Three-term GOP State Representative Josh Byrnes announced today that he will not seek re-election to the Iowa House. I enclose below the full statement he posted on Facebook, which expressed his “hope that the voters of House District 51 will continue to elect moderate candidates to represent them in Des Moines. The constituents of a district lose when we elect those who are hard line party people.”

Byrnes was occasionally out of step with his caucus, having supported marriage equality and voted with Democrats for expanding Medicaid. Rumors of his impending retirement proved wrong during the last election cycle but flared up again in recent months, following his unsuccessful bid to be House speaker and subsequent criticism of excessive partisanship and failure to approve school funding levels on time.

House GOP leaders have resisted compromise on education funding during the past several years, which likely contributed to decisions by three other Republicans not to run for re-election in 2016. Like Byrnes, State Representatives Brian Moore, Quentin Stanerson, and Ron Jorgensen all have worked in the education field.

With Byrnes retiring, House district 51 immediately moves to the top tier of Democratic pickup opportunities in the lower chamber, which the GOP controls with a 57 to 43 majority. President Barack Obama received 55.19 percent of the vote among its residents in 2012. Only two Iowa House districts currently held by Republicans voted to re-elect the president by a larger margin; one of them was House district 58, which Moore is vacating. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, House district 51 contains 5,119 active registered Democrats, 6,074 Republicans, and 8,247 no-party voters. I enclose below a district map.

UPDATE: Tony Krebsbach announced on Facebook today that he will seek the GOP nomination in House district 51. He has served on the Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee and chaired the Mitchell County GOP and is part of the “Liberty” faction, which supported Ron Paul for president.

The Des Moines Register’s longtime pollster Ann Selzer identified the surge of first-time Democratic caucus-goers who would carry Barack Obama to victory in 2008. Her final poll before the 2012 Republican caucuses caught the strong upward momentum for Rick Santorum. Her last snapshot before this year’s caucuses for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics correctly saw a close race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with fewer first-time participants than eight years ago.

But Selzer’s view of the GOP campaign was unfortunately off the mark in several respects: putting Donald Trump ahead of Ted Cruz, underestimating turnout overall and particularly among evangelicals, and missing the late swing toward Marco Rubio that some political observers sensed by watching the campaign on the ground.

Yesterday Selzer commented to David Weigel of the Washington Post,

“In all the press I did in the last two days—and it was a LOT — I talked about the fluidity,” she wrote in an email. “Up to the last moment — including inside the caucus room — campaigns and supporters are working for change! Surprise! Big evangelical turnout — no doubt the biggest.” […]

“Trump was disliked by vast majority of caucus-goers who didn’t support him,” Selzer said. “Bernie’s extraordinary strength was with first-timers, who showed up in above-projected numbers. […]

“If I’m demoted to ‘silver standard,’ I’m fine with that,” she said. “I was never all that comfortable with the hype.”

Selzer can take some comfort in knowing that the last ten Iowa polls released before the caucuses all put Trump ahead of Cruz. The most recent poll to show Cruz leading was the Iowa State University/WHO-TV survey, which uses an unconventional screen for likely caucus-goers. But Iowa State/WHO understated support for Trump and Rubio. Given the tremendous difficulties involved in polling the Iowa caucuses, especially on the Democratic side, we should expect some misses, even from the top professionals in the field. As the presidential campaign progresses, here’s hoping political journalists will focus less on poll-driven horse race coverage.

UPDATE: Selzer did some “Tuesday morning quarterbacking” of her final poll in today’s Des Moines Register. I enclose excerpts below.

Donald Trump was the obvious Republican loser last night. Despite leading in the last ten Iowa polls released before the caucuses, Trump finished more than 6,000 votes and three percentage points behind Ted Cruz, widely perceived before yesterday to have peaked too soon. Record-breaking turnout was supposed to be a winning scenario for Trump, yet a plurality of caucus-goers cast ballots for Cruz as attendance surpassed the previous high-water mark by more than 50 percent.

For Iowa politics watchers, another big takeaway jumped out from the caucus results: Governor Terry Branstad’s advice doesn’t carry much weight with rank and file Republicans.

