# Hillary Clinton



Republicans want to kill us. Democrats need to talk about it

C.J. Petersen chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Stonewall Caucus.

When my husband and I walk into a restaurant in rural Iowa and sit down, nobody assumes there’s something going on between us. I’m a heavyset, cisgender white guy with a beard. More than once, people have assumed we were brothers or–to my chagrin–that I was his father (only six years separate us, by the way, but at 32, I’m blessed by genetics with salt-and-pepper hair).

Because of this dynamic, I know that I enjoy an immense amount of privilege to be able to live authentically and thrive in rural western Iowa. I know this, too, from listening to the experiences of Black, brown, transgender, and non-binary folks, who tell me how they fear for their safety when they visit my part of Iowa (we’re not yet two years removed from having been represented by Steve King). Their experiences are valid, and none of us is safe while any of our lives are threatened.

As chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Stonewall Caucus, a constituency group of LGBTQ+ folks who guide the party’s positions on issues that affect our community, my job is to elect Democrats–specifically, Democrats who support LGBTQ+ people and act as allies in our continued fight for equality and justice.

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Iowa Democratic Party vs Democratic voters: Can the shepherd find the sheep?

Glenn Hurst: “Democrats across Iowa are looking for a candidate who is not playing to the middle, the establishment. They want to vote for someone who runs as a Democrat and espouses Democratic values.” -promoted by Laura Belin

In 2016, when Bernie Sanders lost the primary to Hillary Clinton and then Donald Trump won the presidency, Iowa Democrats were at each other’s throats. Blame was laid on the left-leaning voters for not turning out for Clinton. The establishment was accused of running a system to “fix” the nomination for an unpopular candidate.

This intraparty drama was such a common phenomena across the country that a reconciliation committee, a.k.a. the “Unity Panel” was formed to address the conflict.

If my Facebook wall and Twitter feed are a measure of political discontent, the party is absolutely pacified. There has been a relative lack of backroom chatter regarding the presidential outcome this year compared to 2016. The Joe Biden win appears to be taken as a relief and eyes have turned away from questioning why he lost in Iowa. This does not mean the Iowa Democratic Party has wiped its brow and is moving on with business as usual.

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Lessons of 2020: Win or lose, Rita Hart was a good fit for IA-02

Fifth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2020 state and federal elections.

Democrat Rita Hart’s campaign has asked for a recount in all 24 counties of Iowa’s second Congressional district, where Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks led by 196,862 votes to 196,815 (49.92% to 49.90%) after the canvass. It’s the closest U.S. House race in the country, and one of the closest in Iowa history.

The lead has changed twice since election night: first, when fixing a tabulation error in Jasper County put Hart slightly ahead, and then when a correction in Lucas County moved Miller-Meeks back into the lead.

Recounts in Iowa rarely produce big changes in vote totals, so Republicans are confident they will pick up this seat. However, overcoming a deficit of 47 votes out of nearly 400,000 cast is certainly possible in a recount.

Either way, one fact is clear: Hart performed much better than a generic Democrat, perhaps better than any nominee not named Dave Loebsack could have in these circumstances.

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Lessons of 2020: Iowa Catholics stuck with Trump

Third in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2020 state and federal elections.

White non-Hispanic Catholics supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a wide margin in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center’s analysis of exit polls and subsequent survey of validated voters.

Preliminary exit poll data suggests that Joe Biden improved his standing with those voters, losing white Catholics by 57 percent to 42 percent, compared to Clinton’s 64 percent to 31 percent deficit. That’s consistent with some polls taken during the campaign, which showed Biden gaining support among white Catholics–not surprising, since the Democratic nominee frequently referred to his Catholic faith and upbringing in public appearances.

I expected Biden to improve substantially on Clinton’s performance in Iowa’s most heavily Catholic counties, where “Kennedy Democrats” were once a solid voting bloc. But that didn’t happen.

On the contrary, Trump increased his raw vote totals and share of the vote in those counties, as he did in many parts of the state.

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Super Tuesday: A reversal of fortune

Dan Guild reflects on the weekend’s two game-changing events, which have no precedent in Democratic presidential campaigns. -promoted by Laura Belin

“Events dear boy, events” – attributed to to British Prime Minister Harold McMillan, though whether he said it is disputed.

I have spent a good amount of time studying primary polling.  The single most important lesson I have learned is that they are subject to sudden change. It is why I love the McMillan quote – it captures how unpredictable events can rapidly change the political calculus. 

This weekend we saw two race-changing events in 24 hours: Joe Biden’s decisive win in South Carolina and the sudden departure of Pete Buttigieg, the winner of the Iowa caucuses (depending on how you measure the results). These two events in combination are impossible to model. The Iowa winner has never withdrawn this early.  A front-runner has never performed so badly as Biden has before South Carolina and then recovered.

Having said that, I think history offers two parallels:

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How the Iowa caucuses work, part 1: The new 2020 rules

Expanded and revised from a series published at Bleeding Heartland during the 2016 election cycle

The Iowa caucuses are a notoriously complicated process, and new rules intended to make the caucuses more representative have added to the confusion. This post will cover the basics of what will happen on the evening of February 3 and the three ways the Democratic results will be reported. Later pieces will examine other elements of the caucus system:

Part 2 will explore barriers that keep many politically engaged Iowans from participating in the caucuses, despite several attempts to improve accessibility.

Part 3 will focus on caucus math, which creates different ways to win a Democratic precinct, and for the first time this year, more than one way to win the state.

Part 4 will cover the role of precinct captains or other active volunteers, both before the caucuses and at the “neighborhood meeting.”

Part 5, to be published after results are in, will ponder whether the Iowa caucuses as we know them will soon cease to exist, given the growing sentiment among Democrats around the country that the first nominating contests should be in more diverse, representative states.

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Why didn't Cory Booker take off in Iowa?

My father used to say the most optimistic person is the guy on the brink of bankruptcy. He’s always thinking the next sale or the next deal will turn everything around.

Cory Booker remained “incomprehensibly upbeat” on the campaign trail, in the words of Rebecca Buck, who spent a year covering him for CNN. The senator from New Jersey wasn’t just another unsuccessful candidate falling for his own spin. Booker made believers out of many who were closely watching the campaign.

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Iowa Democrats dismiss Julián Castro's critique at our peril

“If you didn’t know anything about this process, and I told you how it was set up, you would think that a right-wing Republican set this process up, because it really makes it harder to vote than it should be,” Julián Castro told a room full of Iowa Democrats at Drake University on December 10.

Castro’s campaign organized the town hall (which I moderated) to highlight problems with the Iowa caucus system and a calendar that starts with two overwhelmingly white states.

Now that Castro has ended his presidential bid, it may be tempting to dismiss his critique as sour grapes from a candidate who wasn’t gaining traction in Iowa.

That would be a mistake. Castro is only the most high-profile messenger for a sentiment that is widespread and growing in Democratic circles nationally.

If Iowa Democrats want to keep our prized position for the next presidential cycle and beyond, we need to acknowledge legitimate concerns about the caucuses and take bigger steps to make the process more accessible.

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Biden following Clinton's 2008 Iowa footsteps. Will Warren's surge hold?

Dan Guild puts the latest Iowa caucus poll for the Des Moines Register in historical context. -promoted by Laura Belin

In March of this year, I wrote that Joe Biden’s numbers looked weak for a front-runner. When Selzer & Co’s last poll of Iowa Democratic caucus-goers came out in June, Biden’s numbers were so weak that I wrote he will probably lose Iowa.

Selzer’s new Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register, CNN, and Mediacom finds Biden losing support since the early summer. It also finds a new front-runner in Iowa who is in the midst of a surge nationally as well: Elizabeth Warren.

Before we get to the horse race numbers, let’s start with the single most important finding from the poll released on September 21:

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Steve King implies Clintons should be executed

Ed Fallon discusses yet another offensive meme posted on Steve King’s Facebook page. -promoted by Laura Belin

I’m not prone to cliches, but I can’t get this one off my mind: You can’t teach an old dog a new trick. Witness hapless U.S. Representative Steve King (R-Eighteenth Century), who despite public chastisement by fellow House members for his comments in support of white supremacy, was again unable to conceal his propensity to think outside the sanity box.

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Mueller's findings on Sam Clovis and a top Chuck Grassley staffer

The U.S. Department of Justice on April 18 released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election.” I’ve posted the full document after the jump. You can download it here or look through a searchable versions here or here.

Dozens of reporters and analysts have posted valuable takes on various aspects of the findings and Attorney General Bill Barr’s brazen lying about the Mueller team’s conclusions. This post will focus on angles of particular interest to Iowa readers: the roles of Sam Clovis, a former statewide candidate here who became a top foreign policy advisor for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and Barbara Ledeen, a senior staffer for U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Why Dave Loebsack's retirement makes IA-02 a toss-up race

All four Iowa Congressional districts will likely be competitive in 2020. Republicans were already targeting the first and third districts, where Representatives Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne defeated GOP incumbents last November. Democrats could make a play for IA-04, if Representative Steve King wins the GOP nomination again (as I expect).

Representative Dave Loebsack announced on April 12 that he will retire from Congress after completing his seventh term, rather than running for re-election in the second district. Both Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report immediately changed their ratings on IA-02 from “likely Democrat” to “toss-up.”

A close look at Loebsack’s last two elections shows why that’s the right call.

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Dead reckoning

Gary Kroeger, who endorsed Bernie Sanders before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, challenges some conventional wisdom in progressive Democratic circles. -promoted by Laura Belin

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

I use that Mark Twain quote quite often. The “wisdom” is what is necessary if we are to extract the truth from an event, but that wisdom is often hard to find. I thought of this as former Vice President Joe Biden was dismissed the other day in a CNN focus group of Democrats.

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As criminal probes advanced, Whitaker met with Trump, Kushner

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker met with President Donald Trump and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the morning of December 7, hours before federal prosecutors released three briefs recounting crimes and misconduct by Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Cameron Joseph of Talking Points Memo saw Kushner and Whitaker boarding Marine One, the helicopter carrying the president, around 9:00 am. The meeting was improper because Whitaker will continue to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller for at least another month.

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How Iowa's 2018 Congressional hopefuls did compared to Clinton, Trump

Eleventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2018 state and federal elections.

David Wasserman, U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, planted the seed for this post when he observed last month,

Iowans Abby Finkenauer (IA-01) and Cindy Axne (IA-03) delivered two of those newly-Democratic House seats. I wondered: how did they and their opponents perform compared to their party’s last presidential nominee?

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Rest in peace, Leonard Boswell

Former U.S. Representative Leonard Boswell passed away on August 17 at the age of 84. He had long battled a rare cancer called pseudomyxoma peritonei. Boswell publicly speculated in 2015 that exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War could have caused his abdominal tumors. According to a former staff member, a link to the powerful herbicide was later confirmed. In a recorded message to Iowa Democrats last year, Boswell said his doctors agreed that his disease stemmed from getting “pretty well soaked” while flying a crop-duster mission.

Surviving two tours of duty as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam was itself beating the odds. Boswell received numerous honors for his actions in that extremely dangerous role.

Following 20 years of military service, Boswell became a cattle farmer in southern Iowa. First elected to the Iowa Senate in 1984, he served three terms in the legislature, the last as Senate president. He was well-liked in Democratic circles. When I met him briefly during the 1994 campaign (he was the lieutenant governor nominee on a ticket with Bonnie Campbell), he seemed to have a larger-than-life personality.

After winning an open U.S. House seat in 1996, Boswell represented parts of central and southern Iowa in Congress for sixteen years. His proudest legislative accomplishment was sponsoring the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, which President George W. Bush signed in 2007. Though he belonged to the conservative “Blue Dog” caucus, Boswell voted for the major legislation of President Barack Obama’s first term, including the economic stimulus bill and the Affordable Care Act.

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How one Iowa candidate with small kids could make a big difference

Running for office is time-consuming and expensive. Even a local race involves so many tasks, only some of which can be delegated to staff or volunteers. Some political junkies aren’t cut out for knocking thousands of doors, asking supporters for money, and attending community events several nights a week. Others have strong skills, work ethic, and the desire to serve, but can’t see a way to juggle the demands of a campaign with family responsibilities.

Some Iowa candidate has an opportunity to make running for office a more realistic option for them.

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IA-03: Six Democrats explain how they could beat David Young

Almost every day, I talk to Democrats who haven’t settled on a candidate in the third Congressional district, where six people are running against two-term Representative David Young. (Heather Ryan ended her Congressional campaign last month and will challenge State Representative Rick Olson in Iowa House district 31’s Democratic primary instead.)

Many of the contenders have supporters I respect and admire. I have no doubt they would represent us well in the U.S. House.

So as I try to pick a favorite from this strong field, I find myself circling back to one question: who has the best chance of beating Young?

At last month’s College and Young Democrats forum in Indianola, each candidate had three minutes to explain how they can win this race. I’ve transcribed their answers in full after the jump.

