger to Loebsack in 2008 as well as 2010, Miller-Meeks has attended some Republican Party events this year and confirmed last week that she is still considering a third Congressional bid. Having fallen short in the 2010 Republican wave, Miller-Meeks would likely face an uphill battle persuading GOP primary voters that she deserves another chance to win this district.

Lofgren’s decision leaves Iowa House district 91 open for the 2014 election cycle. This swing district currently contains 6,300 registered Democrats, 6,291 Republicans, and 8,401 no-party voters. A detailed district map is at the bottom of this post. Democrat Nathan Reichert represented the Muscatine area in the Iowa House for three terms, losing to Lofgren in the 2010 wave. Lofgren defeated Democratic challenger John Dabeet last year by 915 votes.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Rand Paul was in Cedar Rapids on Friday to headline the Republican Party of Iowa’s spring fundraiser. Links and highlights are after the jump. Nothing I read convinced me that Paul has any chance of becoming president someday, but count on him to try.

Speaking of Rand, did you know that he was never board-certified? I learned that recently from an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon. After I mentioned that Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks is also an ophthalmologist, she looked up Miller-Meeks in the academy database and commented, “She’s well-trained.” Miller-Meeks did her residency at the University of Iowa and a fellowship at the University of Michigan. She is board-certified and was re-certified about ten years ago.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. In previous years I’ve posted Mother’s Day links here, here, and here. Best wishes to those who celebrate today, and healing thoughts to those who grieve on Mother’s Day.

Iowa’s Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman announced today by e-mail that she will not seek another term on the RNC this summer.

Iowa House Assistant Majority Leader Steve Lukan announced yesterday that he will not seek a sixth term in the state legislature. His retirement improves Democrats’ prospects of picking up the new Iowa House district 57.

UPDATE: Democrat Nancy Dunkel is running in this House district. Background from her January 6 press release is below.

October 15 was the deadline for Congressional candidates to file reports on their third-quarter fundraising with the Federal Election Commission. Follow me after the jump for highlights from the filings for incumbents and challengers in Iowa’s four new Congressional districts.

I’m covering the districts in reverse order today, because based on second-quarter filings, political junkies are most closely watching the money race in IA-04 and IA-03.

Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Friday reversed plans to eliminate the top administrator’s position at the Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control. Her comments came several hours after Democratic State Senator Jack Hatch predicted “legal action” to challenge the way IDPH downsized its smoking prevention programs.

Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks insisted on August 1 that state efforts to reduce and prevent smoking will continue deep despite budget cuts, which just cost a senior department staffer her job.

Representative Dave Loebsack has closed on a new house in Iowa City, a move that will enable him to run for re-election next year in Iowa’s second Congressional district. The new map of political boundaries put Loebsack’s longtime Linn County home in the first district, represented by fellow Democrat Bruce Braley. Loebsack announced plans to move into IA-02 the first day Iowa’s map was proposed.

Loebsack said he chose Iowa City in order to be close to his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Johnson County has the second-largest population in the new IA-02 and is Iowa’s most Democratic-leaning county by far, with more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. As of July 2011, the county dominated by Iowa City and its suburbs contained 40,177 registered Democrats, 18,275 Republicans and 31,927 no-party voters.

Since winning the 2006 election, Loebsack has represented Iowa’s current IA-02, which has a partisan voting index of D+7. In other words, in last two presidential elections, the current IA-02 voted about seven points more Democratic than the national average. Loebsack won re-election in 2008 by more than a 20-point margin against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but he was sweating it last fall. Both his campaign and the and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put up negative television commercials against repeat GOP nominee Miller-Meeks (see here, here and here). Loebsack ended up winning by a 51.0 percent to 45.9 percent margin.

The new IA-02 has a partisan voting index of about D+4. According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the Congressional district contained 503,218 active registered voters as of July 2011: 178,562 registered Democrats, 139,359 Republicans, and 184,692 no-party voters.

Not only does Loebsack’s new district lean slightly less Democratic, the incumbent has never represented its most populous county. Scott County includes the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. As of July 2011, it contained 36,303 registered Democrats, 30,305 Republicans and 46,914 no-party voters. Braley lost Scott County in his narrow 2010 win over Republican Ben Lange in IA-01. Lange said in May that he will not move to IA-02 to challenge Loebsack. He has not ruled out a rematch against Braley in the new IA-01.

On July 6, Republican John Archer announced that he has filed paperwork to run for Congress in IA-02. Archer lives in Bettendorf, one of the Quad Cities, and is senior legal counsel for the John Deere company. He also serves on the Pleasant Valley school board. So far Archer’s campaign website has only buttons for donors and volunteers and a link to the candidate’s Facebook page. After the jump I’ve posted the full text of his campaign announcement.