I will update this post throughout the evening. As of 9 pm, 75 percent of Democratic precincts have reported, and Hillary Clinton narrowly leads Bernie Sanders by 50.4 percent to 48.9 percent of state delegate equivalents. Martin O’Malley won less than 1 percent of the state delegate equivalents and is reportedly dropping out of the race. UPDATE: with 81 percent of precincts reporting (but not including some Iowa City and Cedar Rapids precincts), Clinton is barely ahead by 50.2 percent to 49.1 percent. Turnout seems to be considerably higher than I expected, which explains how well Sanders is doing. He could pull ahead to Clinton if she doesn’t have good counties and precincts outstanding.

The Republican race is too close to call between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, with about 75 percent of the votes counted. Marco Rubio is in third place. I noticed that Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal predicted a Cruz win, as did I. On the Republican side, only Cruz was running a traditional ground game. Supposedly the Trump campaign hired out its phone banking, and I never heard much about door-knocking on his behalf.

What happened in your precinct? Share your stories in the comments. I’ve posted what happened in Windsor Heights 2 below.

9:30 UPDATE: Television networks are calling the GOP race for Cruz. Mike Huckabee is dropping out of the race; he outperformed his polling numbers but is still way behind the leaders at around 7 percent.

9:45 UPDATE: With 88 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Clinton is ahead by only 49.9 percent to 49.5 percent. Sanders could pull ahead.

10:30 UPDATE: Clinton is speaking now, which surprises me, because she’s only ahead by 50.1 percent to 49.4 percent with 93 percent of precincts reporting. For some reason, the Iowa Democratic Party’s website is showing my own precinct (Windsor Heights 2) as not yet reporting. We were done by around 8:30.

11:20 UPDATE: With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton’s lead is down to 49.8 percent to 49.6 percent. A bunch of Polk County precincts are still outstanding, including mine. At least six precincts around the state had one delegate awarded by a coin flip.

12:00 am UPDATE: Steve Kornacki and Rachel Maddow got the coin flip story badly wrong on MSNBC, claiming the coin flips (all won by Clinton in the various precincts) accounted for Clinton’s statewide lead over Sanders. No. The coin flips resolve who would get the last remaining county delegate from a precinct. Clinton is ahead by a handful of state delegate equivalents.

12:50 am UPDATE: With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton leads by 49.9 percent to 49.6 percent. Just twelve precincts have not reported.

2 am: Make that ten precincts outstanding. I want to hear from Democrats who caucused in Des Moines precinct 43 at Roosevelt High School. There seems to have been some confusion about the count, and Sanders supporters online are accusing the precinct chair and the Clinton precinct captain of “fraud,” based on this video. It’s not unusual for there to be some confusion or people missed during the count. We had to count our Clinton group twice last night.

2:30 am: The Iowa Democratic Party released a statement a few minutes ago, which I’ve enclosed below. According to the party, statewide turnout was 171,109, much higher than I expected but nearly 70,000 below the record turnout of 2008. The party says “Clinton has been awarded 699.57 state delegate equivalents, Bernie Sanders has been awarded 695.49 state delegate equivalents, Martin O’Malley has been awarded 7.68 state delegate equivalents and uncommitted has been awarded .46 state delegate equivalents. We still have outstanding results in one precinct (Des Moines—42), which is worth 2.28 state delegate equivalents.”

The outstanding precinct (Des Moines 42) is on the west side, bordering Windsor Heights. There is no clear trend in the six neighboring precincts, with Sanders and Clinton winning two each and the other two ending in a delegate tie.

With all the excitement on the Democratic side, I forgot to update the Republican results. They are after the jump. The GOP turnout of more than 180,000 was about 50 percent higher than their previous record turnout in 2012.

Wrapping up this year’s Iowa caucus series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus, part 3 discussed how Democratic caucus math can affect delegate counts, part 4 described how precinct captains help campaigns, and part 5 explained why the caucuses have been called a “pollster’s nightmare.”

When I have criticized some aspects of the Iowa caucus system or called for reforms to allow more Iowans to participate, I have often heard from activists defending the status quo.

This posts lists some leading arguments in favor of the current caucus system, along with my rebuttals.

Continuing a six-part series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus, part 3 discussed how Democratic caucus math can affect delegate counts, and part 4 described how precinct captains help campaigns.

Measuring the horse race ahead of the Iowa caucuses poses special challenges, particularly on the Democratic side. Those problems affect even the Des Moines Register’s longtime pollster Ann Selzer, whom FiveThirtyEight.com has given an A+ grade and called “the best pollster in politics.”

Follow me after the jump to see why polling expert Mark Blumenthal has described the caucuses as a “pollster’s nightmare.”