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Obama's caucus victory 10 years later: A look back in photos

Many thanks to Jordan Oster, a public affairs consultant and clean energy advocate from Des Moines, for this review of a remarkable Iowa caucus campaign. -promoted by desmoinesdem

January 3 marked the tenth anniversary of Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 Iowa Democratic Precinct Caucuses.

Like a number of supporters and former staffers, I took to social media earlier this week to share photos and memories from his campaign. You can check out the full Twitter thread here.

As this anniversary approached, I began to gather photos and recollections of the Obama campaign. The Iowa caucuses have long captivated me, and I have tried to do my part to preserve and keep its unique history alive. A camera is usually a required accessory when I attend presidential events, and I have filled many memory cards with photos of presidential candidates since I first got involved with campaigns in 2003.

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"Make America America again": photos, highlights from Iowa Democrats' fall gala

Everyone could have guessed Alec Baldwin would get Iowa Democrats laughing with jokes at President Donald Trump’s expense.

But who would have predicted the serious part of the actor’s speech would evoke an even stronger response from the crowd?

Follow me after the jump for audio and highlights from Baldwin’s remarks and those of the seven Democratic candidates for governor, along with Stefanie Running‘s photographs from a memorable evening in Des Moines.

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How Iowa could have lost three Supreme Court justices in 2016

Remember how awful you felt on November 9, 2016, as you started to grasp what we were up against following the most devastating Iowa election in decades?

Would you believe the results could have been even worse?

Imagine Governor Terry Branstad appointing three right-wingers to the Iowa Supreme Court. It could have happened if conservative groups had targeted Chief Justice Mark Cady, Justice Brent Appel, and Justice Daryl Hecht with the resources and fervor they had applied against three justices in 2010.

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SERENITY NOW! Forget unity; Dems need a strategic alliance

Practical advice from Lauren Whitehead, a Solon City Council member, longtime Democratic activist, and Indivisible organizer in Johnson County. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Y’all, we’re about to hit the anniversary of the worst day ever and I’m maxed out on rage. I’m beyond maxed out. I’ve reached a level of chronic underlying frustration and anger that is simply unsustainable, and I know I’m not the only one.

As a recovering addict AND a person with a diagnosed mental condition, I’m familiar with what “unsustainable” feels like. It impacts work, relationships, and ability to take care of your basic shit. It traps you in what feels like an inescapable situation of being unable to stop but also being unable to keep going on. So I know when I’ve hit a point where this is just not going to work, and I know I’m there, and I think a lot of other people are there, too. Rage is not an unlimited resource. It is the fossil fuel of our movement. It’s gotten us this far but we will run out. And it’s not good for us.

So here’s my proposal.

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The Socialist Revival. It All Began in Iowa

Jeff Cox is encouraged by evidence mainstream Democrats “will increasingly embrace the socialist policies brought into public debate by the Sanders campaign.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

When Bernie Sanders spoke to a sold out crowd at Iowa City’s Hancher Auditorium in August, sponsored by Prairie Lights Books, he prefaced his comments (full video here) by thanking the people of Iowa for their early support for his presidential campaign. “It all began here,” he said.

If that is true, historians will look to the 2016 Iowa caucuses as the beginning, not merely of a presidential campaign, but of a wholly unexpected revival of democratic socialism in America.

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We are not the ones we were waiting for

Laura Hubka explains why she recently stepped back from local and state leadership roles in the Iowa Democratic Party, after months of trying to bridge the gap between opposing factions. A longtime dedicated volunteer, she also attended listening posts around the state this year as a member of the committee formed to analyze what went wrong for Iowa Democrats in 2016. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I sent an e-mail late last week resigning my positions on the Iowa Democratic State Central Committee, the first Congressional district, and my chair position in Howard County. Now that I have taken care of my duties within the party, I would like to be more specific on why I left. I will concede that these are my opinions, but I know through the time I spent talking to the people of Iowa in many different locations throughout the state that I am not alone in my opinions or feelings.

We say “the truth is on our side,” but what if we are part of the lie?

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Thoughts on Hillary Clinton ruling out another presidential campaign

“I am done with being a candidate,” Hillary Clinton told CBS “Sunday Morning” anchor Jane Pauley in an interview aired on September 10. “But I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake,” she added.

The unequivocal statement is welcome, even though I don’t know any admirer of Clinton who thought she was planning another presidential bid.

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Nine ways Democrats can keep 2018 primaries from becoming destructive

More Democrats are running for Iowa’s statewide and federal offices than at any other time in at least four decades. I’m excited to watch so many strong candidates make their case to be elected governor, secretary of state, or to Congress in all three Republican-held U.S. House districts.

Contested primaries are mostly good for political parties, I believe. For too many election cycles, Iowa Democrats tended to coalesce around one candidate early on. A battle for the nomination forces contenders to work harder and sharpen the message. With more campaigns trying to identify supporters and get them to the polls, I expect a record-setting turnout for Iowa Democrats in June 2018.

The process will also drive more activists to attend next year’s precinct caucuses and county conventions, since conventions may be needed to select Democratic nominees for governor and in the third Congressional district, if no candidate receives 35 percent of the vote in the primary.

The only downside to a competitive primary is the risk that the campaign could become intensely negative, leaving some of the most engaged activists feeling angry and alienated from one another. Case in point: some people are still arguing about Hillary v. Bernie more than a year later.

Fortunately, Democrats can prevent that destructive dynamic from playing out.

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Facts matter, but not if they fall on deaf ears

Matt Chapman’s advice to activists engaging with potential allies on the left: “If your conversation starts out by denigrating someone they worked hard for, you can’t expect them to listen.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

I have read quite a bit and have noted a few workshops on how to talk across the aisle. A lot of folks who canvass or have political conversations to influence voting habits focus on talking to others on the political left, since trying to convince hard-right voters seems like a waste of time.

The strategy for trying to break through to Republicans was to take the facts out of the conversation and focus on the morality of positions. The idea was that people who hold Christian values as their moral compass should be persuadable on issues such as poverty, bigotry, and a host of other issues.

I want to focus on how we communicate on the left from moderate Democrats to progressives and other allied parties, including the Green and Socialist parties as well as independents all across the spectrum.

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Weekend open thread: New Iowa Democratic Party leadership edition

Following a less acrimonious campaign than what unfolded in December and January, the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee voted yesterday for Troy Price to lead the party through 2018. Price brings a lot of relevant experience to the job. He worked in the Vilsack and Culver administrations and led the LGBT advocacy organization One Iowa during the 2010 election campaign, when conservatives targeted Iowa Supreme Court justices and other supporters of marriage equality. Later, he served as political director for Organizing for Iowa, was the Iowa Democratic Party’s executive director during the 2014 election cycle, and was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign before the 2016 caucuses.

Sentiment against Price was brewing in some private Facebook groups near the beginning of this short campaign for a new statewide party leader. Some activists distrusted him because he had worked for Clinton’s operation and was running Todd Prichard’s gubernatorial campaign until a couple of weeks ago. Those feelings didn’t gain steam, partly because unlike the last time, there was no “Bernie” candidate for state party chair this go around. Also, Price reached out personally to central committee members, and a few activists with clout vouched for him privately and publicly. Robert Becker, who ran the Sanders campaign in Iowa, posted on Friday that Price would be an “outstanding” chair. Jon Neiderbach, the only gubernatorial candidate who was a public supporter of Sanders for president, didn’t endorse anyone to lead the party but said he was confident Price would be even-handed if elected.

I was disappointed to learn that some prominent labor union leaders and supporters conducted a whispering campaign against Julie Stauch, Price’s main rival in this race. The backstory here is a mystery to me; I’ve known Stauch for more than 20 years and never seen any sign that she isn’t staunchly pro-labor. Unions are a powerful constituency within the Iowa Democratic Party, providing financial support and sometimes endorsements that influence primaries. It would be helpful for labor leaders to stick to the case for their preferred candidate, instead of making up reasons not to support someone else. More than a few state central committee members were turned off by the negative campaigning against Stauch, who handled the situation with class.

CORRECTION: It was more than a whispering campaign. A reader pointed me to this public thread in which Iowa State Education Association President Tammy Wawro said, “Labor is with Troy, we have no time to waste,” and AFSMCE’s longtime President Danny Homan added, “The only hope for the IDP is Troy Price.” Pressed on their reasoning, Wawro and Homan both mentioned Price being at the Capitol during debates over key anti-labor legislation this year–as if Iowa Democrats who were not physically at the statehouse on those days don’t share the same views. That kind of litmus test won’t be helpful as Price tries to build bridges between different party factions.

I enclose below more links on the State Central Committee meeting and Price’s top priorities as state chair.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Readers who want to help select the Democratic nominee for governor should block out Monday, February 5, 2018 on your calendars. The precinct caucuses held that evening will select delegates to county conventions, which on March 24 will select delegates to the district and state conventions. If no gubernatorial candidate receives at least 35 percent of the vote in next year’s primary, the state convention delegates will choose a nominee on June 16. John Deeth has more to say on next year’s caucus-to-convention process.

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Bernie v. Hillary

Laura Hubka wants Democrats who are still fighting about the 2016 primaries to “act like adults and stop name calling and berating each other.” She is an Iowa Democratic Party State Central Committee member and chairs the Howard County Democrats. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I find myself shaking my head most days over the whole Bernie v. Hillary debate. I want people to get over the primary, but they just want to drag it out. Maybe they are thinking one side is going to quit and suddenly realize that they were wrong and the other side was right?

We are all adults here, and there are a lot bigger problems than Bernie being invited to CCI Action to speak, or him appearing on TV to talk about health care or inequality. There are bigger issues than Hillary tweeting about health care.

Bernie is calling out Trump and making a case against the Republican Party. Are those not issues that we ALL support? Does Bernie not have the ear of millions around the nation? Does Hillary have millions of people who voted for her in the general election? I do not CARE who you supported. Move on.

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Rest in peace, Joy Corning

Joy Corning was independent. As a state senator and lieutenant governor, she didn’t cater to social conservatives who were gaining strength in the Republican Party of Iowa during the 1980s and 1990s. She paid a price for her principles when she ran for governor in 1998 and got no support from Terry Branstad, along whose side she had served for eight years. She would have been a great governor.

Joy was empathetic. Long before she ran for office, she was a young stay-at-home mom when her husband came home from work with awful news: a woman in their community had died of complications from a back-alley abortion, leaving a husband to raise three children alone. Joy couldn’t stop thinking about that mother. The tragedy fueled her dedication to protecting reproductive rights. “Whatever the circumstances of the unintended pregnancy, we cannot experience the hardship and struggle faced by some women who make this decision. We are simply not in their shoes,” Joy wrote in a guest column for the Des Moines Register this year.

Joy was fair-minded. She was among the first prominent members of her party to support marriage equality in Iowa. During the 2010 campaign, she and former Democratic Lieutenant Governor Sally Pederson co-chaired the Justice Not Politics coalition, supporting the retention of Iowa Supreme Court justices who were under attack after striking down our state’s Defense of Marriage Act.

Joy was fact-oriented. While watching the Republican presidential debates, she was repelled by Donald Trump’s “know-it-all demeanor when he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She came out publicly as #NeverTrump last September and shortly before the election co-authored an editorial endorsing Hillary Clinton, in part because of Trump’s “demagoguery,” “racism, nationalism, misogyny and discrimination against people with disabilities.”

Joy was committed. Some politicians leave the state after their ambitions don’t pan out, but Joy stayed in Iowa and volunteered countless hours for many causes over the last eighteen years. In her obituary, she wrote that she was “most passionate about issues related to children and families, women’s health & rights, equality and justice, education and the arts.” For friends who are inspired to make contributions in her memory, she suggested the Planned Parenthood of the Heartland Foundation, Plymouth Church Foundation, UNI Foundation, or the Des Moines Symphony Foundation. Joy was also a founding board member of 50/50 in 2020, a non-profit seeking to elect more women in Iowa, as well as a founding member of an advisory board for the University of Iowa’s center for gifted education, named in part after my mother. (Joy and my mother became friends when both served on school boards during the 1970s–Joy in Cedar Falls, my mother in West Des Moines. I didn’t get to know Joy until many years later, when I served on a fundraising committee she chaired for what was then called Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa.)

Joy was kind. Former Planned Parenthood leader Jill June recalled her motto: “If you can’t say something nice, be vague.” That approach to life wouldn’t produce good blog content, but it did make Joy a wonderful human being.

After the jump I’ve posted many other reflections on Joy Corning’s legacy. Please share your own memories in this thread.

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Ready to Run campaign training for women reflection

Jaime Allen kicks off the series of guest posts by Iowa women who have become more politically engaged since the 2016 election. -promoted by desmoinesdem

As a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of five, I spend most days wiping fingerprints off of my windows and mirrors. If there is one thing I despise most about the trivial aspects of being a mother, it is the smudges on glass. Since I became a mother I have spent my time in my home with my children. My husband and I shared a vehicle for years, so while he was at work I was home bound. This was never really an issue–really, who wants to take four children to do errands?

