Republicans are all but guaranteed to maintain control of the Iowa Senate after November and could expand their majority, now at 29 out of 50 seats. However, Democrats have a chance to pick up a few districts as they work toward winning back the chamber in 2020.

When Fred Hubbell selected State Senator Rita Hart as his running mate, Democrats had to scramble to find a new candidate in Iowa Senate district 49. Patti Robinson announced her candidacy on July 3. She will face Republican Chris Cournoyer, who has been campaigning here since last November.

Hart was favored for re-election, having won by nearly 900 votes in 2014 despite the statewide GOP landslide. However, an open seat should be highly competitive. Both parties may devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to this race, based on spending totals from the battleground Iowa Senate districts during the 2016 cycle.

Democrats are looking at a difficult state Senate map this year and can’t afford to lose any ground to maintain a realistic chance of regaining the majority in 2020. Republicans currently hold 29 of the 50 Senate seats and will pick up Senate district 1, where Iowa’s only independent lawmaker David Johnson is retiring.

Fred Hubbell’s campaign announced this morning that State Senator Rita Hart is his pick for lieutenant governor. Hart and her husband grow corn and soybeans on a 600-acre farm near Wheatland (Clinton County). She previously taught in a rural school district for more than 20 years “before moving on to run educational programs that help young people find jobs with local businesses.” I enclose below the full news release and a campaign video in which Hart introduces herself as an “educator, farmer, a mother, and a volunteer.”

Speaking to the Des Moines Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel, Hart said, “I want (people) to know that I’m not stepping up to this title. I’m stepping up to the responsibility, and I will always keep their best interests in mind as I do that.”

“I like to surround myself with people that come at questions and issues and experiences in a much different way than I do,” Hubbell, 67, told the Register. “I think that makes the discussion richer, and you’re better able to get a better decision that way. So I was looking for somebody that’s very talented and capable, but not a lot like me. And I think I found her.”

Since long before Hubbell entered the race for governor, Hart has been seen as a possible running mate for the next Democratic nominee. The pick should help the ticket in eastern Iowa and among rural and small-town voters, where the party has lost ground in recent election cycles.

Hart was first elected in 2012 to represent Iowa Senate district 49, covering Clinton County and part of north Scott County (scroll down for a map). Normally only even-numbered Senate districts are on the ballot in presidential election years, but post-2010 redistricting created a seat with no incumbent in her area. Hart won a full four-year term in 2014 despite a GOP landslide statewide. She was facing a strong challenge this year from Republican business owner and school board president Chris Cournoyer. The latest voter registration numbers show a small advantage for Democrats, but as an open seat Senate district 49 should be a competitive race. The district’s residents favored Barack Obama for president in 2012, but Donald Trump outpolled Hillary Clinton here by 51.7 percent to 42.0 percent.

More Iowa women are running for office in 2018 than ever before, which could lead to record numbers of female state representatives and senators next year.

However, in other meaningful ways, Iowa’s legislature could become less diverse after the November election.

Many Iowa Democrats expect to have the wind at their backs for the 2018 elections, due to surging progressive activism, an unpopular Republican president, and backlash against GOP lawmakers who used their power this year to take rights away from hundreds of thousands of workers, lower wages for tens of thousands more, and undermine protections for those who suffer workplace injuries.

It’s too early to predict the political climate next fall, but Democrats need to hope for favorable external conditions as well as strong recruits and well-run campaigns. New calculations of last year’s presidential election results by state legislative district point to a very steep climb back to 51 seats in the Iowa House and 26 seats in the Senate. This post will survey the terrain in the upper chamber.