The video of Zach Wahls speaking at that 2011 public hearing went viral and inspired thousands of Iowans who supported equality. Although Zach did not dissuade Iowa House Republicans from approving a state constitutional amendment on marriage the following day, Democrats in control of the Iowa Senate held the line. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Yesterday (January 31) marked the fifth anniversary of a three-minute speech that I delivered to the Iowa Legislature about growing up with gay parents. It was the first time I’ve celebrated an anniversary of this speech knowing that no speech like it will ever have to be given again in this state or country, following the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling.

I had no idea when I stepped up to that microphone just how much the world would change in the next five years.

Continuing a six-part series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus, and part 3 covered Democratic caucus math, which sometimes produces strange results.

Axiom of Iowa politics: the key to winning the caucuses is to “organize, organize, organize, and then get hot at the end.” Although paid staff do much of the ground work, a successful presidential campaign needs a large number of volunteers at the precinct level. I haven’t been engaged as a volunteer this cycle, because for the first time in my life, I remained undecided until shortly before the caucuses. But I spent many hours trying to turn out neighbors for John Kerry in 2004 and for John Edwards in 2008. During the past thirteen years, I’ve talked with hundreds of Iowa Democratic activists who volunteered locally for presidential candidates.

This post focuses on how precinct captains can influence outcomes on caucus night.

Photo of a Ted Cruz supporter’s car spotted in Davenport on January 30; shared with the photographer’s permission.

The final Iowa caucus poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics shows a tight race on the Democratic side and Donald Trump retaking the lead from Ted Cruz among likely Republican caucus-goers. Key findings and excerpts from the Register’s write-ups on the poll are after the jump.

Ann Selzer is “the best pollster in politics,” Clare Malone wrote in a must-read profile for FiveThirtyEight.com this week, which explained Selzer’s methods and “old-school rigor.” One key part of her “A+” methodology is starting from a list of registered voters, rather than using random digit dialing to reach Iowans by phone. Nate Cohn pointed out that Iowa polls drawing respondents from a registered voter list have tended to produce better results for Hillary Clinton, while surveys using random digit dialing have produced the best numbers for Bernie Sanders. Selzer also uses a simpler likely voter/likely caucus-goer screen than many other pollsters.

Bleeding Heartland guest author fladem showed yesterday that the Iowa caucus results have sometimes been noticeably different from the last polls released. Front-runners have often seen their lead shrink, while fast-rising contenders have “come from nowhere.” I am standing by my prediction that the structure of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, where only delegate counts matter, favors Hillary Clinton and will allow her to outperform her poll numbers on Monday night. Speaking of which, there’s still time to enter Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa caucus prediction contest; post a comment with your guesses before 6 pm central time on February 1.

Last spring I was sure Cruz would peak in Iowa too soon and crash before the caucuses. Campaign news from October through December convinced me that I was wrong, and I still believe more in Cruz’s ground game than in Trump’s. However, the Cruz campaign is starting to look desperate, shifting its advertising to attack Marco Rubio instead of Trump, and sending out a deceptive mailer, which implied that Republicans guilty of a “voting violation” could improve their “score” by showing up at the caucuses. I enclose below several links on the controversy and a statement from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate denouncing the mail piece, which “misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law.”

Pate’s predecessor, Matt Schultz, is chairing Cruz’s Iowa campaign and defended the mailing as “common practice to increase voter turnout.” As Gavin Aronsen discussed at the new website Iowa Informer, it’s rich for onetime “voter fraud” crusader Schultz to be “actively defending a purposefully misleading mailer.” The hypocrisy confirms my view that Schultz and Cruz are a political match made in heaven.

Governor Terry Branstad will introduce Chris Christie at a campaign stop today but won’t officially endorse the New Jersey governor. Several people with close ties to Branstad are active supporters of Christie, who has been stuck at 3 percent in the Register’s polling for months.

Final note: I’m so happy for all the volunteers who are able to knock doors in near-perfect (for January) weather during these last few days of the campaign. Weather conditions leading up to the 2008 caucuses were terrible.

Continuing a six-part series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, and part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus.

The Republican Party of Iowa will report how many GOP caucus-goers mark ballots for each presidential candidate on Monday night. But the Iowa Democratic Party will report the results only in terms of county delegates won and “state delegate equivalents.” This post is about caucus math and how “realignment” in Democratic precincts can affect how many county delegates go to each presidential candidate. In some cases, those delegate numbers may distort the preferences of voters at a precinct caucus.