My only real escape to the outside world was watching reality TV shows. Even though I knew they were fake and staged it was my secret indulgence when the children went to bed. I dreamt of what it would be like to live their lives, so polished and dressed flawlessly with picture-perfect makeup all the time. This was an unattainable life goal as most days my bank account said “try again later” and my personal appearance would be better suited on the “People of Walmart” Facebook page.

It wasn’t until my newsfeed started to show things about the 2016 election that I started to realize that how I was viewing the world from my couch was both different and similar to how others viewed it as well. It was a shock to the system to see how very different people felt about “others.” I never really had taken the time to view how divided the country was on so many aspects of what I assumed were just accepted by most. The similarities I saw were the unspoken ones, the ones where we viewed politicians as untouchables. They lived a life most could never dream of. I began to question why they weren’t doing more wherever they could, with all that power in their hands.

As everyone did I watched the 2016 election play out like a reality TV show. Every day the news evoked shock and awe, villains from all angles, and a plot twist at every episode. Was this how I wanted to live life? A spectator watching helplessly from the sidelines, waiting to see what would happen to my own life and the lives of those I cared about? This election hit hard because I am an immigrant from Canada, a woman, a poor, working-class person. Everything that helps to define me was undermined.

November 9, 2016 was a turning point for me. It was the day I received my citizenship. I stood with 36 other individuals from 24 countries to take an oath to the country I have called home since 2001, at the age of 14.

In that moment I was given two privileges I had not had prior as a green card holder. With citizenship you are allowed to vote and to hold elected office.

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IA-Gov: Andy McGuire has her work cut out for her

I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between Iowa Democratic Party donors and activists than in their attitude toward Dr. Andy McGuire as a candidate for governor.

I’ve never seen a bigger disconnect between Iowa pundits and activists than in their assessment of McGuire’s chances to become the Democratic nominee.

Since McGuire rolled out her campaign three weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about how she might persuade enough rank-and-file Democrats to support her in a crowded gubernatorial field. I’m stumped.

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Kathy Shelton's voice needs to be heard

Sexual Assault Awareness Month ended today with no sign our political leaders are committed to addressing a problem affecting millions of Americans.

Republicans in the Iowa legislature just approved a 25 percent cut to victims assistance grants that support a wide range of programs, from crisis counseling and court advocates for assault survivors to sexual violence prevention education. The federal government may also reduce funding for victim services during the next fiscal year.

The long-term effects of rape and sexual assault are well-documented but mostly invisible.

Six months ago, Kathy Shelton offered a rare window onto the severe trauma many victims still experience years or decades after an attack. Her cries of pain and anger should be a call to action for everyone.

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John Norris: Why he may run for governor and what he would bring to the table

With the exhausting battles of the 2017 legislative session behind us, Iowa Democrats can turn their attention to the most pressing task ahead. Next year’s gubernatorial election will likely determine whether Republicans retain unchecked power to impose their will on Iowans, or whether some balance returns to the statehouse.

A record number of Democrats may run for governor in 2018. Today Bleeding Heartland begins a series of in-depth looks at the possible contenders.

John Norris moved back to Iowa with his wife Jackie Norris and their three sons last year, after nearly six years in Washington and two in Rome, Italy. He has been touching base with potential supporters for several weeks and expects to decide sometime in May whether to become a candidate for governor. His “concern about the direction the state’s going” is not in question. Rather, Norris is gauging the response he gets from activists and community leaders he has known for many years, and whether he can raise the resources “to make this a go.”

In a lengthy interview earlier this month, Norris discussed the changes he sees in Iowa, the issues he’s most passionate about, and why he has “something significantly different to offer” from others in the field, who largely agree on public policy. The native of Red Oak in Montgomery County (which happens to be Senator Joni Ernst’s home town too) also shared his perspective on why Democrats have lost ground among Iowa’s rural and small-town voters, and what they can do to reverse that trend.

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IA-Gov: Jon Neiderbach's pitch to Democratic voters

“I respectfully ask for the vote of every Iowan who is fed up with politics and government as usual.” So reads the tag line on Jon Neiderbach’s campaign website. Neiderbach was the second Democrat to join a field that may eventually include six or more candidates for governor.

Speaking to a packed room of activists in Des Moines recently, the 2014 nominee for state auditor described himself as a “policy wonk” but also “a community advocate” who has spent most of his political life “on the outside. As an advocate, as an organizer, as somebody who isn’t happy with the status quo.”

The basic principles driving Neiderbach’s candidacy appear on his Facebook page:

In 2018 let’s elect a Governor who believes Iowa needs to Stand Tall for our values and Aim High with our ambitions. A Governor who understands Iowans are FED UP with politics controlled by the wealthy and government that is unresponsive to the needs and concerns of our working families. A Governor who rejects big contributions so as to be beholden only to the voters, and who will fight harder and do more to shake up Iowa politics and government than anyone else you can vote for in 2018. I respectfully ask for your support and for your vote.

Neiderbach elaborated on those themes in an early version of his stump speech, which I enclose below. I also transcribed a short interview, in which Neiderbach shared his approach to finding common ground with some political adversaries, as well as thoughts on lingering divisions within the Iowa Democratic Party between those who favored Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates Lectures at Iowa State University on Racism and Lies

An Iowa State University graduate student shares impressions from a January 31 lecture by Ta-Nehisi Coates, “A Deeper Black: Race in America.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

I would like to start this article by admitting that I have not read all the works of Ta-Nehisi Coates. I have read several of his articles in The Atlantic, for which he is a national correspondent. Most recently, his article from The Atlantic, “My President was Black,” is an amazing read that will make you angry at what racism has done to politics in America but in the end leave you with even more love and appreciation in your heart for President Obama. Coates has also authored two books, The Beautiful Struggle (2008), and Between the World and Me (2015), which debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. He also happens to be the author of the new Black Panther series from Marvel!

Despite my somewhat limited exposure to his works, I have known Coates as an avid advocate in the fight against racism as well as for his instrumental voice in sharing his experiences and thoughts as a Black American, and am thus a fan. Coates speaks his mind when it comes to politics in a fierce and refreshing way, and his visit to Iowa State University as a guest lecturer following a tumultuous first week of political chaos was invigorating.

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Our first trip to Northern Iowa- County number 6, Osceola County

The series continues; previous installments are here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This week I will review our sixth-smallest county in terms of population, Osceola County. The 2010 census found 6,462 people living in the entire 399 square miles, the 3rd smallest in Iowa. To put this in perspective, Osceola County is roughly equal in population to the city of Oelwein (Fayette County).

Osceola County is north and just a bit west of Des Moines, bordering Minnesota on its north border. The highest point in Iowa, Hawkeye Point is located within the county. According to Google Maps, the county seat of Osceola County, Sibley, is 236.1 road miles from the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Osceola County was founded in 1871 when it was separated from Woodbury County, and was the last county established in Iowa. The county was named after the Seminole chief Osceola.

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Leadership contest may leave Iowa Democrats more divided than before

UPDATE: Derek Eadon was the winner; have added more about the meeting below, along with the audio from his first comments to reporters as state party chair and background on the new vice chairs. Democrats avoided a polarizing result today.

For many years, the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee “elected” the state chair in name only. In reality, insiders rubber-stamped a decision made by one person (Senator Tom Harkin, Governor Tom Vilsack, or Governor Chet Culver). So I was thrilled to see an open competition among four talented people seeking the top position in 2015. Contrary to some predictions, that race was not a foregone conclusion for the establishment’s favorite candidate; Andy McGuire needed three ballots to win.

The spirited campaign to become state party chair for the next two years is encouraging, considering the huge challenges facing our party after losses in November exceeding most people’s expectations.

I decided early not to endorse any candidate, because everyone in the field brought valuable skills and experience to the table. Reading the pieces posted here by Julie Stauch, Kurt Meyer, Derek Eadon, Sandy Dockendorff, Blair Lawton, and Kim Weaver, along with messages to State Central Committee members from Mike Gronstal and Bob Krause, I felt confident that whoever won would understand the key tasks facing the party and could draw on many good ideas floated during the process.

As today’s election approached, I have become increasingly concerned that the outcome will leave Iowa Democrats more angry and divided–party because the voting procedure won’t allow for consensus-building, and partly because some old hands simply don’t understand the mindset of many activists energized by the Bernie Sanders campaign.

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An Outsider's Opinion on the Race for Iowa Democratic Party Chair

Highly-engaged Democratic volunteer nwfisch attended a January 10 meeting in Dubuque, where six candidates to lead the Iowa Democratic Party spoke to activists and answered questions. -promoted by desmoinesdem

As a teacher, I wouldn’t consider myself a political insider. I live a modest life and try my best to advocate for my students through politics. I’ve become more involved in the local party over the past year and I recently had the chance to hear six of the candidates running for chairperson of the Iowa Democratic Party.

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Another Southern Iowa Red County- Wayne County (5/99)

Continuing a 99-part series. Previous installments are here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This week I will review our fifth-smallest county in terms of population, Wayne County. The 2010 census found 6,403 people living in the entire 527 square miles (34th smallest) that are within Wayne County. To put this in perspective, it is roughly equal to population with the city of Oelwein. Wayne County is south and just a bit east of Des Moines. According to Google Maps, the county seat of Wayne County, Corydon, is 70.5 road miles from the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Wayne County was founded in 1846 from Appanoose County and was named after Revolutionary War General Anthony Wayne.

As we’ve seen as another trend in these first five rural counties, the highest population in the county of 17,491 was in the 1900 census. Wayne County has lost population in every census since that time.

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Number 4 of 99: Taylor County

Previous installments in this series can be found here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This week I will review our fourth-smallest county in terms of population, Taylor County. The 2010 census found 6,317 people living in the entire 532 square miles (36th smallest) that are within Taylor County. Taylor County is south and west of Des Moines. It borders on two of the other sparsely populated counties we have already reviewed, Adams and Ringgold.

According to Google Maps, the county seat of Taylor County, Bedford, is 115 road miles from the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Taylor County was founded in 1847 when it was separated from Page County and was named after General (and soon to be president) Zachary Taylor.

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We must begin now

A plea for Democratic unity from an Iowan who caucused for Bernie Sanders. -promoted by desmoinesdem

We begin now.

A mentally ill carnival barker and his associates tricked our country and he will soon be President; this is not new information, but a reminder of the obstacle we (Democrats and all Americans) have blocking our way on paths of safety, peace, fairness and freedom.

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Weekend open thread: Terrible predictions edition

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

In the real world as well as on social media, many Iowa Democratic activists have been talking about Rich Leopold this week. Since announcing his candidacy for governor on Wednesday, Leopold has reached out to county chairs and other local leaders in a bunch of towns. I hope his early, aggressive campaign will drive other Democrats thinking about this race to start pounding the pavement sooner rather than later. I’m all for a spirited, competitive 2018 primary.

Longtime Johnson County elections office worker John Deeth wrote a must-read “deep dig” about the real-world implications of “the proposed voter ID legislation, with the Orwellian name ‘Voter Integrity,’ launched by Secretary of State Paul Pate on Thursday.” Key point: county auditors of both parties are not fans of voter ID, “because they’ve been on the front lines of dealing with the public and they know that it doesn’t solve anything and that it will make it harder for the public.” Bleeding Heartland’s take on Pate’s solution in search of a problem is here.

Des Moines Register statehouse reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel published a heartbreaking account of her mother’s terminal illness during the presidential campaign, a “sudden and devastating” ordeal that still “hurts like hell every day.”

Along with most Iowa politics watchers, I’m gearing up for the 2017 Iowa legislative session, which begins on Monday. First, let’s take care of some unfinished business from 2016. Like many political writers and a fair number of Bleeding Heartland readers, I had a horrendous year for predictions.

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The 2016 Election: A view from The People’s Republic of Johnson County

A resident offers a view of the 2016 election from the “People’s Republic of Johnson County.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

If Johnson County, Iowa were its own state or country, Hillary Clinton would be president today and Patty Judge one of our two senators, Bruce Braley being the other. Using public data from the Johnson County Auditor webpage, turnout for the 2016 presidential election was 77,476 votes, which is 84 percent of registered voters. Secretary Clinton pulled in 65 percent of the vote and Judge 57 percent in her bid to become US Senator. In the presidential race, Donald Trump received 27 percent of the vote, Gary Johnson 4 percent, and write-ins were higher than any other candidate at 1.2 percent.

John Deeth notes in his blog that Johnson County, Iowa tops the next best performing county for Clinton by 14 percent, and in the recent past was the only wins for Jack Hatch and Roxanne Conlin. Johnson was the only county to not favor Terry Branstad in his 2014 reelection. If more of the nation had voted like Johnson County, things would have looked more like what nearly every news source was predicting. The figure of 84 percent is remarkable for a turnout and press coverage reflected this, but I will return to this in a moment.

