Roundup of news on the House district 90 election

by: desmoinesdem

Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 11:15:00 AM CDT

The Iowa Democratic Party has organizers in the district, and they are doing a good job:

A report released today by the Iowa Secretary of State shows that of the 2,156 early absentee ballots received in his office by noon, 1,308 of them were from Democrats while 603 were from Republicans. The rest were from people who registered as no- or other-party voters.

This is no time for complacency, though, because low-turnout by-elections tend to favor opposition parties. Iowa Republicans have a lot of angry, enthusiastic activists. Click here to volunteer for Curt Hanson's campaign, and be sure to remind your friends and relatives in district 90 to vote on Tuesday.

Jason Clayworth of the Des Moines Register and Jason Hancock of Iowa Independent reported on the disclosure reports filed by Hanson and Republican Stephen Burgmeier. Burgmeier is getting much more help from outside groups; the National Organization for Marriage is spending nearly $90,000 on advertising, and Iowans for Tax Relief has also been running ads supporting Burgmeier.

One Iowa, an advocacy group supporting marriage equality, has slammed the National Organization for Marriage's involvement in this race:

This is not an isolated effort, but an organized, well-funded, full-throated assault on civil marriage equality across the country. The same extremists that bankrolled ballot initiative efforts in Maine and California are now spending money to buy an election in Iowa. NOM has a history of funneling money from the Mormon Church into anti-gay measures, while refusing to disclose the source of their funds.

Click here to sign One Iowa's petition demanding that the National Organization for Marriage disclose their funding sources. By the way, a money laundering complaint has been filed in Maine in response to the way groups including the National Organization for Marriage are funding efforts to overturn same-sex marriage rights in Maine.

The Fairness Fund PAC has a blog here with a field organizer's updates from district 90. The Fairness Fund also has received a matching gift pledge to help respond to the NOM's effots. Click here to donate so they can meet their fundraising goal. Hard work on the ground will determine the outcome in this special election.

If you're on Twitter, use #HD90 to find updates from Republicans and Democrats who are involved in this race.

Share any thoughts about the campaign or election predictions in this thread.