So, I moved to Des Moines, Iowa 18 months ago with the bright idea that I was going to take a heroic vote against the GOP in 2018. I was starry eyed and full of dreams that Iowa would open its Iowa Nice arms to me and let me become a part of a community here. I had been to Iowa several times before I moved. The people I had met were, mostly, pretty cool people who seem to care at least as much about other people as they do for themselves.
I thought that maybe a couple more Dem votes could help stem the tide of The Donald. As it turns out, I at least helped get a Dem elected to the House from my district. The state level races, however? The Dems tanked it. The GOP holds the governorship, Secretary of State, and both houses of the legislature by large margins.
Hey, progress is progress. But it’s time to take some stock and figure out what to do during the next election cycle, especially with the presidential circus coming to town.
(I promise to kiss Beto O’Rourke on the lips if I meet him, yes.)
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US House Districts — winners
District 1: Abby Finkenauer (D)
District 2: Dave Loebsack (D) *incumbent
District 3: Cindy Axne (D)
District 4: Steve King (R) *incumbent
State Government
Governor: Kim Reynolds (R)
Sec State: Paul Pate (R)
State House: Republican (54 — 46)
State Senate: Republican (32 — 18)
The Good News
Abby Finkenauer is a bright shining red cherry on the top of my sundae this year. She’s young, she’s fairly progressive, and she took down a House seat with a 92.2% Trump voting record. I am over the moon happy about this woman.
JD Scholten gave Steve King a run for his money. I look for him to remain relevant in state politics going into the next round of elections.
Although Scholten’s mom reportedly reminded him that he is broke, unemployed, and has been living in an RV for the last 6 months. — thanks Ma!
2020 Dem Presidential Caucus Season is nigh upon us. Next year’s State Fair is going to be lit. This political junkie can’t wait to eat a fried thing with semi famous political people.
The Bad News
Our governor just won her election bid. This means GOP obstructionism from the top for the next four years. Our balance of power in the state legislature is equally dour. ALEC straight up LOVES Iowa right now with our neighbors to the west going blue. Of course, we look a lot more like our neighbor to the south now with McCaskill losing her Senate seat.
This electorate is hella White. I’m convinced that Deidre DeJear’s vote count has a lot to do with being Black, and female as well but mostly Black.
Our Liberals are still pretty center on a whole host of issues. Black Lives Matter is still extremely controversial in uber-blue Des Moines. This means that we still have to move the needle on a whole host of intersectional realities just to be able to talk about what progressive policies need to look like moving forward.
Our Dems seem to like tacking to the center and relying on likeability to win the day. Make no mistake, Steve King is the heart of the Iowa GOP no matter how attractive the talking heads that are spewing “moderated” GOP views and talking about “Iowa values”. Kim Reynolds is Sarah Palin doing a REALLY good Laura Bush impersonation.
And I think that Iowa is beyond “Vilsack can win” in 2020. I don’t see Tom Vilsack walking through that door. Christy Vilsack lost in her bid to unseat Steve King in 2016. JD Scholten outperformed her 2016 total in 2018. I will say it as plainly as I can. The Progressives in Iowa have a chance. The nice guys do not.
Ummm, if you’re stunned and confused by the election results, read Part I again. Reference Thing the First: Iowa is polar bear in the tundra on a snowy day White.
Also, bland ass Democrats don’t do shit in races that fighters can win.
Finkenauer/Loebsack/Axne/Scholten together got 90,000 more votes than Fred Hubbell. The margin of loss in the governor’s race was 40,000. Bad gubernatorial candidate, campaign, and primary choice by the electorate. I am still astounded by Cathy Glasson’s showing in the primary. She’s smart, tough, and progressive and would have run up the score in the counties where Dems hold strong.
Early on [election night], results showed Democrats flipping the U.S. House seats in Iowa's 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts. And Democratic businessman Fred Hubbell maintained an early lead against Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in the hotly contested governor's race.
...
Polls had shown respective support for Reynolds and Hubbell falling within the margin of error in the final days of the campaign. And that's how it ended up: the tightest margin in an Iowa governor's race in 62 years.
Boy howdy, did the night ever start well for Dems in Iowa. Unfortunately, the fun didn’t last long. The more votes that were counted, the further a Progressive Iowa slipped from possibility.
I know, Hubbell almost carried enough votes to win. I still blame him, and Iowa Democratic primary voters who gave him the shot, for much of the damage done to the Democratic party in Iowa. The man didn’t even have a coat much less coattails. A fighter would have crushed the relatively bland Reynolds by playing offense. Hubbell just tried to look nice enough to vote for.
Fight me.