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A look at Jefferson County, Iowa

A former southeast Iowa resident shares insight into an unusual rural county, where Trump supporters campaigned on a unique message. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Given the increasing attention being paid to the continuing decline of rural Iowa, Jefferson County is an interesting absurdity among these conversations and the 2016 presidential election.

Jefferson County, population 16,843, is a mesh of traditional rural Iowa and a hot pot coalition of Transcendental Meditation followers from around the globe. Fairfield, the county seat, is more than 60 miles to the nearest urban center and stands out as the rare rural Iowa community that has gained population in recent years: a 4 percent population increase between 2010-2014, according to a questionable census report. (Questionable because a portion of the census’s reported increase in residents may be international students who took classes in Fairfield, but live in other states for the majority of their student/work visa.)

Fairfield is also known for its progressive views on organic farming and green energy, as well as residents’ higher than average educational attainment and religious diversity. Given those facts, Jefferson County should have been an easy win for the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton coalition in 2016. As it has been reliably, other than in 2000, when the Natural Law Party’s John Hagelin won 15 percent of the vote, shifting the county from the Al Gore to the George Bush column. Instead, Clinton lost Jefferson County to Donald Trump by 38 votes.

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A year's worth of guest posts, plus tips for guest authors

One of my blogging new year’s resolutions for 2016 was to publish more work by other authors, and I’m grateful to the many talented writers who helped me meet that goal. After the jump I’ve linked to all 140 guest posts published here last year.

I encourage readers to consider writing for this site in 2017. Guest authors can write about any political issue of local, state, or national importance. As you can see from the stories enclosed below, a wide range of topics and perspectives are welcome here.

Pieces can be short or long, funny or sad. You can write in a detached voice or let your emotions show.

Posts can analyze what happened or advocate for what should happen, either in terms of public policy or a political strategy for Democrats. Authors can share first-person accounts of campaign events or more personal reflections about public figures.

Guest authors do not need to e-mail a draft to me or ask permission to pursue a story idea. Just register for an account (using the “sign up” link near the upper right), log in, write a post, edit as needed, and hit “submit for review” when you are ready to publish. The piece will be “pending” until I approve it for publication, to prevent spammers from using the site to sell their wares. You can write under your own name or choose any pseudonym not already claimed by another Bleeding Heartland user. I do not reveal authors’ identity without their permission.

I also want to thank everyone who comments on posts here. If you’ve never participated that way, feel free to register for a user account and share your views. If you used to comment occasionally but have not done so lately, you may need to reset your password. Let me know if you have any problems registering for an account, logging in, or changing a password. My address is near the lower right-hand corner of this page.

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The 16 Bleeding Heartland posts that were most fun to write in 2016

Freedom to chase any story that captures my attention is the best part of running this website. A strong sense of purpose carries me through the most time-consuming projects. But not all work that seems worthwhile is fun. Classic example: I didn’t enjoy communicating with the white nationalist leader who bankrolled racist robocalls to promote Donald Trump shortly before the Iowa caucuses.

Continuing a tradition I started last year, here are the Bleeding Heartland posts from 2016 that have a special place in my heart. Not all of them addressed important Iowa political news, but all were a joy to write.

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The 16 Bleeding Heartland posts I worked hardest on in 2016

For the first time last year, I put some thought into what posts had consumed the greatest amount of my energy. I realized that some of those deep dives were among my most satisfying writing projects. That new awareness informed my editorial choices in good and bad ways. Unfortunately, some election-related stories I would have covered in previous cycles didn’t get written in 2016, because I was immersed in other topics. On the plus side, those rabbit holes led to work I’m proud to have published.

Assembling this post was more challenging than last year’s version. Several pieces that would have been among my most labor-intensive in another year didn’t make the cut. A couple of posts that might have made the top ten were not ready to go before the holidays. Maybe they will end up in a future collection of seventeen posts I worked hardest on in 2017.

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The 16 highest-traffic Bleeding Heartland posts in 2016

Traffic can be a touchy subject for bloggers. Most writers know the pain of pouring a lot of effort into a project that gets little traction. On the flip side, although clicks are always welcome, seeing a post take off is not as satisfying when you are less invested in the piece. The most-viewed post in nearly 10 years of Bleeding Heartland’s existence was nothing special, just another opinion poll write-up. FYI: A good way to get the Drudge Report to link to your site is to type up a long list of negative statements about Hillary Clinton.

I’ve never compiled a year-end list like this before, but since people occasionally ask what material is most popular at the blog, I figured, why not start a new tradition? Ulterior motive: I hope more readers will be inspired to write for Bleeding Heartland in 2017 after learning that guest authors wrote some of this year’s most-viewed posts, including the one at the very top.

Follow me after the jump for the sixteen posts that generated the most traffic in 2016. Some of the results surprised me.

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A Political Autopsy: What Went Wrong for Iowa Democrats, and How We Can Come Back Stronger for 2018

Guest author nwfisch knocked hundreds of doors in Dubuque County, which voted for the Republican presidential candidate this year for the first time since 1956. -promoted by desmoinesdem

As a delegate for Hillary Clinton throughout the caucus season, I became more engaged as the general election approached. I knocked on doors weekly encouraging voters to request an absentee ballot or else convince them to vote for Hillary and down ballot Democrats. I often pestered coworkers and friends about the election and the importance of speaking out against Donald Trump.

I have no regrets and don’t feel my time was wasted in standing for a competent candidate and against an unprepared and unqualified candidate. This post will air some grievances I had during my time as a volunteer this cycle, attempt to explain why Iowans flocked to the GOP, and offer some ideas for next steps for Democrats to take.

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Next we visit Ringgold County, Iowa

Part 2 in a planned 99-part series profiling each of Iowa’s counties before the 2018 general election. Last week’s post on Adams County is here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This week I will review our second smallest county in terms of population, Ringgold County.

The 2010 census found 5,131 people living in the entire 539 square miles that are within Ringgold County. Ringgold County is located south and west of Des Moines. According to Google Maps, the county seat of Ringgold County, Mounty Ayr, is 89.2 road miles from the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Ringgold County was founded in 1847 when it was split from Des Moines County. The highest population in the county was 15,325 in the 1900 census. Ringgold County has lost population in every census since that time except for less than 1% increases from the previous census in the 1920 and 2000 censuses.

The racial makeup of the county in the 2010 census was 99.07% White, 0.11% Black or African American, 0.22% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 0.02% from other races, and 0.42% from two or more races. 0.24% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. An extremely non-diverse county in terms of race.

14.3 percent of the population live in households with income at or below the poverty level. The per capita income was estimated at $29,468 which ranks 93rd of 99 in counties in Iowa. Ringgold County had the 12th lowest unemployment rate in 2010, 4.7%. (As of November 2016 the unemployment rate was 2.7%.) In terms of educational attainment, Ringgold County has the 21st highest rate of residents having received a bachelors degree or higher, 20.8 percent.

Ringgold County is currently a part of the 3rd congressional district, represented by David Young-R since 2015. Currently Ringgold County is a part of the 12th District in the Iowa Senate represented by Mark Costello-R and part of the 24th District in the Iowa House of Representatives represented by Cecile Dolecheck-R.

Recent election results are after the jump.

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Hey Democratic Party! Wake up and smell what you have been shoveling!

Another perspective on what the Iowa Democratic Party needs to do, from a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention who then supported Jill Stein for president. -promoted by desmoinesdem

My name is Chris Laursen. I am an activist and political dissident from Ottumwa, Iowa and I am here to tell the truth, a truth we all know. The Democrats have fabricated a facade of being the party of the people, but in actuality they are the party of Wall Street. I am not fooled, and the working progressives of America have woken up to this reality. Establishment Democrats, you enabled the charlatan named Donald Trump to become the leader of the free world. Own it!

We have witnessed the Democratic Party continually degrade into a heaping pile of neoliberal ordure for many years, characterized by voter suppression, media collusion, tsunamis of special interest money, a rigged playing field and millions of disengaged and disenfranchised voters. This last election cycle was reflective of these facts. The party cannot win elections when it alienates half of its base and ignores rural America and undecided voters.

Democrats have lost the White House, both houses of the U.S. Congress and both houses of our Iowa Legislature. Nancy Pelosi is dead wrong when she says, “I don’t think Democrats want a new direction.” The fact is that if Democrats don’t change their direction they are going to wither and die a slow, painful death. Examine the youth vote in the Democratic presidential primary to find evidence of this certainty.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee is faced with a very important decision in the forthcoming month. Who will they select to steer the helm of the IDP?

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Run, Block, Pass, and Catch

Thanks to Gary Kroeger for sharing this post-mortem, first published at his blog Gary Has Issues. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Mark Twain famously observed: “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it-and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again — and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

If Democrats are to engineer a way back into being a relevant presence in state houses, Congress and the White House, they (we) must look at the election of 2016 and ask hard, tough and critical questions that lead to hard, tough and critical analysis of “what went wrong.”

It has become an almost by rote analysis-confession for Democrats to bemoan that160607070235-hillary-clinton-june-6-super-169 Hillary didn’t inspire voters, she isn’t trustworthy, she didn’t speak to white, working class Americans, and that she and the DNC led the charge to rig the process and by doing so disenfranchised the already disenfranchised voter.

But, if that is true; if that is the correct “what-we-must-change-and-do-differently-next-time” lesson….then how do we explain the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first female, major party, nominee, received more votes than any white male, running for president, in history? Including, of course, the man who went on to defeat her, who received 2.8 million fewer votes.

2.8 million votes are not insignificant. If our system wasn’t predicated on an Electoral College (it is, Trump won, and that is not being contested here…even though there is some chilling evidence of vote counting fraud…), Clinton would have been considered the winner, overwhelmingly, and we wouldn’t be talking about trust, her expediency, or her un-likeability.

584df1071800001d00e4212bWe would, instead, be talking about her 68% approval rating before she entered the race, about her unequaled experience and qualifications, and the glass ceiling that was broken. And the pride of having elected the first woman to the highest office in the land.

So, which reality will determine our lesson? The one that justifies what we now must accept, or the one that is revealed by what actually happened?

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Our tour of the 99 counties of Iowa starts in Adams County

First in a planned 99-part series by guest author DMNATIVE. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I am starting our tour with our smallest county in terms of population, Adams County. The 2010 census found 4,029 people living in the entire 426 square miles that are within Adams County. Adams county is located south and west of Des Moines. According to Google Maps, the county seat of Adams County, Corning, is 94.7 road miles from the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines. Adams county was founded in 1853 when it was split from Pottawattamie County, and was further reduced in size when Union and Montgomery County were established.

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Democrats in Denial

Jeff Cox presses his case on why Donald Trump won the presidency. Many Democrats from the party’s Bernie Sanders wing will agree. -promoted by desmoinesdem

What Went Wrong, and the Way Forward.

Democrats continue to be in denial about what went wrong in the November elections. It was not the fault of the FBI, or “the Russians”, or the unjustly vilified Julian Assange, or Wikileaks, or Clinton’s emails. It was a nationwide rejection of the policies of the Democratic Party, which have generated an economic recovery characterized by low wages, wealth inequality, job insecurity, and health care insecurity.

Our first political task is to turn the Democratic Party back into a majority party at every level of government and in all parts of the country, as it was in the wake of the New Deal. In order to do that, it is important to understand what went wrong under Democratic leadership.

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Iowa results certified: Clinton carried early vote, Trump crushed election day

The scale of Iowa’s unexpectedly large swing toward Donald Trump has been clear for nearly a month. But until today, we didn’t know how much early and election-day voters contributed to transforming Iowa from a bellwether state to one that voted much more Republican than the rest of the country, from a state the Democratic presidential nominee carried by nearly 6 points in 2012 to a state the Republican nominee won by more than 9 points four years later.

According to numbers released following the official state canvass, Hillary Clinton went into election day with a cushion less than half as large as Barack Obama’s early vote lead in 2012. Meanwhile, Trump’s advantage among election-day voters was more than four times as large as Mitt Romney’s.

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Don't Panic

Ben Nesselhuf is a veteran of many Democratic campaigns and managed Jim Mowrer’s 2014 Congressional race against Steve King. -promoted by desmoinesdem

‘Don’t Panic’ – The Hichhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy

First, my fellow Democrats, Don’t Panic. Election night was horrific. It was especially difficult because we all expected something different but, Don’t Panic. The Democratic Party, both in Iowa and on the national level, is far from the dumpster fire that the national media is portraying it as. We are in much better shape than the GOP was after the 2008 elections. If you recall, the national punditry was talking about the death of the modern day Republican Party. That was going to be nothing but a regional party that couldn’t win a race outside of the south. Obviously, that is not the case. In 2010 they came back in a big way and we will too. So, again I say, Don’t Panic.

Let me take a moment to introduce myself. I have not met nearly as many democratic activists in Iowa as I would like and it is very likely that you, dear reader, have no idea who I am.