Last month another Scott County Republican, Dan Dolan of Blue Grass, said he would challenge Loebsack in 2012.

Dolan, who has operated Dan Dolan Homes in Davenport for 20 years, said his decision to run is motivated by frustration with what he describes as “professional politicians.” […] Dolan is upset with the nation’s accumulation of debt and what he sees as an unwillingness by those already in office to do anything about it. […]

Dolan said the recent congressional redistricting in Iowa helped motivate him to consider running for office. He noted that the new district boundaries comprise a large portion of the areas where his company has a presence with housing developments.

According to dandolanhomes.com, Dolan’s company has housing developments in Davenport, Muscatine, Blue Grass, Clinton, LeClaire and Iowa City.

Democratic-leaning Clinton County is the third most-populous in the new IA-02, and Loebsack has not represented that county before either. Braley carried Clinton against Lange in 2010.

UPDATE: Tea party activist Richard Gates announced plans last month to run for the Republican nomination in IA-02. He is a veteran and machinist from Keokuk (Lee County), and also midwest administrator for the conservative group 912 Patriots for Action. Inspired by Glenn Beck, he became active in politics in early 2009. He supports replacing all income and corporate taxes with a consumption tax (the so-called “fair tax” reform). During the last election cycle, Gates endorsed Chris Reed, who finished third out of four candidates in the IA-02 primary.

Lee County leans Democratic, but it has one of the highest unemployment rates in Iowa. Loebsack barely led Miller-Meeks there in 2010.

On a party-line 26 to 23 vote, the Iowa Senate today approved a bill to restrict the locations of clinics where abortions are performed after 20 weeks gestation. Senators also rejected an attempt to bring up a broader ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

Follow me after the jump for background and details on the Senate debate, including the various amendments Republicans offered.

Governor Terry Branstad announced some important personnel decisions in the past few days, naming former State Representative Libby Jacobs to chair the Iowa Utilities Board and three new members of the Board of Regents, including Bruce Rastetter.

Follow me after the jump for more on those and other Branstad administration appointments.

UPDATE: On March 1 President Barack Obama named Branstad to co-chair the Council of Governors, “established by the National Defense Authorization Act in 2008 to strengthen further partnership between the Federal and State governments as it pertains to national security.” Branstad will serve a two-year term as co-chair.

SECOND UPDATE: Branstad announced more than 200 appointments to state boards and commissions on March 2. Bleeding Heartland covered the four appointees to the Environmental Protection Commission here; all have ties to large agribusiness.

Another name that caught my eye was Eric Goranson, a lobbyist and parochial schools advocate whom Branstad named to the State Board of Education. He has been a leading critic of the Iowa Core Curriculum (see here and here). The Under the Golden Dome Blog argues that Goranson’s appointment may violate Iowa code, which states, “A voting member [of the Board of Education] shall not be engaged in professional education for a major portion of the member’s time nor shall the member derive a major portion of income from any business or activity connected with education.” Several of Goranson’s lobbying clients represent religious private schools or Christian home-schooling parents.

THIRD UPDATE: I forgot to mention Branstad’s two appointees to the State Judicial Nominating Commission: Helen St. Clair of Melrose and William Gustoff of Des Moines. I have been unable to find any information about Helen St. Clair, but a Maurice St. Clair of Melrose was among Branstad’s top 20 individual donors, contributing more than $45,000 to the gubernatorial campaign. I assume he is related to Helen St. Clair and will update this post if I confirm that. William Gustoff is a founding partner of the Whitaker Hagenow law firm, which includes Republican former U.S. attorney Matt Whitaker and State Representative Chris Hagenow. Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley also worked at Whitaker Hagenow last year.

Governor-elect Terry Branstad announced today that ophthalmologist Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks will run the Iowa Department of Public Health in his administration. A press release noted that Miller-Meeks “has served as the first woman President of the Iowa Medical Society and was the first [woman] on the faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa and councilor for Iowa to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.” Miller-Meeks was the Republican nominee in Iowa’s second Congressional district in 2008 and 2010. She worked hard during both campaigns but lost to Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s most Democratic-leaning Congressional district.

Also on December 9, Branstad announced that he will tap Chuck Palmer to head the Department of Human Services in his administration. Palmer did that job during Branstad’s previous time as governor from 1989 to 1999. Most recently he has been president of Iowans for Social and Economic Development, “an asset development organization with the mission of creating opportunities for low and moderate income Iowans to increase income and achieve financial stability.”

