Category: IA-03

Des Moines political activist Heather Ryan, a candidate running in the Democratic primary for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, wrote a book four years ago in which she used the terms “ungrateful cunt” and “psychotic bitch” to describe individual women she worked with in the child pageant and reality TV industry. She also described two female Republican politicians as “vagina endowed wastes of human flesh.” And after a bitter falling out with her main client, she made a short film in which her character kidnaps and plans to murder a child pageant star, who in the film has striking similarities to […]

While raising her two young sons in West Des Moines, Cindy Axne found a problem: the school district claimed there was only enough space for half of local children to attend full-day kindergarten. A lottery system was used to decide who got to get in, which her first son lost out in. So she started working on a solution, lobbying the school board for eight months to expand it to everyone. She ran the numbers of how it affected kids to show the district the inequity it was causing. But if that didn’t persuade them, she had backup options. “If […]

Kim Weaver’s candidacy has ended, and a follow-up story from the Des Moines Register raised serious questions about her reasoning for doing so. But whatever, it’s time to move on. Hopefully, part of moving on for Iowa Democratic activists will be a renewed focus on the 1st and 3rd congressional districts. Barring something incredibly dramatic, those two races will be much closer than the deep-red 4th District. And their outcome could very well determine whether Democrats retake the U.S. House and thus are able to launch actual investigations into the Trump Administration. One could make a very compelling argument that the congressional […]

Republican incumbent David Young’s vote in favor of the AHCA bill makes his reelection much more difficult, the country’s top congressional ranking website reported this morning. The Cook Political Report moved Young’s 3rd District from Likely Republican to Lean Republican in their new ranking of the country’s swing seats. His was one of twenty Republican-held seats that Cook downgraded for the party due to the vote on the very unpopular piece of legislation. “House Republicans’ willingness to spend political capital on a proposal that garnered the support of just 17 percent of the public in a March Quinnipiac poll is […]

Despite a deluge of phone calls, emails and in-person meetings from concerned Iowans, Iowa Republican Congressmen Rod Blum, David Young and Steve King all voted in favor of the AHCA healthcare bill. The legislation that repealed many provisions of the ACA passed by just two votes. Had any two of those Iowa members flipped their vote, it would have gone back to the drawing board. Democrat Dave Loebsack was the lone no from the state’s delegation. Reaction to the vote in Iowa was swift and overwhelmingly negative online and among people who need their healthcare coverage to live. The bill will take […]

In what could easily become the most interesting 2018 campaign to watch, Pete D’Alessandro filed papers today to form an exploratory committee for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. D’Alessandro is a longtime Iowa political operative, with a resume that includes prominent campaign positions for Tom Vilsack, Chet Culver and Leonard Boswell. His most notable recent role was Bernie Sanders’ state coordinator for the Iowa Caucus. The winner of the Democratic primary will face two-term Republican David Young in a swing district that covers Des Moines and Southwest Iowa. D’Alessandro remains well-connected with the national Sanders and Our Revolution operations, and has been […]

Democratic candidate Mike Sherzan is shutting down his recently-launched campaign for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Sherzan came in second place in Democrats’ primary in 2016, and had hoped to use lessons learned from that bid to better-position himself for the primary, as well as a general election matchup with Republican David Young. But fundraising concerns and personal issues caused him to pull the plug early. “I am exiting this race because I have recently come to the conclusion that conducting the type of campaign I am comfortable with would require substantial financial self-funding, and that’s not how this process should work,” […]