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Iowa Democrats will need to fend for ourselves in 2018 and 2020

Since election day, I’ve spoken with many Iowa Democrats and have observed many conversations and debates on social media. People process grief in different ways. Some Democrats are still bogged down in arguments over who is to blame (e.g. centrist or “establishment” Democrats, the FBI director, political journalists). Some are despairing over how Republicans will use total control over state government to destroy safety net programs and erode civil rights. Some have already moved on to pondering how we can create a stronger statewide party, and how Democrats could mitigate the harm Congressional Republicans will be able to inflict on Americans.

I applaud the forward-thinking people who are preparing for the tasks ahead. At the same time, I’m concerned that many Democrats haven’t absorbed the long-term consequences of what happened here on November 8.

For decades, politically-engaged Iowans have enjoyed the attention that comes with being first in the nominating process and a swing state later in the year. Our popular vote tracked closely to the national popular vote margin in six straight presidential elections. Both major-party nominees campaigned here and paid for field networks to get out the vote, with collateral benefits for down-ticket candidates.

We need to recognize that during the next couple of election cycles, we will likely be on our own.

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The Big Fight Democrats Can't Afford to Lose

Thanks to susaniniowa for stating it so clearly: “This is the first moment of the election of 2018. If we blow it, we can expect to lose.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

I have been reading a lot of social media comments from Bernie Sanders supporters who think he “sold out” because he said Clinton would remain an important voice in the party. I think they are profoundly wrong about Bernie, and about how to respond to what we face now. We cannot confront the coming threats to the well-being of our fellow citizens and the planet itself if we allow ourselves to be divided. Our first and biggest fight may come as soon as January. We cannot afford to lose it.

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Iowa's no bellwether anymore--and neither is Cedar County

Stephen Wolf of the Daily Kos Elections team compiled a spreadsheet of U.S. presidential election results by state, along with each state’s “partisan voting index,” from 1828 to 2016. The partisan voting index, developed by the Cook Political Report, shows “how strongly a United States congressional district or state leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party, compared to the nation as a whole.”

For six presidential elections in a row, Iowa’s top of the ticket results tracked remarkably closely to how the country voted. I say “remarkably” because demographically, Iowa’s overwhelmingly white electorate has not been representative of the U.S. population for many decades.

The streak was broken this year. So was the streak for Iowa’s best bellwether county.

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Election results thread: Dark days ahead

Polls just closed in Iowa. Considered a heavy favorite to win the electoral college, Hillary Clinton is in serious danger of losing the presidency. Results from swing states to the east suggest that Donald Trump is outperforming Mitt Romney in heavily white working-class and rural areas. That doesn’t bode well for our state, even if early vote numbers suggested Clinton might have a chance.

Most of the battleground state House and Senate districts are overwhelmingly white. Republicans have been able to outspend Democrats in almost all of the targeted races. We could be looking at a GOP trifecta in Iowa for the first time since 1998.

I’ll be updating this post regularly as Iowa results come in. The Secretary of State will post results here.

No surprise: the U.S. Senate race was called for Chuck Grassley immediately. He led all the late opinion polls by comfortable double-digit margins.

The rest of the updates are after the jump.

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Final Iowa early vote numbers: Is Clinton's lead large enough?

Most election forecasters see Iowa likely to go to Donald Trump, based on the preponderance of opinion polls taken here in the past month.

However, Michael McDonald, who closely tracks early voting for the U.S. Elections Project, concluded that Iowa leans to Hillary Clinton, based on the ballots cast before election day.

How can that be, given that the current Democratic lead in ballots returned to county auditors is significantly smaller than what President Barack Obama carried into election day 2012?

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My Hillary Clinton Retrospective

Tanya Keith has volunteered for many Democratic campaigns in Des Moines and was a precinct captain for Barack Obama before the 2008 Iowa caucuses. -promoted by desmoinesdem

We’re into the last two days of this campaign and as Hillary released her “Story of the Campaign” video, I began to think about my journey through this campaign. The lead up to the Iowa Caucus was a turning point in my life. My third and likely final child, a daughter, was born in April of 2015, just as my oldest was becoming a teenager. I realized that this was the last Presidential election that my oldest will not vote in, and I decided to push myself to show her how to engage in politics, even through the fog of early motherhood. My first venture on this mission was a trip to Newton, Iowa when the baby was 12 weeks old.

When my first was born, I was starting my own company, and with my second my company was going strong and I barely took any time off. My third born gave me the opportunity to indulge in staying home with her without the immediate pressure of working. Reaching 12 weeks, when American families who qualify for FMLA must return to work after unpaid leave was taking an emotional toll on me. My daughter was still so small, and I felt a personal responsibility to take advantage of the Iowa Caucus stage to shine a light on the absurdity of United States being the only industrialized nation to not offer paid family leave.

As Clinton wrapped up her speech and began taking questions, I stood up with my baby girl in my arms.

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Five reasons Chris Hagenow is worried about winning Iowa House district 43

The Republican Party has spent more than $400,000 defending Iowa House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow’s seat in the Des Moines suburbs, which he held by only 23 votes in the last presidential election cycle. Most of the money has bought television commercials, beginning six weeks ago and continuing in heavy rotation to the end.

Hagenow led with a ludicrous spot portraying himself as some kind of champion for education funding and the preschool program he voted to eliminate. He moved to a deceptive hit piece against Democratic challenger Jennifer Konfrst, followed by an ad touting his role in making EpiPens more widely available for kids. A second negative spot was a narrowly-focused attack on a tax lien Konfrst resolved many years ago–the height of hypocrisy, since Republican leaders were simultaneously funding the campaign of a House candidate with a much larger, still unpaid federal tax liability. In the last few days, local television stations have been running Hagenow’s initial positive ad, which misrepresents his record on education funding.

Hagenow is running scared, for good reason.

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Weekend open thread: Final Iowa polls and last-minute GOTV edition

No need to ask what’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers. Three days from now, this election will be over except for the recounts. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have released their closing arguments to television viewers. Clinton’s 60-second ad “Roar” is a lot more upbeat than Trump’s two-minute “Argument for America.” UPDATED to add: the Trump commercial pushes some anti-Semitic buttons.

Nearly 600,000 Iowans have already voted. I enclose below the latest absentee ballot figures, as of today and at the same point in the 2012 campaign. The Democratic lead in ballots received by county auditors stands at 41,881. On the Saturday before election day 2012, Democrats had banked 65,099 more votes than Republicans.

The Des Moines Register released toplines from Selzer & Co’s final Iowa poll of the year a few minutes ago. It’s not good news for Democrats: Trump leads Clinton by 46 percent to 39 percent, with 6 percent supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson and 1 percent the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Last month’s Selzer poll showed Trump 4 points ahead.

The latest surveys from Simpson College/RABA Research and Emerson College both showed Trump leading Clinton by 44 percent to 41 percent in a field including multiple candidates.

Loras College in Dubuque released its final Iowa poll earlier today: Clinton 44 percent, Trump 43 percent, Johnson and Stein 3 percent each, and 7 percent undecided. Loras found a 10-point advantage for Trump (47-37) among respondents who said they had not yet voted. Clinton’s net favorability (-8) was substantially better than Trump’s (-36). I enclose below excerpts from the Loras polling memo and Jason Noble’s write-up of the Selzer poll in the Des Moines Register. I’ll update later with more details as the Register publishes further results.

Lots of pundits have written off Iowa already, given the demographics that favor Trump (a mostly white population, older than in other swing states and with a relatively small proportion of college graduates). Clinton’s campaign is working GOTV hard. A field office near you could use your help these last few days. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to strangers on the phone or at the doorstep, you can bring food to campaign staff and volunteers, or offer to be a poll watcher on election day.

I can’t remember more perfect weather for canvassing the weekend before a general election. For those planning to hit the doors tomorrow, Monday, or Tuesday, here are my best tips and pointers from superstar volunteer Laura Hubka, the Howard County Democratic Party chair.

Some GOTV “scripts” are geared toward voters already identified as supporters of Democratic candidates. These people don’t need persuading. Volunteers will remind them of their polling place location and opening times and will ask for their plan to vote. Research has shown that when people articulate their plan (for instance, before work or after dropping the kids off at school), they are more likely to follow through and cast a ballot. Clinton’s campaign has an online tool for voters and hilarious YouTube video of Joe Biden (enclosed below) on why making a plan “is like the whole secret of life.”

All 99 county auditors’ offices will be open for early voting in person on Monday, November 7, from 8 am to 5 pm.

Important reminders for absentee voters who have not yet mailed back their ballots: late-arriving absentee ballots must be postmarked by November 7 in order to be counted. Post offices no longer routinely attach postmarks, so either 1) take your ballot to a post office on Monday and request a postmark, 2) hand-deliver your ballot to your county auditor’s office by 9 pm on November 8, or 3) ask a campaign volunteer to pick up your completed ballot so it can be hand-delivered on time.

Make sure to follow instructions carefully: fill in ovals completely, seal the marked ballot in the secrecy envelope, seal that envelope inside the affidavit envelope, and sign and seal the affidavit envelope.

If you’ve changed your mind about voting absentee, bring your unmarked ballot to your regular polling place on November 8, so you can “surrender” it and receive a regular ballot. If you don’t have your absentee ballot with you, poll workers will make you fill out a provisional ballot instead.

Final note: political junkies can enter Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa election prediction contest by posting a comment in this thread before 7 am on November 8.

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State of the race

Dan Guild follows up on yesterday’s post about late-stage scenarios in the presidential campaign. -promoted by desmoinesdem

In 2008 I did state polling summaries at Open Left. That analysis originated from work I had done in 1996 which suggested the state polling was far more accurate than national polling. In 1996 the national polling was off by a considerable margin. I did the same analysis in 2012.

This is that analysis this morning.

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Two polls show small Trump lead in Iowa

Donald Trump is slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton among likely voters in Iowa, according to two polls that were in the field this week. The latest Simpson College/RABA Research poll shows Trump beating Clinton by 44 percent to 41 percent in a five-way race, with 5 percent of respondents supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson, 2 percent each for the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independent Evan McMullin, and 6 percent unsure. Head to head, Trump leads Clinton by 46 percent to 44 percent.

Today Emerson College released Iowa numbers showing Trump ahead in a four-way race by 44 percent to 41 percent, with 5 percent for Johnson, 4 percent for Stein and 5 percent undecided. Emerson does not appear to have polled a two-way race.

Strangely, neither survey shows a large difference between men’s and women’s voting preferences in Iowa, despite data (and common sense) indicating that this year’s presidential race is shaping up to have the largest gender gap in history. RABA Research found men break for Trump 46-37 in a five-way race and 50-40 head to head, while women support Clinton 44-42 in a larger field and 47-43 against Trump alone. Emerson College’s results: a 45-41 advantage for Trump among men and a 44-42 lead for Clinton among women. I find those numbers very difficult to believe.

I enclose below more findings and notes on methodology from the new polls. Most disturbing, from Simpson College/RABA Research: only 66 percent of respondents said “Americans are ready for a woman to be president.” Some 20 percent said Americans are not ready, the rest were unsure. The cross-tabs show 37 percent of Republicans, 25 percent of Iowans over age 65, and 26 percent of those without a college degree say the country isn’t ready for a woman president.

Don’t forget to enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest.

At least a third of Iowans who will vote this year have already returned their ballots. Click here for tables showing the latest early vote totals. Iowa Democrats will go into election day with a significant absentee ballot lead, but smaller than the cushion Barack Obama had in 2012.

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How Clinton's Iowa campaign is reaching Latino and African-American voters

Pundits agree that Iowa’s demographics give Donald Trump a better chance of winning here than in any other state President Barack Obama carried twice.

However, a growing number of Iowans don’t match stereotypes about our state’s mostly-white electorate.

Hillary Clinton’s Iowa coalitions director, Maryland House Delegate Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk, spoke to Bleeding Heartland this week about the campaign’s outreach to Latino and African-American communities. Peña-Melnyk has put 6,000 miles on her car since August, traveling from Council Bluffs to Columbus Junction and many places in between.

Even in this overwhelmingly white state, a strong turnout among Latino and African-American voters could swing a close election.

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Nearly 1 in 3 Iowa votes already banked

Unless turnout a week from today shatters the record set in 2012, nearly a third of the Iowans who will participate in this year’s general election have already cast ballots.

Iowa’s 99 county auditors had received 472,085 absentee ballots as of November 1.

One week before the 2012 general election, Iowa county auditors had received 531,996 ballots, which was about 33.5 percent of the 1,589,899 votes cast. I expect this year’s turnout to fall a little below the 2012 level, because both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are unpopular among Iowa voters. The number of Iowans who vote but leave the presidential line blank on their ballot, or support a third-party candidate for president, will probably also be higher than in years past.