Branstad has pledged to reduce the size of state government by 15 percent, and keeping that promise would likely require significant cuts in the departments Miller-Meeks and Palmer will be running. The current budget (fiscal year 2011) allocated $935.5 million from the general fund to health and human services. That’s 17.7 percent of the general fund budget alone, or 15.9 percent of total state expenditures, including federal stimulus money and reserve funds as well as general fund spending. More than $200 million in federal stimulus money supported Iowa’s Medicaid budget in the current budget year, but similar support won’t be forthcoming in future years now that Republicans have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Branstad administration press releases on Miller-Meeks and Palmer are after the jump.

County auditors have been certifying election results this week, and the Iowa House is almost certain to be split 60-40 in favor of Republicans. Three seats were determined by extremely narrow margins. Democrat Donovan Olson does not plan to seek a recount in House district 48, where he trails Chip Baltimore by fewer than 30 votes. Republican Roger Arthur does not plan to seek a recount in House district 18, where he finished 36 votes behind Andrew Wenthe. Republican Lannie Miller has not decided whether to ask for a recount in House district 7, but John Wittneben’s margin of 32 votes is unlikely to be overturned in a recount.

The Iowa Senate is headed for a 26-24 Democratic majority. Certified election results put Democrat Keith Kreiman 12 votes behind Mark Chelgren in Senate district 47, while Democrat Tod Bowman is 71 votes ahead of Andrew Naeve in Senate district 13. If I were Kreiman, I would ask for a recount to be sure, but even a tiny margin of 12 votes (0.06 percent of the votes cast in that Senate race) probably wouldn’t be reversed.

Jennifer Jacobs reported in the Des Moines Register,

Election results show that voters angry about the Iowa Supreme Court’s gay-marriage ruling played a role in defeating Kreiman.

In 2006, Kreiman won 71 percent of the votes in his home county, Davis County. This year, 774 more Davis County residents voted on judicial retention than in 2006.

Davis County was one of seven counties where the anti-retention vote was above 70 percent.

I suspect Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ strong Congressional campaign played at least an equally important role in Chelgren’s win. Senate district 47 includes Miller-Meeks’ home base, the Ottumwa area, and she worked extremely hard all year.

Senate Republican leader Paul McKinley tried to psych out Democrats this week by saying he has “thought about” trying to convince state senators to switch to the GOP: “I think there are individuals that we know that clearly were put in tough situations over the past two or three years and might be more prone to that, but we thought about it. We’ll analyze where we are and proceed accordingly.”

Two Democrats flipping together could give Republicans a majority in the upper chamber, but I very much doubt that will happen. The moderate Democrats in the Senate caucus have more pull with Senate Majority leader Mike Gronstal than they would as junior members of a Republican majority. Also, it’s not as if McKinley could promise party-switchers a smooth ride to re-election. U.S. Representative Parker Griffith of Alabama got crushed in a GOP primary this year after deserting the Democratic Party. An incumbent in a vulnerable Iowa Senate seat would not survive a Republican primary after voting for I-JOBS and all four of Chet Culver’s budgets.

For your “no one could have predicted” file: going into today’s election, Mariannette Miller-Meeks is the Iowa Republican U.S. House challenger considered to have the best chance of winning. When she announced plans to run in the second Congressional district again last year, I thought she was way too conservative to have a shot against two-term incumbent Dave Loebsack. IA-02 has a partisan lean of D+7, and Miller-Meeks received less than 40 percent of the vote in 2008. For months the district was considered safely Democratic, while Iowa’s third Congressional district was rated a tossup.

Loebsack is still favored to win a third term, according to most election forecasters. The early vote numbers look strong for Democrats in his district. That said, Miller-Meeks has a realistic chance to become the first woman elected to Congress from Iowa, especially if Democratic House losses are on the high end of forecasts (60 to 80 seats).

Follow me after the jump for more on how Miller-Meeks and Loebsack have appealed to voters since the last time Bleeding Heartland discussed this race in detail.

The latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register finds Republicans leading the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races and Iowa’s Supreme Court justices likely to be ousted. Selzer and Co sampled 805 likely Iowa voters between October 26 and 29.

Terry Branstad leads Governor Chet Culver 50 percent to 38 percent. That’s down from a 19-point lead in the Register’s September poll, but still a comfortable advantage. Culver’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing a much tighter race, with Branstad ahead 46-40. I had assumed Republican internal polling also showed Culver gaining, because the Cook Political Report just shifted its rating on the Iowa’s governor’s race from safe Republican to leaning Republican. I don’t think they would make that rating change if private polling showed Branstad at 50 percent with a double-digit lead.

Kathie Obradovich blogged tonight that Culver leads by 9 percent among respondents who had already voted, even though he trails by 12 percent among the whole sample. The Register’s other piece on the new poll refers to “the electorate’s conservative profile” but gives no details about the partisan breakdown of the sample. I will update this post if more details emerge about the poll’s demographics.

