Search
Senator Grassley is running ads bragging that he “works.” He claims he has a nearly perfect attendance record. He claims he rarely misses a vote. So why isn’t he fighting for Iowans that have been flood victims multiple times? Why can’t Grassley get adequate flood...
First District Congressman Rod Blum, elected in 2014, made the first vote of his career a protest vote by voting against the reelection of John Boehner as House Speaker. Blum was one of 25 rogue Tea Party-supported members to vote against Boehner. Boehner has since...
Now that we're several days into early voting, clear trends are beginning to emerge around the state. Early voting and absentee requests in targeted swing legislative districts are nearly twice that as non-targeted districts. This is to be expected to an extent, as a...
Few words of politics were uttered as Cedar Rapids prepared for and experienced the floods of 2016. But the makings of Iowa's next governor may have been forged in the tense week as the city battled back the second-highest ever crest of the Cedar River. Cedar Rapids...
Hillary Clinton visits Iowa today, the day that early voting begins in the state. Her rally is at a plaza in downtown Des Moines that's just a stone's throw away from the Polk County Auditor's office, where in-person early voting is held from now to the election. The...
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...
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...
At times during Jill Stein's Des Moines rally yesterday, you could have closed your eyes and imagined you were right back at a Bernie Sanders caucus event. All the old hallmarks were there: income inequality, marijuana laws and oil pipelines were the big themes of the...
A guest post from Rob Barron For all of you who watched the Iowa-Iowa State game last night, you witnessed the product of years of preparation. Each player that took the field trained so that they could perform at an elite level in the biggest game of their lives....
Last week Starting Line pointed out the striking similarity between every Iowa Republican state senate ad. It was obvious they had filmed all of their ads in the same location with the same set of children, rather than their own home districts they're running in. But...
While most Iowa news stories focus on the presidential and senate race, every Iowa activist knows the real battle for Iowa's future lies in the Iowa State Senate races. With a 26-23-1 majority in the Iowa Senate, Democrats can't afford to lose a single seat....
Senator Chuck Grassley celebrates another year of 99 county visits today, finishing his final event in Anamosa in Jones County. But just how meaningful or authentic is the so-called "Full Grassley" that Iowa's senior senator is so well-known for? This summer a...
It seems all the targeted Republican state senate candidates had a big TV shoot recently, as they've all posted their first ads online in the past few weeks. The ads themselves are so-so at best, but you rarely see very creative TV spots at the statehouse level. Each...
Guest post from Miyoko Hikiji, Iowa State Senate Candidate in District 20, Author of All I Could Be: My Story as a Woman Warrior in Iraq, Army & Iowa National Guard Veteran 1995-2004. Ninety-six years ago today, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was certified...
When voters go to the polls in the Northeast Iowa counties of Allamakee and Clayton this year, this is what they’ll see in the Democratic column of their ballot: President: Hillary Clinton U.S. Senate: Patty Judge Congress: Monica Vernon State Senate: Jan Heikes State...
The Iowa Democratic Party announced several new field offices around the state this week, bringing their total number of offices to 24 in the state. The party began opening local offices for the 2016 election back in early May. Taking a look through the list, most of...
No trip to Iowa during mid-August is complete without a visit to the Iowa State Fair. So that's where Virginia Senator Tim Kaine ended up on a hot and sunny Wednesday afternoon. Hillary Clinton's running mate began the day with a rally in Cedar Rapids, then made the...
For the next week and a half, Iowa is back in the center of the political universe, as is only right. But will we be after that? The presidential campaigns are barnstorming through Iowa over the next 10 days. Tim Kaine speaks today in Cedar Rapids. Jennifer Jacobs...
Iowa families dealing with mental health issues have hit the breaking point. The closure of mental health institutions and the privatization of Medicaid have put increasingly unbearable strain on many seeking help. That frustration is quickly spilling over into the...
Each election cycle in Iowa, the biggest campaign battlegrounds center around swing legislative districts. In suburban Linn County, the rural northeastern counties, Cedar Falls, central Iowa around Marshalltown and Newton, along with a few pockets out west,...
Democrats will be getting some extra ground forces in their battle to flip Iowa's 1st District back to their control. The Progressive Turnout Project is launching a full field operation to assist Democrat Monica Vernon in her campaign against Republican Congressman...
The Iowa Democratic Party's state convention dragged long into the night yesterday, and there were stretches where voting and the agenda moved very slowly. So what to do? How about start speculating about 2018? Obviously this year's presidential election and...
Bernie Sanders' campaign for the presidency is starting to wind down, but the impacts of his incredible run will be felt for years to come in the Democratic Party, progressive politics and the American electoral system. Around this time last year the early hints of a...
Before we move completely on the general election, let's take one last look at some of the specific numbers from last week's Iowa primary. For a website like Starting Line, we love having numbers to pore over and didn't want to move on before examining a few more...
When Patty Judge entered the U.S. Senate race a little over two months ago, some Iowa Democrats were excited about the prospect. Chuck Grassley might finally be vulnerable thanks to his historic obstruction of the Supreme Court nomination, but some were worried Rob...
Monica Vernon's Memorial Day started like many other Iowans: doing a little bit of yard work. She picked several pink peonies from her garden to fill a vase to welcome home her youngest daughter, Eleanor, flying in later in the day. That was about all there was time...
Iowa Senate candidate Patty Judge put out a new TV ad today two weeks in advance of the June 7 primary. It highlights her leadership as the Homeland Security advisor for Iowa during the 2008 floods. It's a little heavy on the "let's work together" rhetoric, but seems...
With just two weeks left before Iowa's primary elections on June 7, let's take another look at the early vote totals across the state. A lot has changed since we first discussed the numbers three weeks ago. The Secretary of State's office is posting these totals...
What good is an endorsement? That’s an open question in any political campaign. Some bring an army of volunteers, others bring only the single vote of the endorser. State Senator Rob Hogg has a lot of public endorsements in his quest for the Democrats’ nomination for...
Iowa Democrats opened their first two coordinated campaign field offices of the 2016 cycle on Wednesday and Thursday. But it wasn't in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids or Davenport. Instead, it was much farther north, and in the considerably smaller counties of Mitchell and...