Absentee ballot requests from Iowa voters totaled 593,435 today. At the same point in the 2012 campaign, 660,643 Iowans had requested an early ballot–41.6 percent of the number who eventually voted.

Follow me after the jump for more on how this year’s early vote numbers compare to the last presidential election. Iowa Democrats slightly increased their absentee ballot lead over the past week; click here for daily tables showing absentee ballots requested and received statewide and in each of Iowa’s four Congressional districts. Pat Rynard examined the county-level early vote numbers as of October 31.

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Iowa Senate district 42: Nothing to see here--unless Trump has big coattails

Iowa is blessed with an unusually large number of competitive state legislative districts, thanks to our non-partisan redistricting process. Most election years, at least half a dozen Iowa Senate seats and twice as many House seats are in play. Campaign finance reports showing where candidates and party leaders are spending the most money provide the best clue on which legislative races are worth watching.

That said, most years at least one little-noticed candidate pulls off a big upset in an Iowa House or Senate district neither party was targeting. Now-disgraced Kent Sorenson won his first race in 2008, taking a House seat that had been considered safe for Democrats. Two years later, Kim Pearson got no help from GOP leaders en route to winning a House seat where the Democratic incumbent had been unopposed the previous election. Republican Mark Chelgren won an Ottumwa-based Senate district for the first time by ten votes. That seat had been considered so safe that the Democratic incumbent was knocking doors for a colleague in another district during the final weekend. I learned later that internal GOP polling had Chelgren almost 20 points down a couple of seeks before the election.

I can’t shake the feeling that in this strange campaign with two unpopular presidential nominees, something weird will happen in a down-ballot race no one is watching. So before I get back to Bleeding Heartland’s last few battleground Senate and House race profiles, a few words on why I feel a race in Iowa’s southeast corner could produce a shocking result.

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How Roe v. Wade came to be and why it won't be overturned

Guest author Bill from White Plains takes a close look at a U.S. Supreme Court case that is a perennial issue in presidential campaigns. You can read earlier posts in his series on the Supreme Court here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

“Abortion? I personally don’t think abortion is that important. I think it’s just an issue to evade whatever issues are makin’ people drink about abortion.” Bob Dylan, 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, speaking to Rolling Stone in 1986

You wouldn’t know it if you listened to the second and final 2016 Presidential debates, abortion isn’t even in the top 10 of the most important Presidential election issues this year. According to the Pew Research Center’s survey results from the week, June 15-26, 2016, abortion comes in at #13 of the 14 most important issues, trailing, among others, gun policy (#5), immigration (#6), Social Security (#7), trade policy (#11) and the environment (#12). Likewise, what one might expect as a hot-button issue – marriage equality – is last on the list (#14), meaning (according to Pew, anyhow) that only 40% of potential voters believe this is a “very important” issue.

Of course, in that same poll, Supreme Court Justices come in at #9, meaning that 65% of those surveyed believe appointments to the most influential court in America, and elsewhere, are “very important.”

But the issue was brought to the forefront at the debates, anyhow.

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Trump shut out of major Iowa newspaper endorsements

A long and growing list of U.S. newspapers that normally support Republican candidates have refused to endorse Donald Trump for president.

Editorial boards at several large Iowa publications joined the crowd.

Not only that, some went so far as to endorse Hillary Clinton, including one newspaper that had not supported a Democrat for president in my lifetime.

I enclose below highlights from thirteen lead editorials endorsing either Clinton or neither major-party candidate. Earlier this year, I thought some conservative editorial boards might choose Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson as an alternative to Trump, but I am not aware of any Iowa newspapers to do so.

Speaking of endorsements, film-maker Michael Moore spoke to Rolling Stone magazine recently about his “forbidden love” for Clinton and his fear that Trump, whom he considers a “sociopath,” could win the election. Some of Moore’s comments surprised me, since he campaigned for Ralph Nader in 2000 and was a big Bernie Sanders backer in the primaries. His reasoning tracked closely to that of Iowa’s best-known Nader endorser, Ed Fallon. Speaking to Bleeding Heartland in August, Fallon discussed that choice and why he’s discouraging activists on the left from voting for third-party candidates this year.

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Trump's conspiracy-mongering inspired one of his Iowa supporters to commit voter fraud

Terri Rote of Des Moines announced on Facebook last month that she was registered to vote. Good for her! But she took it too far when she cast early ballots at both the Polk County Elections Office and a satellite location. She could go to prison if convicted of election misconduct, a Class D felony.

Rote caucused for Donald Trump in February, and a quick look at her Facebook feed makes it easy to guess why the GOP presidential nominee appeals to her. I enclose below a selection of racist or conspiracy-minded posts by Rote in recent months. In some of the threads, she advocated violence against Black Lives Matter protesters or “liked” racist remarks made by commenters. She apparently lost her job at McDonald’s a few years back for infractions including using a racist slur against a co-worker. UPDATE: Her front door features a Confederate flag along with a bumper sticker showing an adapted Hillary Clinton campaign logo next to the slogan “LOCK HER UP!”

Speaking to Iowa Public Radio, Rote said, “I wasn’t planning on doing it twice, it was spur of the moment […] The polls are rigged.” IPR paraphrased her as saying “she was afraid her first ballot for Trump would be changed to a vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.” Rote likewise told the Washington Post that voting at the satellite site was “a spur-of-the-moment thing”: “I don’t know what came over me.”

Authorities in Polk County have not named two other people, not yet arrested but suspected of voting twice, by mail and in person. We don’t know which candidates they favored. UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: According to KCCI’s Tommie Clark, “The other two cases involved confusion over ballots and ballot requests, which experts say is not a rare occurrence.” Clark’s story noted that Rote’s first vote will count.

Meanwhile, Trump is still laying the groundwork for political unrest after November 8, telling his supporters the election is being fixed. Most recently, he claimed at a Colorado rally Saturday afternoon that postal service or election workers are throwing out ballots marked for him. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate spoke out forcefully against the idea that the election could be “rigged” against Trump. But Governor Terry Branstad bent over backwards to find a kernel of truth in voter fraud allegations.

I’ve never been more concerned about violence following an American election. Sorry, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds: Trump’s outrageous comments and conspiracy-mongering are much more than “clutter” and “distractions.”

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Quinnipiac finds tied race in Iowa, with big lead for Clinton among early voters

Hillary Clinton has gained ground in Iowa since before the presidential debates, according to Quinnipiac’s new survey of 791 likely Iowa voters (margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points). In a four-way race, Clinton and Donald Trump are tied at 44 percent each, with 4 percent of respondents supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson and 1 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Trump leads Clinton by 47 percent to 46 percent in a head to head matchup. A month ago, Quinnipiac found Trump ahead 44-37 in the four-way race and 50-44 against Clinton alone.

Quinnipiac’s polling memo highlighted a few findings from the cross-tabs. The most heartening for Democrats: “Clinton leads 61 – 27 percent among Iowa likely voters who have cast ballots.” That’s surprising, considering that only 27 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 30 percent as Republicans, and 37 percent as independents.

The Iowa Democratic early vote lead is smaller than it was at the same point in the 2012 campaign. As of October 27, Democrats had requested 45,684 more ballots and had cast 40,681 more ballots than Republicans. For Clinton to be 30-plus points ahead among early voters, as Quinnipiac’s data indicate, she would have to be winning a large share of early votes cast by Iowans affiliated with neither party. No-party voters had requested 116,737 absentee ballots as of October 27; 75,819 of those ballots had already arrived at county auditors’ offices. President Barack Obama’s campaign did a much better job of mobilizing no-party supporters here in 2012; Iowa Democrats hope to repeat that performance.

More from the polling memo:

In Iowa, Clinton is less disliked by likely voters, with a negative 40 – 55 percent favorability rating, compared to Trump’s negative 36 – 59 percent.

Iowa men back Trump 51 – 35 percent, while women back Clinton 52 – 37 percent. Republicans go to Trump 88 – 6 percent, while Democrats back Clinton 88 – 9 percent. Independent voters are split 40 – 40 percent, with 6 percent for Johnson.

White college-educated respondents narrowly favored Clinton, 47-43, while whites without a college degree split 48-38 for Trump.

Dan Guild pointed out last month that third-party candidates tend to lose ground after the presidential debates. The Q-poll suggests that pattern is repeating this year; in last month’s survey, 10 percent of respondents supported Johnson and 2 percent Stein.

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"The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad, bad judge"

United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during a January 28, 2013 book promotion at Southern Methodist University

Thanks to Bill from White Plains for another close look at the U.S. Supreme Court. His first post in this series is here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

At the end of the second Presidential debate, held on October 9, 2016 in St. Louis, Missouri, and at the outset of the third (and final) Presidential debate, held October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada, both candidates – New York Republican Businessman Donald John Trump and former Democratic New York senator – and former United States Secretary of State – Hillary Clinton provided their “litmus tests” for their nominees to the United States Supreme Court.

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About 1 in 5 Iowa votes already banked

Approximately 20 percent of the Iowans who will participate in this year’s general election had already cast ballots two weeks before election day.

Iowa’s 99 county auditors had received 311,007 absentee ballots as of October 25.

In the last presidential election, 1,589,899 Iowans voted–a record number in absolute terms. Two weeks before the 2012 general election, Iowa county auditors had received 376,065 ballots, which turned out to be about 23.6 percent of total votes cast. I expect this year’s turnout to be a bit lower than the 2012 level, because this year’s major-party presidential nominees are unusually unpopular.

As of yesterday, 487,370 Iowans had requested absentee ballots. At the same point in the 2012 campaign, 542,096 Iowans (more than a third of the number who eventually participated) had done so.

Follow me after the jump for more on how this year’s early vote numbers compare to the last presidential election.

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Kim Reynolds dismisses Trump concerns as "clutter," "distractions"

Poll after poll shows Donald Trump losing badly among women voters, even among white college-educated women, often a Republican-leaning group. But the most powerful women in Iowa Republican politics remain united behind the GOP presidential nominee.

Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds said yesterday that Iowans should “focus on what’s important” rather than on concerns about Trump she characterized as “clutter” and “distractions.” The likely future candidate for governor should never be allowed to forget that she dismissed flaws many prominent Republicans outside Iowa have acknowledged are disqualifying.

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Weekend open thread: Making history

I’m a third-generation Tigers fan–my mother saw Hank Greenberg play at the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit–but most of Iowa is Cubs country. Congratulations to everyone who “Flew the W” Saturday night, watching the Chicago Cubs win the National League pennant for the first time in seven decades. Seeing any long-suffering sports team win a championship makes me happy, so I am glad the next World Series champions will be either the Cubs or the Cleveland Indians. Any thoughts on the potential impact of a Cubs or Indians victory on the election results in Iowa or Ohio?

I shouldn’t tempt fate with November 8 two and a half weeks away, but FiveThirtyEight.com now gives Hillary Clinton an 86 percent chance of winning the presidency. The latest simulation by Reuters/Ipsos sees her winning in 95 percent of scenarios. Recent polls of Iowa voters show no clear favorite in the presidential race. I expect a close result here; the latest absentee ballot numbers give both Democrats and Republicans reason to be optimistic. No matter who wins Iowa’s six electoral votes, Clinton appears very likely to be the next president.

Until a few years ago, I didn’t think a woman would be elected president in my lifetime. Despite all the misogyny and Hillary hate this campaign has brought to the surface, my children’s generation will grow up without the baggage of thinking this country would never elect a woman, just like they would never think an African-American can’t become president. That’s inspiring and empowering.

Any thoughts on which Iowans might get high-profile jobs in a Clinton administration? What place will she find for Tom Vilsack? Politico came up with a short list of five possible candidates to replace Vilsack as secretary of agriculture. (None are from Iowa.)

I’ve reached out to many Iowa Republicans who have kept their distance from Donald Trump or are rumored not to be voting for him. Most have not responded to my queries. I get that it’s a tough political calculation to oppose your party’s nominee, especially when the whole Iowa GOP establishment enthusiastically supports him. But I am convinced many of these closeted #NeverTrumpers will regret lacking the courage to take a stand before November 8. Trump is not some less-than-ideal candidate. He is playing to the ugliest strains in American politics. His demagoguery and blood libel encouraged white nationalists to come out from under their rocks, some explicitly playing the race card for votes while others relentlessly harass Trump’s critics.

Five former heads of the Republican National Committee, dozens of current and former GOP members of Congress, and four former GOP presidential nominees have said they will not vote for Trump. Fifty former senior national security officials in Republican administrations and a former nuclear missile launch officer have said it would be dangerous to give him the nuclear codes. His narcissism is comical, until you remember this man with no impulse control could become president. Meanwhile, Senator Joni Ernst told the whole country Trump would keep us safer. Ernst pretends to care about sexual assault but will vote for a man who threatened to sue all the women who have accused him of assaulting them. This Iraq War veteran hosted Trump at her biggest fundraiser of the year soon after he insulted a Gold Star family.