Selzer and Co found Senator Chuck Grassley leading Roxanne Conlin 61 percent to 30 percent, virtually the same margin as in the Register’s September Iowa poll.

The news for Iowa Supreme Court justices wasn’t much better:

A third of likely Iowa voters say they will vote to retain Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit. Thirty-seven percent say they will vote to remove all three. Ten percent plan to retain some. The rest either don’t plan to vote on judicial retention or haven’t made up their minds.

I thought it was foolish for the anti-retention groups to feature Representative Steve King in their radio commercials, but if voters throw out the judges, King will be able to take some credit.

Obradovich didn’t give poll numbers for the Congressional races but noted, “Mariannette Miller-Meeks appears to have the best chance of any of the GOP challengers to unseat an incumbent Democrat.” That would be quite an achievement, since Iowa’s second district has the strongest Democratic lean. However, Miller-Meeks has been campaigning hard, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s latest commercial against her is atrocious. It wouldn’t surprise me if that ad drives more voters toward Miller-Meeks than toward incumbent Dave Loebsack.

Iowa Democrats need to get out the vote and hope the Register’s poll contains faulty assumptions about who will turn out on Tuesday.

UPDATE: One positive sign for Loebsack is the large lead Democrats have in early voting in the IA-02 counties (pdf file).

SECOND UPDATE: The best news in the poll: Tom Miller 45, Brenna Findley 34.

Findley, a 34-year-old Dexter lawyer and tea party favorite, has spent more on advertising than Miller, who was first elected in 1978. However, Miller leads Findley among independent voters by 20 percentage points and nets a larger share of support from Democrats than Findley receives from Republicans.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

The weather’s been dry and unseasonably warm this October, ideal for candidates and volunteers. It’s not too late to spend a few hours helping a campaign near you. The state legislative candidates can especially use help with phone-banking and door-knocking. Even if your home district is a shoo-in for one party, you probably live near one of the two dozen Iowa House districts or four Iowa Senate districts considered competitive.

For instance, the Des Moines area has basically no swing districts, other than House district 59 in the western suburbs, but it’s easy for Democrats in the metro to volunteer for State Senator Staci Appel’s campaign in Senate district 37. You don’t even have to drive down to Warren or Madison County. Volunteers can make phone calls for Appel at the AFSCME Local 61 office (4320 NW Second Avenue in Des Moines) on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 pm to 8 pm, on Saturdays from noon to 6 pm, or on Sundays from 1 pm to 6 pm. I did this one evening, and it’s so easy.

If you want to help but don’t know how or where, I recommend calling your county Democrats or the Iowa Democratic Party (515-244-7292). Volunteers will also be needed on election day for phone-banking and contacting likely Democratic supporters who haven’t voted yet.

Newspapers across the state have been weighing in on the elections. I’ve been browsing the endorsement editorials, and a few have left me wondering what the editors could have been thinking. Some examples are after the jump.

In another sign of a competitive race in Iowa’s second Congressional district, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent $90,000 to run a television commercial against Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

The ad targets Miller-Meeks’ support for a national sales tax, but does so in a misleading way. Video, script and a few comments are after the jump.

I figured Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was too conservative to have a chance against Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district. Loebsack represents the most Democratic-leaning House district in the state (partisan index D+7), and Miller-Meeks failed to reach the 40 percent mark in 2008. But I was wrong. Plenty of House incumbents who cruised two years ago are in tough races now, and many signs point to a highly competitive rematch in IA-02.

It’s been too long since Bleeding Heartland last checked in on this race. Television commercials for Miller-Meeks and Loebsack are after the jump, as well as highlights from this week’s debate between the candidates.

Two-term incumbent Dave Loebsack launched the first television commercial of this year’s campaign on Thursday. The 30-second spot is playing district-wide (Cedar Rapids, Quad Cities, Ottumwa-Kirksville, and Quincy, Illinois) on broadcast and cable networks. The campaign hasn’t specified the size of the buy.

For now I can’t embed the video here; you’ll have to watch at his campaign website. LATE UPDATE: Video up on YouTube:

Here is my rough transcript:

Loebsack: I’m Dave Loebsack, and I approved this message.

Male voice-over: Raised in poverty by a single mother, Dave Loebsack knows first-hand the struggle just to get by. Starting at 16, Loebsack pulled himself up, worked at a sewage treatment plant, then through college as a janitor. It’s why Loebsack is fighting to help small business create jobs and hold Wall Street accountable for recklessness and greed. Because Dave Loebsack will always stand up for what’s right.

