2016

As the Cedar River slowly raised foot-by-foot to flood levels these past few days, political campaigns in Eastern Iowa slowed to a halt. Iowa’s largest river winds its way through many of this year’s biggest electoral battlegrounds in the state, from Charles City to Waverly to Cedar Falls to Vinton to Cedar Rapids. When the historic flood…

Guest post from Ruth Thompson, a very active Clinton volunteer I’ve observed something during this election cycle that I’ve never seen before.  We have an amazing candidate for president, arguably the smartest, most experienced and qualified candidate in my lifetime, and many Democrats are afraid to express that sentiment out loud. It’s complicated, I get…

I watched the first 2012 debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the basement of a fellow campaign staffer’s supporter housing in Cedar Rapids. Everyone was disappointed in Obama’s widely-criticized first outing. Before that night we knew we had a competitive race, but were feeling very good about the November result, with the potential for…

While only a small handful of Iowa Senate races seem like pure toss-ups at this point, there’s nearly a dozen Iowa House campaigns that could easily go either way. An unusually large number of incumbent Republican retirements, suburban swing districts possibly trending Democratic and voters everywhere frustrated with their top-of-ticket options has created a lot of…

Terry Branstad joined the Tea Party with his reelection. It is apparent that his relentless effort to scale back government has a hidden agenda—not to keep public spending under control, but to move state dollars from the pockets of state workers to big business. A recent Des Moines Editorial, “Corporate Welfare Run Amok,” cited a…

The best way to activate young voters is through a bigger focus on issues rather than candidates, believes Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who returned to Iowa this week to speak at a millennial voters event in Des Moines. The former Iowa governor specifically pointed to water quality topics as a key motivator, and said…

Rene Gadelha’s campaign to unseat popular Democratic State Senator Liz Mathis is not going so well. In the span of just one week Gadelha’s attack ads have gotten two negative fact checks from two of the district’s biggest media outlets. First came a column from Todd Dorman in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, criticizing the similar mailers he…

Guest post from Tim Delong How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB? This was the November 4, 2004 headline in the British newspaper the “Mirror.” Of course this referred to the second election of George W. Bush, a real “head scratcher” for much of the world as they seemed willing to forgive us for electing…

Voters in Davenport will be stepping over unwrapped Christmas presents on their way out the door to vote for State Senator Joe Seng’s successor, thanks to Governor Terry Branstad’s scheduling of the special election. In an official proclamation yesterday, Branstad set December 27 as the date to choose the replacement for Seng, who passed away…

Doug Elmets, a native Iowan, lifelong Republican and former spokesman for President Ronald Reagan, came back to Iowa recently to speak in support of Hillary Clinton. Having grown up in Des Moines, graduating from the University of Iowa and maintaining his Iowa roots provides him a unique perspective on Iowa politics. He cast his first…