In contrast to Ernst, Governor Terry Branstad, or state party chair Jeff Kaufmann, some Iowa Republicans have avoided Trump’s rallies or events where they might be seen with the nominee. To them I say: speak up now, or expect your complicity to be a permanent stain on your political career. These people better not claim after Trump’s landslide loss that they secretly didn’t like him and didn’t vote for him.

Hardin County Auditor Jessica Lara told the Wall Street Journal’s Reid Epstein this week that she’s voting for Hillary Clinton. To my knowledge, she is the only current elected Republican official in Iowa to come out publicly for Clinton. Bleeding Heartland was first to report in May that Lara was #NeverTrump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. History buffs may appreciate Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s phenomenal interactive site showing pictures of street scenes in Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian uprising and in the present day.

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Trump found yet another way to take American politics to a dark place

Donald Trump proved in his final debate against Hillary Clinton that he hasn’t run out of ways to demonstrate he is unfit to serve as president.

About an hour in, Chris Wallace asked the Republican nominee a simple question: will he accept the result of this election? Trump said, “I will look at it at the time,” then rattled off a bunch of bogus talking points. To his credit, Wallace pressed Trump on whether he would honor the tradition of a “peaceful transition of power,” with the loser conceding to the winner. “Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?”

Trump responded, “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”

Normal candidates may make gaffes. Unorthodox candidates may say things that are shunned in polite company. But before Trump, even the most offensive candidate didn’t refuse to accept the will of the voters. Associated Press reporters Julie Pace and Lisa Lerer conveyed the enormity of Trump’s break with tradition in the lede to their debate wrap-up: “Threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy […].”

Every GOP candidate and office-holder must repudiate Trump and affirm that they will respect the outcome on November 8. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate spoke out on Monday, describing Trump’s warnings about “large scale voter fraud” as “not helpful” and “misinformation.” Governor Terry Branstad tried to have it both ways, expressing “confidence” in the election system but claiming Trump has been a victim of media bias, and that Iowa county auditors won’t be able to prevent all attempts at voter fraud.

That’s not good enough. By suggesting the result might be illegitimate, Trump could provoke political violence that is unprecedented following a U.S. election in our lifetimes.

Any comments about the third debate are welcome in this thread. For those who missed it, the full video is here, a full transcript is here, and the Los Angeles Times published transcripts of some noteworthy exchanges. Links to a few good fact checks: NPR, New York Times, ABC, Factcheck.org, and Politifact. I enclose below the clip with Trump’s rigged election claims and Clinton’s response to his “horrifying” remarks.

A few other moments stuck out in my mind:

• Clinton’s strong defense of a reproductive rights: “I will defend Roe v. Wade and I will defend women’s rights to make their own healthcare decisions.” Members of CNN’s focus group liked Clinton’s answer to that question better than any other from the Democrat.

• The exchange over immigration policy, in which Trump referred to some “bad hombres” while Clinton pointed out, “We have undocumented immigrants in America who are paying more federal income tax than a billionaire.”

• Clinton saying Russian President Vladimir Putin would “rather have a puppet as the president of the United States” and telling Trump, “You are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do.”

• Trump interrupting with “Such a nasty woman” while Clinton answered a question about Social Security and Medicare. Mental health experts say narcissists “project onto others qualities, traits, and behaviors they can’t—or won’t—accept in themselves.”

Wallace was a much better moderator than I anticipated from a Fox News personality, despite a few missteps.

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Latest Iowa polls and election forecasts ahead of the third debate

For reasons I cannot comprehend, few pollsters have surveyed Iowa voters since the first presidential debate. Even fewer Iowa polls have come out since the release of a 2005 videotape sparked the latest Donald Trump meltdown.

Forty years of data indicate that third presidential debates “have had less of an impact on the polls” than earlier debates. (Dan Guild reviewed here how first debates have affected previous presidential races.)

In lieu of a time-wasting “curtain-raiser” about things to watch for at tonight’s big showdown in Las Vegas, let’s look at what the latest opinion polls and election forecasts say about chances for Trump or Hillary Clinton to win Iowa’s six electoral votes. Last time Bleeding Heartland covered this territory, several analysts had shifted Iowa from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up” or from “toss-up” to “lean Republican.”

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Iowa Democrats' early vote lead remains smaller than in 2012

I have good news and bad news.

Registered Democrats in Iowa have requested more absentee ballots than Republicans, and a higher percentage of Democrats have returned those ballots to county auditors.

On the other hand, a daily review of data released by the Iowa Secretary of State’s offices shows Democrats are not building the absentee ballot lead they enjoyed in 2012, when strong early GOTV delivered this state for President Barack Obama. Furthermore, Iowa Democrats are lagging further behind their 2012 numbers than are Republicans.

Hillary Clinton is poised to win the presidency and could carry Iowa, but Democrats have reason to worry about the cushion she will take into election day.

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How many more Iowa GOP women will find their voice on Donald Trump?

Melissa Gesing reached her limit this week. Four days after a 2005 video showed Donald Trump telling a reporter he could “do anything” to women, two days after Trump insisted in the second presidential debate that those comments were merely “locker room talk,” Gesing stepped down as president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women. In her October 11 resignation letter, she described her move as a “last resort,” saying she can’t “look at myself in the mirror each morning if I do not take a stand against the racism, sexism, and hate that Donald J. Trump continues to promote.” She explained her decision at greater length in a blog post called “Ending this bad and unhealthy relationship.”

So far, no other woman in the top echelon of Iowa Republican politics has jumped ship. The Iowa Federation of Republican Women named a new president today and restated its support for the Trump-Pence ticket.

But how long can that last, with more women coming forward every day to say Trump kissed or groped them without consent, and used his position of power to walk in on women or underage girls undressed?

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IA-02 GOP nominee Christopher Peters joins #NeverTrump camp

Dr. Christopher Peters, the Republican nominee in Iowa’s second Congressional district, announced today that he will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In a prepared statement, Peters said his “views don’t fully align with either party’s platform” and asserted that neither major-party nominee has exhibited the “character and judgment necessary to be president.” He rejected the “lesser of two evils” approach to voting, which in his view won’t “bring us closer to fixing” a “deeply flawed” political system.

Since launching his campaign in March, Peters has often promised to be an “independent voice” for Iowans, in contrast to five-term Representative Dave Loebsack, who “votes with the Democrats more than 90 percent of the time.” Up to now, he had avoided taking a clear stand on Trump’s candidacy. For example, speaking to Kevin Barry of KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids in May, Peters said, “The top of the ticket I can’t control, so I’m not going to worry about it. It’s kind of like taking the Serenity Prayer at a certain point. My focus is the second district, specifically Iowa, more broadly the country as a whole. […] I don’t think Mr. Trump cares whether I endorse him or not, because he’s rich, and I’m not that rich. So I think he’ll do just fine. […] I don’t think it affects this race too much, or in any way I can control.”

When Barry pressed Peters on whether he is behind Trump, Peters replied, “He’s got till November to earn my vote. We don’t know who all the candidates are going to be yet, and we don’t know all their policy positions. Again, if I’m an independent voice, and that’s who I am, I’ll vote [for] whoever I want to vote for in November, and I haven’t made that decision yet.”

Peters did not attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, nor has he appeared at any Trump campaign rally in Iowa. He spoke at U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride fundraiser in late August, but left that event before Trump’s featured speech and photo op with Iowa GOP leaders. A Libertarian candidate for Iowa Senate in 2010, Peters went to Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson’s rally in Des Moines over Labor Day weekend but didn’t endorse Johnson then or now.

In today’s statement, Peters said “Trump’s behavior and temperament are only a part of the problem. He has repeatedly demonstrated a poor grasp of constitutionalism, civil rights, the rule of law, the role of diplomacy versus military interventionism, and even fundamental economics. I should have spoken out against him much earlier, and regret that I failed to do so.” Scroll down to read the full commentary.

Peters and Loebsack are will attend their first candidate forum today at the Coralville Public Library, beginning at 2 pm. IA-02 leans Democratic, with a partisan voting index of D+4. The latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office indicate that the district’s 24 counties contain 171,027 active registered Democrats, 146,108 Republicans, and 172,729 no-party voters.

Although dozens of GOP members of Congress have joined the #NeverTrump ranks, Peters is the only federal candidate in Iowa willing to repudiate the party’s nominee. To my knowledge, only two other Iowa Republicans on the ballot this year have said publicly they will not vote for Trump: Hardin County Auditor Jessica Lara and State Representative Ken Rizer. State Senator Jack Whitver, who is up for re-election in 2018, has called on Trump to step aside without saying whether he would vote for Trump, assuming he remains the nominee. State Senator David Johnson, whose term also runs through 2018, left the Republican Party in June to express his opposition to Trump.

Final note: While numerous Republicans cited their concern for daughters or granddaughters when denouncing the explosive Trump videotape from 2005, I applaud Peters for condemning Trump’s “character deficiencies” as a father of three teenage sons: “if I ever learned that any of them grew up to be men who conduct themselves like Trump, I would be deeply disappointed.”

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Second presidential debate takeaways: Did Trump stop the bleeding?

The 48 hours before tonight’s town-hall debate were unlike anything seen before in a American politics: 42 Republican members of Congress or governors had announced since Friday that they could not support their party’s presidential nominee. Daniel Nichanian (known on Twitter as Taniel) listed the Donald Trump defectors in narrative form and on this spread sheet.

Hillary Clinton had already been gaining in nationwide and swing state polls since the first debate on September 26, improving her chances of winning the presidency to above 80 percent on FiveThirtyEight.com–before massive news coverage and social media chatter about Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” videotape. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver speculated that “The Bottom Could Fall Out for Trump,” while Nate Cohn of the Upshot wondered whether the new scandal could send the whole Republican ticket “crashing down.”

Shortly before the debate, Trump staged a bizarre media stunt with three women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct and one who was allegedly raped in 1975 by a man Hillary Rodham represented. Three of those women appeared on his behalf in the post-debate “spin room.”

Republicans are cheering Trump’s performance tonight, and on a superficial level, he clearly handled himself much better than in the first debate. After an excruciating early stretch defending his taped comments as merely “locker room talk” (in contrast to Bill Clinton’s alleged “actions”), Trump repeatedly hammered home his favorite talking points about Hillary Clinton: she’s been a “disaster,” her policies would be a “disaster,” she lies, she has bad judgment like Bernie Sanders said, she’s been there for 30 years but never done anything. He also gave wavering Republican voters plenty of reasons to hang in there with him: bashing Obamacare and the “terrible” Iran nuclear deal, proposing big tax cuts, promising to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Trump also finished the debate on a stronger note, managing a surprisingly gracious answer to the “say something nice about your opponent” question.

So arguably, the Republican nominee did what he needed to do tonight. And yet…

• Trump’s body language was angry and sometimes menacing. Many viewers commented that Trump was looming or hovering behind Clinton in a creepy, threatening, and stalker-like way.

• He denied that his “locker room talk” was tantamount to bragging about sexual assault. I have no doubt more women or previously unknown recordings will come out this week to undercut his denials.

• He vowed to put his political opponent in jail if he becomes president. Bob Schieffer of CBS News lamented, “this is what they do in banana republics.”

• He admitted that he had used a $916 million reported loss on his 1995 tax return to avoid paying personal federal income taxes in subsequent years.

• He made more than a dozen false or misleading statements (see also here).

• He acknowledged that he knows “nothing” about Russia and said he disagrees with his running mate on policy toward Syria. Incidentally, the Indianapolis Star reported on October 9 that unnamed sources close to Indiana Governor Mike Pence say he is “keeping his options open”–whatever that means. Pence is stuck with Trump through November 8, for better or worse.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. In CNN’s instant poll, 57 percent of respondents said Clinton won the debate, 34 percent said Trump did. YouGov’s respondents thought Clinton won the debate by a 47 percent to 42 percent but thought she looked “more Presidential” by a 57 percent to 31 percent.

Weekend open thread: Des Moines Register poll and latest Trump uproar

Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 43 percent to 39 percent in the new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register. It’s the first Selzer poll here since before the June 7 primary elections, and its findings are in line with other recent statewide surveys showing Trump ahead. Some 6 percent of respondents favored Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2 percent Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

This poll was in the field from October 3-6, before Friday’s explosive news that Trump was videotaped in 2005 bragging to an entertainment reporter about how he liked to assault women he found attractive (“I just start kissing them. […] I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. […] Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”). Jason Noble’s write-up notes that Trump’s attitude toward women was already among the biggest concerns for Iowa voters about the GOP nominee.

I enclose below excerpts from that story and from others about the latest Trump uproar. A separate post is in progress about the hole Iowa Republican leaders have dug for themselves by fully embracing Trump’s candidacy. All of our state’s top GOP elected officials are standing behind their party’s nominee, even as they condemn his comments in the 2005 video.