This ad doesn’t break any new ground visually or in terms of content. The biographical piece emphasizing the candidate’s humble beginnings and connection to ordinary people has become a staple of campaigns for all offices. The only unusual thing I noticed is the man with a pony tail talking to Loebsack near the end of the commercial. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that in an Iowa political ad before. But it’s hardly a radical fashion statement in a district with the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids corridor as its population center.

Loebsack’s campaign hasn’t released any internal polling on his rematch against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but I assume it’s not too terrible if he’s beginning with a positive ad. Many Democratic incumbents around the country are already running negative spots about the Republican challenger. Representative Leonard Boswell’s opening radio advertisement contrasted his record on biofuels with statements by Republican Brad Zaun.

Among Iowa’s five Congressional districts, IA-02 has the strongest Democratic lean (partisan voting index of D+7). In other words, Loebsack’s district voted about 7 points more Democratic than the national average in the last two presidential elections. The Iowa City ballot measure regarding the ban on under-21s in bars will probably drive student turnout higher than in an ordinary midterm election, which has to be good for Loebsack.

The high unemployment rate in several of the 15 counties in the district works against the incumbent, however. Also, Mariannette Miller-Meeks has relatively high name recognition as a repeat challenger. It remains to be seen whether conservative Republicans will get behind Miller-Meeks. In October 2008, Iowa Right to Life unfairly accused her of being a “pretender” on the abortion issue. During her September 7 interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Miller-Meeks said she might support a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, after our international border has been secured and if the American people favor that policy. That reasonable stance will be anathema to segments of the Iowa Republican base.

Both Loebsack and Miller-Meeks held campaign events today before the big Iowa/Iowa State football game in Iowa City.

UPDATE: Thanks to corncam for flagging this disappointing article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“Where rubber hits the road – because it’s connected to the deficit issue, the debt issue – is what we do about those making over $200,000 and couples making $250,000?” he said. “I’ve said all along that I didn’t want to extend those [Bush] tax cuts, but I’m rethinking that at the moment.”

Extending the tax cuts for those top-earners would cost the federal treasury $700 billion over 10 years, but Loebsack is having second thoughts because of the impact ending the tax cuts for the wealthy might have on the economy.

“We have a weak recovery that needs to continue,” Loebsack said. “Those folks at those top levels consume a pretty fair amount of what is consumed in this country and this is a demand-driven economy.

No, the folks at the top tend not to spend most of what they get back in tax cuts. In contrast, people who are struggling will spend all their extra money immediately. If Congress wants to “support the recovery” to the tune of $70 billion a year, they should extend unemployment benefits for the “99-ers” (those who have exhausted all 99 weeks of payments). Unemployment benefits are among the most stimulative forms of government spending.

The conservative 501(c)4 organization American Future Fund commissioned polls last week in Iowa’s first, second and third Congressional districts. Yesterday the group released partial results from the surveys, touting the supposedly low re-elect numbers for Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03).

The topline results showed Democratic incumbents leading their challengers in all three races, even among the “certain to vote” sub-sample.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks considered withdrawing from her rematch against Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district this summer, the Republican candidate told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board yesterday. Miller-Meeks stepped down from her ophthalmology practice in early 2009 to focus on running for Congress again, so when her husband lost his job this July, her family had no income.

Miller-Meeks said she told no one about her dilemma, not even Republican Party officials. […]

The family financial crisis influenced her political perspectives, she said. It sharpened her beliefs that the government should stay out of debt and that steps must be taken to make health insurance more affordable.

Since stepping down from her medical practice, Miller-Meeks had had health insurance coverage through her husband’s job. He has a new job now, but Miller-Meeks told the Register’s staff that she has chosen not to be on his insurance plan.

“I’m a very healthy person, and what I’ve done is look at my family history and determine what my level of risk is,” she said. “Am I saying it’s a smart thing to do? No. I think we need to make health insurance more affordable.”

The country needs to get to a point where a family of four can pay $2,000 a year for a plan that covers immunizations, preventative medicine and catastrophic needs, Miller-Meeks said. She also supports a nationwide risk pool and allowing health insurance purchasing across state lines, she said.

If elected, she would like to choose a federal plan that covers only catastrophic illness or injury, she said.

It must have been a very stressful summer for the Miller-Meeks family. While I’m sorry to hear about her situation, I wouldn’t recommend going without health insurance based on a good medical history. A flukey infection can incur tens of thousands of dollars in health care costs, to say nothing of a cancer diagnosis or some chronic illness. I also wouldn’t advise a friend to choose a limited catastrophic plan like the one Miller-Meeks prefers for herself and many others. There’s a reason such policies are commonly known as “junk insurance.” Letting people buy insurance across state lines sounds good in theory, until you consider how the race to the bottom gutted regulations for credit card issuers.

