Category: IA Gov

The first debate between Governor Kim Reynolds and Fred Hubbell was a contrast in styles: a combative and engaged incumbent and a poised, collected challenger. There were no knock-out blows and few major missteps, but one odd response from Reynolds may linger throughout the campaign. That moment came about 45 minutes into the debate, when a moderator asked the governor who in her party she disagrees with the most. For a full ten seconds, Reynolds went quiet, put her head down and went deep into thought. It felt like even longer to those watching in the debate hall. “We’ve been […]

In a year of non-stop political twists and turn, the most bizarre development of all may yet come in the Iowa governor’s race: actual policy issues are determining who wins the race. That’s what appears to be the case, anyway, with just six weeks remaining before the November election. The latest Des Moines Register poll shows Fred Hubbell with a narrow lead over Governor Kim Reynolds, but it’s the breakdown of voter attitudes on Medicaid and personal attacks on Hubbell that tell the larger story. The Register polled how voters felt about the biggest lines of attack being used in […]

Perhaps Governor Kim Reynolds should just stay off planes. The AP’s Ryan Foley reported this afternoon that Reynolds had once again taken a questionable plane ride paid for by a donor that has business with the state of Iowa. Dave North, the CEO of Sedgwick, a company that is contracted by the state to handle workers compensation claims, reimbursed his company for the use of the corporate jet to fly Reynolds and her family to an ISU bowl game. It happened on December 30, 2017 for the Liberty Bowl. Reynolds drew scrutiny for another free trip in May of last […]

When Iowans enter the voting booth in November, which will weigh more heavily on their mind: Younkers or Medicaid? That seems to be what the race for governor is boiling down to at this point as Governor Kim Reynolds and Fred Hubbell are now months into their TV ad campaigns. Reynolds hopes to turn Hubbell’s business executive experience from the 1980s into a liability. Hubbell wants voters to focus on the broken privatized Medicaid system that many see Reynolds mismanaging. This week, Hubbell rolled out his hardest-hitting ad to date, one that features a quadriplegic man whose in-home care was cut […]

A man with a long history of bizarre, racist social media posts, including those which claimed Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, thanked Governor Kim Reynolds today for her team’s assistance in trying to get him on the ballot for Attorney General. [Update: Starting Line hears that while Republicans initially helped Anderson with signatures, around noon on Saturday the party and Reynolds pulled their support from his effort.] West Des Moines Republican and attorney Patrick Anderson waged a last-minute effort this week to collect enough signatures to oppose Attorney General Tom Miller on the November ballot. No Republican had yet […]

You may as well get used to the above image. You’ll be seeing it hundreds of thousands of times between now and November in countless Republican ads, both in Iowa and around the country. The disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts in Brooklyn, Iowa came to a sad and tragic end today when it was announced that investigators found a body they believed to be the young college student in a Poweshiek County corn field. This afternoon, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation released the name of the person they had taken into custody: Cristhian Bahena Rivera, originally of Mexico. The man apparently […]