- Northeast Iowa, 1st District
- Carried by Finkenauer — obviously responsive to younger faces and bolder stances
- Carried by Hubbell by 0.6% — if you’re going to run up the score on your home turf, you have to do better than this
- Central Iowa, 4th District
- Home to Iowa State University in Ames, where student voting was through the roof
- JD Scholten, running against Steve King, got more votes than Hubbell, even though Hubbell carried Story by 20% points — again, young and progressive seems to work here and Hubbell left some votes on the field
- Central Iowa, 3rd District
- Basically Des Moines and immediate suburbs, Iowa’s most populous city
- Cindy Axne won the District by carrying only this county
- Hubbell won by 18% points, but any candidate in the party could run as a Democrat and carry Polk County — again, you need to put up bigger numbers in your own back yard
- Far northwest Iowa, Steve King’s 4th District
- Reynolds clobbered Hubbell here +73%, roughly 13,000 votes — the GOP succeeded in running up the score on their own turf
Here’s the thing, though …
Kim Reynolds won 88 of 99 Iowa counties. Hillary couldn’t carry Iowa that way and neither could Hubbell. Can I have a true progressive candidate now please? Now that centrism has failed twice in two extremely important elections. Just give me one chance. If a true progressive loses Iowa with numbers like these, then I will concede the state to pragmatist Dems. Until then, I will keep hammering this point. Bland-ass Hubbell was the wrong choice for the nomination.
If Hubbell's performance had mirrored the collective performance of the congressional Democratic candidates (Finkenauer in the 1st District, Dave Loebsack in the 2nd, Cindy Axne in the 3rd and Scholten in the 4th), Reynolds would have lost Tuesday.
If every person who cast a ballot in favor of the Democratic congressional candidates had voted for Hubbell, the Democrat would have won by almost 50,000 votes. Instead, Hubbell lost to Reynolds by nearly 40,000 votes.
The divide between rural and urban voters in Iowa continues to sharpen. Democrats dominate in the state’s biggest cities, while Republicans own the rural areas. It's existed for more than a few election cycles, but the contrast has grown increasingly stark.
In the past six gubernatorial elections, starting with Democrat Tom Vilsack’s first victory in 1998, Democrats won 49, 68, 62, 9, 1 and 11 counties.
Demographics Are Destiny — Rural iowa is:
- older
- whiter
- with fewer college educated voters
Anybody remember how we’re doing with older white voters without a college degree?
Since Tom Harkin last won a senate seat in 2008, Iowa Democrats are 0 for 6 in Senate and Gubernatorial elections. Ten years, zero wins at the top of the ticket. This does not augur well for Iowa Democrats if we can’t harness a younger demographic in other areas of the state. And damn if those kids don’t require a candidate to be for Universal Healthcare before they will even look at you.
Nationally and locally, If we all move to cities, Dems have 2 choices:
One of the things that is often mentioned in Iowa is that the kids are leaving the farms for the cities. Sounds about right to me. I come from a long line of people who looked at rural America and said, “no thanks”. But this action leaves Progressives and Democrats in general vulnerable in the places we are leaving. Dems have two options ...
- Out vote the rural areas of the state from those urban and suburban areas
- Move back to those areas and out vote them where they live.
That’s it. No third option.
So, What the Hell Is Going on in Iowa?
Nothing that isn’t happening across the nation. This little Midwestern state could be the canary in the coal mine post Blue Wave. If we can keep the party alive and competitive over the next two to four years, then we can unseat both Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley. We can turn around either or both of the chambers of the state legislature. We can help make sure that the first Democrat to win a caucus in 2020 is a Progressive firebrand.
Or,
We could fold into ourselves as we let the GOP lie and scare its way into long term control of our state. Kansas and Wisconsin seem to have seen the light. Maybe, just maybe, we can accomplish results like the party saw in those states this week. The alternative is to resemble Missouri more and more the farther we get into the future.
Either way, we have a first class political money man and truly evil person running the show here in Iowa. Steve King is our little state level Donald Trump. King’s fingerprints are all over the state party. To those Iowans who think that Steve King doesn’t represent them, you are wrong. Steve King’s bullshit is at the heart of the Iowa GOP playbook.
Iowans, the choice is yours!
We can work to make this a different state.
Or,
We can move away.
But,
The vulnerable populations in Iowa will lose the only real support we can give them, Democratic policies like Universal Health Care, Living Wage, and Medicare/Medicaid assistance. For many Iowans, life is lived on a razor thin edge. We need a government that cares more about its citizens than its donors. We can make that happen.
Don’t give up!
Nominate progressive, active candidates.
are you an Iowan?
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from the author:
As awmaz puts it: Steve King is just another Mainstream Republican.
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Is this comment by irishwitch on bullying. Well said.
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Is this comment by Cecilia S! Making the appropriate case about how important women are to our movement! (It couldn’t possibly happen without them/you! Never could!)
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Is yet another comment by bear83! Enumerating a number of things our DEMOCRATIC House of Representatives can begin investigating!
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