At tonight’s Reagan dinner in Des Moines, Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann said the country has “two flawed candidates” but confirmed he will vote for Trump. Republican National Committeeman Steve Scheffler offered a prayer expressing hope that people will understand “elections are not always about perfection.” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley didn’t mention Trump in his speech, which framed the election as a battle over the direction of the Supreme Court for the next 40 years. Senator Joni Ernst bashed Clinton’s character while not discussing Trump, whom she praised at the Republican National Convention and invited to headline her biggest event of the year. Governor Terry Branstad, whose son Eric is Trump’s campaign manager in Iowa, told the Reagan dinner crowd, “We need to elect Donald Trump and Mike Pence to make America great again!”

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. UPDATE: Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson posted the audio from most of the Reagan dinner speeches. The featured guest speaker, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas,

said Trump has let the GOP down “again.”

“The words on that tape were demeaning and they were shameful,” Cotton said and, as he continued, one woman yelled “Impeach Hillary” and others grew agitated. “Donald Trump doesn’t have much of a choice at this point. Tomorrow night at that debate, he needs to throw himself on the mercy of the American people. He needs to take full responsibility for his words and his actions and he needs to beg for their forgiveness and he needs to pledge that he’s going to finally change his ways.”

If Trump will not act contrite, Cotton said Trump needs to consider stepping aside so an “elder statesman” may run in his place. That declaration was initially greeted with silence, then many in the crowd applauded.

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Throwback Thursday: Down memory lane with politicians who don't pay income taxes

By Tom Witosky

Donald Trump’s reported avoidance of paying federal income taxes – possibily for almost two decades – raises a simple, but interesting question for Iowa voters.
Does it matter? And, if it doesn’t matter to voters in 2016, then why did it matter when Gov. Terry Branstad and his supporters made such a big deal of it in his campaigns against Democrat candidate Roxanne Conlin in 1982 and Jack Hatch in 2014?

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Former Representative Jim Leach joins #NeverTrump camp

Jim Leach, who represented parts of southeast Iowa in the U.S. House for 30 years, is among 30 former Republican members of Congress who are publicly opposing Donald Trump for president, Nolan McCaskill reported today for Politico. In a joint statement, the Republicans described Trump as “manifestly unqualified” and a “man who makes a mockery of the principles and values we have cherished and which we sought to represent in Congress.”

“Given the enormous power of the office, every candidate for president must be judged rigorously in assessing whether he or she has the competence, intelligence, knowledge, understanding, empathy, judgment, and temperament necessary to keep America on a safe and steady course,” they wrote. […]

“Every day brings a fresh revelation that highlights the unacceptable danger in electing him to lead our nation,” they said. […]

“It is in that spirit that, as Donald Trump’s unfitness for public office has become ever more apparent, we urge our fellow Republicans not to vote for this man whose disgraceful candidacy is indefensible,” they said. “This is no longer about our party; it’s now about America. We may differ on how we will cast our ballots in November but none of us will vote for Donald Trump.”

Leach was a leading Republican endorser of Barack Obama in the 2008 general election. Most of the others to sign today’s statement have never publicly opposed a GOP presidential nominee.

In an embarrassing oversight on my part, Leach was not among the dozens of moderate Iowa Republicans I’ve contacted in recent months about Trump’s candidacy. Most of these current or former elected officials have not responded to my requests for comment. I am hopeful that in the final weeks of this campaign, as Trump continues to find new ways to disqualify himself, more prominent Iowans will follow Joy Corning’s example and make their opposition to Trump known. A few years from now, many Republicans will regret that they lacked the courage to speak out before this election.

On a related note, Michael Chertoff has revealed that he will vote for Hillary Clinton. He was the lead Republican counsel for the U.S. Senate’s Whitewater investigation during Bill Clinton’s presidency and a secretary of Homeland Security in George W. Bush’s administration. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Monthly has endorsed Clinton in an editorial headlined, “Against Donald Trump.” The magazine’s editors have taken a stand on the presidential election only twice before: for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. I enclose below some of Chertoff’s comments and excerpts from the Atlantic editorial.

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Takeaways from the Tim Kaine/Mike Pence VP debate

The latest revelations about Iowa State University President Steven Leath’s use of university aircraft took up more of my brain space on Tuesday than the only debate between vice presidential nominees Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. Most voters make up their minds on the presidential candidates, not the running mates, and the debate wasn’t exactly gripping television. My mind wandered so much that I didn’t even notice when Pence made up a Russian proverb. (Later, I dragged out my Russian-English dictionary of idioms and can now confirm there is no traditional saying along the lines of “the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.”)

This thread is for any thoughts about the Kaine/Pence skirmish. Like many commentators, I felt that Pence performed better as a debater. He appeared calm, while Kaine was over-excited and too eager to interrupt with scripted talking points. However, Kaine struck me as more effective, because:

• He stopped Pence from getting into a groove that could be used for Trump campaign clips.

• He kept bringing up statements or actions by Donald Trump that Pence denied or was reluctant to defend. Meanwhile, the Republican absurdly claimed Hillary Clinton is running the “insult-driven campaign.”

• He cited Trump’s offensive comments about Mexicans and an Indiana-born federal judge so many times that Pence eventually complained in a memorable exchange, “Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again.”

• He repeatedly brought up Trump’s ties to Russia, while Pence took the surreal position of blaming President Barack Obama and Clinton for supposedly encouraging Russian aggression. (Earth to Pence: which presidential candidate has floated the idea of recognizing the annexation of Crimea and not defending our NATO allies?)

• He delivered a strong statement of personal Catholic faith while articulating the pro-choice position exceptionally well. I only wish moderator Elaine Quijano had asked Pence about the Indiana woman jailed for having a miscarriage, or the state law he signed requiring burial or cremation for all aborted, miscarried, or stillborn fetuses.

CNN’s instant poll showed that by a 48 percent to 42 percent margin, viewers thought Pence won the debate. But it’s not a plus for the Republican ticket when the takeaways are all about Pence running away from Trump, throwing him under the bus, or hanging him out to dry. CNBC’s John Harwood cited an unnamed Trump adviser as saying, “Pence won overall, but lost with Trump,” who “can’t stand to be upstaged.”

Adrian Carrasquillo posted a good summary of the vice presidential candidates’ back-and-forth on immigration during the debate.

Critics on the right and the left didn’t find much to admire in Quijano’s moderating skills.

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Weekend open thread: Trump meltdown and tax avoidance edition

Who could have predicted that after his poor performance in Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump would spend most of the past week re-litigating his fat-shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, culminating in an overnight tweet-storm that Hillary Clinton described as “unhinged, even for Trump”?

Trump’s “aggressive bullying” is textbook behavior for a narcissist–so much that many survivors of domestic violence and emotional abuse found his behavior during the first debate triggering their traumatic memories. Even more disturbing: look how easily Trump fell for the “trap” Clinton set during the debate, validating the narrative that he “lacks the temperament and emotional stability to be president.” Foreign adversaries would have a field day manipulating this guy.

No wonder the Arizona Republic, which had never supported a Democrat for president since its creation in 1890, endorsed Clinton this week, saying Trump is “not conservative” and “not qualified.”

Today’s New York Times features tax documents showing Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995, which “would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.” The Trump campaign did not deny the authenticity of what they called “illegally obtained” documents but said in a statement,

Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required. That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that [sic] knows how to fix it.

The New York Times scoop doesn’t point to any illegal tax avoidance by Trump, but David Fahrenthold’s reporting for the Washington Post has uncovered several Trump Foundation practices that appear to violate federal and state law.

Clinton was already gaining ground in some polls before the first debate. As of September 30, she led Trump in all eleven swing-state polls that were in the field after the debate. None were from Iowa, where Trump has led the latest public surveys and is slightly favored, according to various election forecasters. I wonder whether Clinton will get a bounce here as well. I’m disappointed not to see a new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co this weekend. Usually during election years, the Des Moines Register commissions a Selzer poll to run in late September.

Speaking of public opinion, Charles Franklin of PollsandVotes.com gave me permission to post below graphs he created, comparing President Barack Obama’s second-term job approval rating with that of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

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Latest look at Iowa early vote numbers compared to 2012

Hillary Clinton urged her Iowa supporters to cast early ballots at a Des Moines rally yesterday, a short walk from the Polk County Elections Office. Her campaign needs to bank as many votes before November 8 as possible to counteract the traditional Republican advantage among election-day voters.

Republican strategist David Kochel has portrayed Iowa as a lost cause for Clinton, thanks to the large proportion of white, non-college-educated voters. Some Democratic activists felt demoralized last week after two opinion polls showed Donald Trump ahead by 8 percent and 7 percent. I’ve always expected a close presidential result here and think the next few Iowa polls will indicate a tight race, thanks to Trump’s disastrous performance in Monday’s debate.

But delivering this state for Clinton will require stronger early GOTV than what Iowa Democrats have produced so far, especially among women, who were more likely than men to vote early in the last presidential election.

Iowa Democratic early voting still lags well behind the party’s 2012 numbers. The big question is how much of the shortfall reflects deliberate tactical choices as opposed to a voter enthusiasm problem.

After the jump I’ve enclosed tables showing how many absentee ballots Iowa voters have requested and county auditors have received as of today and September 28, 2012 (the same number of days before the November 6 general election). Democrats have gained some ground since last week but are still more than 56,000 ballot requests (nearly 42 percent) behind the numbers from four years ago. Republicans were ahead of their 2012 early vote numbers last week; they are now slightly behind that pace. No-party voters have requested about 17,000 fewer absentee ballots this year than they had by this point in the last presidential campaign. That’s probably bad news for Democrats, because Barack Obama received more early votes than Mitt Romney did from Iowans affiliated with neither party.

You can view every day’s absentee ballot numbers here. I draw on figures released by the Secretary of State’s office but present the data in a different way.

P.S.- Ruline Steininger, the 103-year-old Des Moines woman who starred in a recent Clinton campaign video, stood with Clinton yesterday before casting her own early ballot. She told reporters, “I’m 103. That’s the reason I voted early. I’m not taking any chances.” Unfortunately, Iowa law would prohibit Steininger’s vote from being counted if (God forbid) she passes away before November 8. Some states, including Virginia and Hawaii, require early votes to be counted in the same circumstance.

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Joaquin Castro will headline the Iowa Democratic Party's "2016 Gala"

Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas will be the “special guest speaker” at the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2016 Gala, formerly known as the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, according to invitations that arrived in many Democrats’ mailboxes today. Tickets for the October 14 event at the Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center in Des Moines (formerly Veterans Auditorium) are available online as well.

Castro represented a San Antonio district for five terms in the Texas legislature before being elected to the U.S. House for the first time in 2012. The Progressive Punch database rates his voting record as the 112th most progressive among current House members. The same database ranks Iowa’s Representative Dave Loebsack 152nd.

Castro spoke about his family’s immigration story and Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. I enclose below parts of that speech, background on Castro’s career, and excerpts from his entertaining essay for the Texas Monthly about his first year in Congress. That piece went viral mainly because the author recounted that in 2013, he heard then-House Speaker John Boehner refer to Iowa’s own Representative Steve King as an “asshole.”

This summer, Castro confirmed he will consider running against U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.

His identical twin brother, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, is a former mayor of San Antonio and delivered the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte (transcript here). He was on Hillary Clinton’s short list for vice president.

P.S.-I’m still not happy Iowa Democratic Party leaders turned the Jefferson-Jackson dinner into a generic “gala,” which could refer to any fancy fundraiser. They could have honored any number of inspiring Democratic figures with a name more appropriate for what should be a celebration of shared political values.

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Three ways to vote early in Iowa (2016 edition)

Early voting begins in Iowa tomorrow, 40 days before November 8. Hillary Clinton is coming to downtown Des Moines for a rally less than a mile from the elections office in Polk County, home to about one in seven registered Iowa voters. Donald Trump will rally supporters today in Council Bluffs, Iowa’s seventh-largest city.

More than 43 percent of Iowans who cast ballots in the last presidential election voted before election day. President Barack Obama built up a lead of 137,355 among early Iowa voters, which more than compensated for Mitt Romney’s advantage of 45,428 among those who voted on November 6, 2012.

Strong early GOTV will be important for Clinton and other Democrats for another reason too: Iowa women are more likely than men to vote before election day. Clinton needs high turnout from women to offset Trump’s advantage among men.

Click here for tables showing the latest early vote numbers and here for the same data from 2012. So far, registered Iowa Democrats have requested more than twice as many absentee ballots as have Republicans. However, Democrats are behind their early vote numbers from the last presidential campaign, while the GOP is ahead of its 2012 pace.

Although many people enjoy the experience of going to their local polling place on election day, I encourage all my friends to vote early. Ballots cast in September and October allow campaigns to focus their final GOTV efforts on those who may need an extra push to participate. Voters benefit too, because they won’t have to worry about bad weather, last-minute work obligations, or a family emergency stopping them from getting to the polls on November 8. They also will receive fewer unsolicited phone calls and knocks at the door once their county auditor has processed their ballot.

Iowans have three options for voting early.

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