Miller-Meeks is a hard worker and clearly committed to seeing this race through, but some Republicans may be upset to learn that she was on the verge of quitting for the second election in a row. A wingnut faction in the Iowa GOP already distrusts Miller-Meeks for allegedly being too moderate.

Miller-Meeks has been campaigning energetically around the second district with a generic Republican message. She calls Loebsack names like “Do-nothing Dave” and Pelosi’s puppet, rails against the health insurance reform law and the 2009 federal stimulus:

Stimulus funding has failed to create jobs, and it probably would have worked better to funnel money directly to the American people, she said.

The stimulus bill created and saved millions of jobs according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Without it the economy would have continued to decline steeply. Evidence is mounting that the stimulus wasn’t big enough, the opposite of Miller-Meeks’ claim. Tax cuts made up about one-third of the stimulus bill’s costs, even though government spending provides more “bang for the buck” than tax cuts do. The stimulus provisions with the biggest “bang for the buck” did give money directly to Americans in the form of extended unemployment benefits and food stamps. Other stimulus spending that kept teachers and public safety workers on the job helped ordinary Americans as well.

Few analysts expect the IA-02 race to be competitive this year, because the district has a strong Democratic lean, and Loebsack defeated Miller-Meeks by 57 percent to 39 percent in 2008. (A Green Party candidate who isn’t running this year picked up 3 percent last cycle.) Loebsack also has a large cash on hand advantage over his challenger. Then again, the overall political environment favors Republicans, and pockets of the second district have high unemployment.

I do agree with Miller-Meeks on one point: Loebsack should debate her. Barbara Grassley advised Miller-Meeks to schedule a debate and show up to face an empty chair if necessary (funny advice in light of Senator Chuck Grassley’s refusal to debate Roxanne Conlin). But I hope it doesn’t come to such theatrics. Miller-Meeks deserves a chance to debate the incumbent, just as fifth district candidate Matt Campbell deserves a debate against incumbent Steve “10 Worst” King.

Any comments about the IA-02 campaign are welcome in this thread.

CORRECTION: I didn’t realize that the candidates had agreed to three debates already: an AARP forum in Coralville on September 13, a joint Iowa Public Television appearance on September 24 and a debate hosted by KCRG in Cedar Rapids on October 12.

UPDATE: Miller-Meeks thinks staggered enrollment in Medicare is the way to make the program solvent. But people approaching retirement age are among those most likely to have pre-existing conditions and have sky-high private insurance costs. How is that going to work?

SEPTEMBER 24 UPDATE: Miller-Meeks said on Iowa Public TV’s Iowa Press program that she has catastrophic health insurance coverage.

You come across the strangest things on Twitter sometimes:

Yes, it’s delusional to believe Politico is in the game to “protect” Barack Obama, but for now I’m more interested in Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman’s claim that the president is Muslim. Presumably she was responding to Tim Grieve’s August 19 report for Politico on the latest Pew survey about the president’s religion. Pew found that about 18 percent of American adults say Obama is Muslim, while about 34 percent say Obama is Christian. About 34 percent of those who identified themselves as conservative Republicans told Pew Obama was Muslim. Grieve’s report referred to “a dramatic spike in false views about the president’s religious faith.” Politico’s Josh Gerstein also reported on the Pew finding, as well as a Time magazine survey which (using different wording) found even higher numbers of Republicans believe the president is Muslim.

Neither Lehman nor anyone else would claim Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad’s not really a Christian because his mother was Jewish. Yet for some reason, it’s not enough for Lehman that Obama has been baptized, regularly attended Christian churches for many years and was sworn in on a Christian bible.

I wonder how many other prominent Iowa Republicans believe the urban legend about Obama being Muslim. Representative Steve King recently claimed Obama is a “Marxist” who “surely understands the Muslim culture.” What about Senator Chuck Grassley, Representative Tom Latham and Republican Congressional candidates Ben Lange, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Brad Zaun?

State party chairman Matt Strawn and Steve Scheffler, head of the Iowa Christian Alliance, are Iowa’s other two representatives on the RNC. Do they and members of the Iowa GOP’s State Central Committee share Lehman’s view?

Branstad’s own interfaith family background makes him an ideal person to speak publicly about religion as a matter of faith and an individual’s spiritual journey, as opposed to a genetic inheritance. But I’m not holding my breath for Branstad to dispel false rumors about Obama. He generally avoids taking any position that would anger conservatives–when he’s not kowtowing to far-right sentiment, that is.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has put all three Iowa GOP Congressional challengers “on the radar,” the bottom rung of the three-tier Young Guns program. Challengers who appear better positioned to win may be bumped up later this year to “contender” or “young gun” status. Only the “young guns” are likely to get significant financial help from the NRCC.

