Representative Tom Latham is confident that he can win Iowa’s third Congressional district by highlighting the differences between his voting record and Representative Leonard Boswell’s.

The new IA-03 is fairly balanced politically. As of July 2011, there were 161,919 registered Democrats, 159,237 Republicans and 151,641 no-party voters in the 16 counties that make up the district. Speaking at a recent Adair County Republican Party fundraiser, Latham expressed confidence about his chances:

“It is absolutely a swing district, but the difference is this time we are going to have myself as a candidate who is not going to allow Mr. Boswell or anybody else to demonize me.  If you remember the last campaign, he did not run one positive ad in the whole campaign because he couldn’t defend his own record.”

Not quite true: Boswell did air one positive ad in 2010, after running a barrage of negative spots about the weak Republican nominee, Brad Zaun.

Latham later told Kevin Hall of The Iowa Republican blog,

“[Boswell]’s had the ability to make his opponent the issue, rather than his record. Last time, if Leonard Boswell had been the issue, he would have lost.” […] “He voted for out of control spending, for cap and trade, for ObamaCare, the stimulus…it’s a stark contrast as far as the issues go.”

Zaun’s campaign and the Chamber of Commerce did run television commercials in 2010 highlighting Boswell’s votes for the stimulus, climate change bill and health insurance reform. They weren’t able to outspend Boswell and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the district, however.

The 2012 campaign will be a different story. Latham has a huge cash on hand lead over Boswell, and the National Republican Congressional Committee will be engaged in the IA-03 race.

This weekend Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will headline a fundraiser for Boswell in Des Moines on October 1. She’ll then head to Waterloo for Representative Bruce Braley’s annual “Bruce, Blues and Barbecue” event on October 2. It’s not clear what portion of the funds raised from those events will be included on the third quarter FEC reports. (UPDATE: Wasserman Schultz headlined an Iowa City fundraiser for Representative Dave Loebsack on September 30.)

Boswell can’t change how he voted in the major legislative battles of 2009 and 2010, and he and Latham have voted differently on various budget-related bills this year. At the same time, Boswell has avoided giving Latham ammunition on some issues. For instance, he joined the House Republicans in voting to reduce air quality and water quality regulations.

Any comments about the IA-03 race are welcome in this thread.