If I were running Brad Zaun’s campaign, I’d start implementing “plan B,” assuming he’s on his own in his race against Representative Leonard Boswell. Iowa’s third district is rated “lean Democratic” by most analysts of the House races, while Iowa’s first and second districts are in the “safe Democratic” column. This spring the NRCC gave Zaun’s primary opponent Jim Gibbons “contender” status. Although the Iowa primary results were in a sense humiliating for the NRCC, I would have expected House Republican leaders to signal in some way that IA-03 (with a partisan voting index of D+1) is a more competitive district than IA-01 (D+5) or IA-02 (D+7). Instead, they give Zaun the same status as Bruce Braley’s challenger Ben Lange and Dave Loebsack’s repeat rival Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Looking solely at fundraising numbers, which seems to be the NRCC’s main benchmark for candidates, Zaun belongs at the same level as Lange and Miller-Meeks. All three Republicans finished the second quarter with a little more than $100,000 cash on hand, and all face incumbents with much more money in the bank. Iowa politics-watchers generally consider Boswell more vulnerable than Loebsack or Braley, and on paper Zaun is a good candidate. He is an experienced campaigner and has a base in the population center of the district. However, it’s far from clear Zaun will have the resources he needs to be successful. Boswell’s campaign is about to hold its biggest fundraiser yet, featuring President Bill Clinton.

The tough reality for Zaun (and Lange and Miller-Meeks) is that the NRCC doesn’t have a bottomless pit of money to spend on every potentially competitive race. The latest FEC reports from party committees show the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with $33.8 million cash on hand compared to just $17 million for the NRCC. That’s not even enough to make a serious play in the 40 districts where Republican challengers already have full “young gun” status. Even worse for Iowa’s Republicans, the 14 candidates who got “contender” status this week are also ahead of Zaun, Lange and Miller-Meeks in line for help from the NRCC.

I doubt the NRCC will play much of a role in Iowa until 2012, when at least one of our four newly-drawn Congressional districts may be highly competitive.

Share any thoughts about Iowa’s U.S. House races in this thread.

UPDATE: Get a load of the ridiculous spin from Zaun: “The NRCC has identified our race as a top 30 race in the country.” Sorry, no: there are 40 candidates in the top tier, where the best pickup opportunities lie. Then come the “contenders” (second tier), and finally Zaun and the rest of the “on the radar” bunch.

THURDSAY UPDATE: Reid Wilson of Hotline on Call reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is buying tv air time in 17 districts held by Democratic incumbents, including IA-03.

Candidates for federal offices were required to submit Federal Election Commission reports on campaign fundraising and expenditures by July 15. Those reports covered money raised and spent between May 20 and June 30. “Pre-primary” reports, which were due in late May, covered the period from April 1 through May 19.

The second quarter numbers are particularly important for challengers, who need to show that they will have the resources to wage serious district-wide or statewide campaigns. Although candidates continue to raise money during the third quarter, they typically have less time for fundraising as they spend more time campaigning. Mike Glover of the Associated Press noted, “The cash-on-hand numbers are closely watched by strategists because candidates traditionally use the summer months to build up a cash reserve that they begin spending on television advertisements around Labor Day.”

Follow me after the jump for the second quarter numbers.  

Washington Republicans have been talking up their chances of retaking the House of Representatives for months, and the National Republican Congressional Committee claims many recruiting successes in competitive House districts. However, Republican primary voters haven’t always sided with candidates favored by the Washington power-brokers. Last month a tea party candidate defeated “top national GOP recruit” Vaughn Ward in Idaho’s first district. In Kentucky’s third district, the NRCC’s candidate finished third with 17 percent in the primary; the winner had over 50 percent. In Pennsylvania’s fourth district, the NRCC-backed candidate was out-raised and eventually beaten 2-1 in the Republican primary. In Alabama’s fifth district, the NRCC backed party-switching Representative Parker Griffith, who proceeded to get crushed in his new party’s primary.

In Iowa, the NRCC has tipped its hat to two Republicans in competitive primaries. In the third district, Jim Gibbons was named an “on the radar” candidate in February and bumped up to “contender” status in April. In the second district, the NRCC put Gettemy “on the radar” about six weeks after he declared his candidacy.

Both Gibbons and Gettemy are newcomers to campaigning, and both are facing at least one more experienced politician in their primaries. Gibbons’ main rival, State Senator Brad Zaun, has won several elections in Urbandale and Iowa Senate district 32. All three of Gettemy’s opponents have run for office before, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Christopher Reed both won Republican primaries in 2008.

If Gibbons and Gettemy fail to top the voting in their respective primaries, the NRCC’s ability to identify candidates with strong potential will again be called into question. The “young gun,” “contender” and “on the radar” lists are important signals to NRCC donors about where their money could be most helpful. People who wrote checks to Gibbons or Gettemy without knowing anything about the local landscape may be upset if their money went to a losing candidate.

Iowa Republicans who recruited Gibbons and Gettemy and talked them up to GOP leaders in Washington also have something to lose if today’s primaries don’t go their way. Key members of the Iowa Republican business elite have supported Gibbons, and Gettemy had the backing of prominent Cedar Rapids area Republicans. Republican National Committeeman Steve Scheffler, who heads the Iowa Christian Alliance, is also said to be close to Gettemy, though Scheffler has made no formal endorsement in this year’s primaries.

Both the IA-03 and IA-02 primary battles may end up being settled at GOP district conventions, so Gibbons and Gettemy could conceivably win the nominations if they don’t finish in first place today, as long as no other Republican receives at least 35 percent of the vote. However, they may have an uphill battle persuading district convention delegates.

WEDNESDAY AM UPDATE: Add IA-02 and IA-03 to the list of districts where the NRCC sure doesn’t know how to pick ’em.

Zaun won 42 percent of the vote in the seven-way IA-03 primary, while Gibbons managed just 28 percent. Tea Party favorite Dave Funk didn’t raise enough money for a significant paid media campaign, but he finished not far behind Gibbons with 22 percent. Gibbons did carry several of the smaller counties in IA-03, but Zaun dominated Polk County, containing Des Moines and most of its suburbs. Zaun’s ground game defeated Gibbons’ superior “air power.”

Miller-Meeks won the IA-02 primary in dominating fashion with 51 percent of the vote. She led in all of the district’s 11 counties. Gettemy finished dead last with 13 percent of the vote. Even in his home county (Linn), he came in third. Gettemy won fewer votes across the district than Christopher Reed, who raised very little money and is best known for for calling Senator Harkin “the Tokyo Rose of Al-Qaeda and Middle East terrorism” during the 2008 campaign. All of Gettemy’s tv ads and connections to Cedar Rapids movers and shakers delivered fewer votes than Reed managed with his band of way-out-there wingnut endorsers.  

Since the last time I posted about the Republican primary in Iowa’s second Congressional district, the four candidates seeking the chance to get beaten by two-term Representative Dave Loebsack have been busy.

Lots of recent news about Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Rob Gettemy, Steve Rathje and Christopher Reed can be found after the jump.

It’s time for another Bleeding Heartland election prediction contest. No prizes will be awarded, but winners will get bragging rights. Can anyone dethrone American007, overall winner of our 2008 election contest?

Enter by answering the following questions. To qualify for the contest, your predictions must be posted as a comment in this thread by 7 am on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. This isn’t like The Price is Right; the winning answers will be closest to the final results, whether or not they were a little high or low.

1. How many votes will be cast in the Republican primary for Iowa governor? (Hint: about 199,000 Iowans voted in the hard-fought 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary.)

2. What percentages of the vote will Terry Branstad, Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts receive in the Republican primary for governor?

3. What percentages of the vote will Roxanne Conlin, Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen receive in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate?

4. What percentages of the vote will Rob Gettemy, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Steve Rathje and Chris Reed receive in the Republican primary in Iowa’s second Congressional district? Remember, if you expect this nomination to be decided at a district convention, make sure your guess has the top vote-getter below 35 percent.

5. Who will be the top four candidates in the Republican primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district, and what percentages of the vote will they receive? Again, keep the top vote-getter below 35 percent if you expect this nomination to go to a district convention. Your possible answers are Jim Gibbons, Brad Zaun, Dave Funk, Mark Rees, Scott Batcher, Jason Welch and Pat Bertroche.

6. What percentages of the vote will Mike Denklau and Matt Campbell receive in the Democratic primary in Iowa’s fifth Congressional district?

7. What percentages of the vote will Matt Schultz, George Eichhorn and Chris Sanger receive in the Republican primary for secretary of state? (I covered that campaign in this post.)

8. What percentages of the vote will Dave Jamison and Jim Heavens receive in the Republican primary for state treasurer? (The Iowa Republican blog has been covering this race from time to time.)

9. What percentages of the vote will State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad and challenger Clair Rudison receive in the Democratic primary for Iowa House district 66? (Click here for background.)

10. What percentages of the vote will Tom Shaw, Stephen Richards and Alissa Wagner receive in the Republican primary for Iowa House district 8? (Click here and here for background. Keep in mind that although Wagner withdrew from the race and endorsed Shaw, her name will remain on the ballot.)

Don’t be afraid to make some wild guesses. You can’t win if you don’t play!

This is also an open thread, so share whatever’s on your mind.