Thanks to fladem for this historical perspective on late shifts in Iowa caucus-goers’ preferences. If you missed his earlier posts, check out A deep dive into Iowa caucus History and Iowa polling 45 days out: Let the buyer REALLY beware. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This is a continuation of an article I wrote about Iowa polling in November. At the time I noted how unpredictable the Iowa caucuses are. This article will to look at the last 48 hours. There are two lessons you can draw:

1. Front-runners beware

1. Expect someone to come from nowhere

Expanded from a short take for CNN

The seventh Republican presidential debate and the first without Donald Trump produced more substantive talk about issues and some strong performances by candidates near the bottom of the pack. For political junkies who missed the debate for whatever reason, the New York Times posted the full transcript here. My thoughts are after the jump.

Continuing a six-part series. Click here for part 1, explaining the basics of the caucus system.

I love attending my precinct caucus. The first year I was old enough to vote, I came home from college out of state to stand in Paul Simon’s corner. Having managed with a baby in a sling at the 2004 caucus, I brought a toddler and preschooler to the same room (now ridiculously overcrowded) four years later. I showed up for the off-year caucus of 2010, when only the most hard-core party activists turned out to meet prospective candidates, elect county convention delegates, and consider platform resolutions. I caucused in 2012, hoping to win an “uncommitted” delegate from my precinct.

Hundreds of thousands of Iowans who are highly engaged in politics will find some way to get to their precinct caucuses on February 1, no matter how cold it is, how busy they are, or how inconvenient the location may be.

But for one reason or another, many thousands of Iowans who are closely following this year’s presidential race will not gather with their neighbors this Monday at 7 pm. This post examines what will keep them away.

I had forgotten that Robert Becker, the Iowa director for Bernie Sanders this cycle, ran Richardson’s campaign. About 10 percent of caucus-goers in my precinct stood in Richardson’s corner. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Immediately prior to the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, I traveled to Iowa as a volunteer for the Bill Richardson for President Campaign. On the morning of January 3, 2008, the day of the caucuses, Robert Becker, the Iowa State Director for the Richardson campaign addressed the volunteers at Richardson’s Des Moines headquarters. Here is the link on YouTube to the video I filmed.

The Richardson campaign at that time was discounting polling predicting a tidal wave of first time and young voters coming to the caucuses to vote for Obama. That night Richardson received the support of an estimated 20,000 Iowa voters.

In 2004, this number of voters would have given Richardson 16% of the total vote and he would have finished in a strong fourth place. However, in 2008, 20,000 voters amounted to only about 8% of the total voters.

National Organization for Money graphic created by Rights Equal Rights and used with permission.

Donald Trump targeted Bob Vander Plaats on Twitter this week. He speculated that Ted Cruz, who landed Vander Plaats’ personal endorsement last month, may not know about past “dealings” by one of Iowa’s leading social conservatives. The billionaire called Vander Plaats a “bad guy” and a “phony,” claiming the FAMiLY Leader‘s front man had asked to stay in Trump hotels for free and tried to secure a $100,000 payment for himself after “begging” Trump to do an Iowa event. Jennifer Jacobs confirmed that Trump received a $100,000 fee for speaking to a real estate conference in West Des Moines last year, but Vander Plaats told the Des Moines Register “he was paid nothing” for introducing Trump to the head of the company that organized the event, and “no donation was made to the Family Leader.”

The spat reminded me of big news from the final two weeks of the 2012 Iowa caucus campaign, when Rick Santorum confirmed that Vander Plaats had asked for money to promote his endorsement.

Many Iowans leave their precinct caucuses after the presidential selection process, but the caucuses also provide an opportunity for politically-engaged people to influence their party’s platform. If you bring a resolution to your precinct caucus, you have a good chance of getting it approved and sent to the county platform committee, which decides what will come to a vote at the county convention.

Little-known fact for those who want to exercise this option: platform resolutions should be written in a different format from other political resolutions you may have read. Follow me after the jump for details and examples of resolutions you can bring to your caucus on Monday night.

Expanded and revised from a series published at Bleeding Heartland during the 2008 election cycle

Even in Iowa, many people are confused about what will happen at 7 pm on February 1, when hundreds of thousands of people join their neighbors at a public gathering to express a preference for a presidential candidate. This post will cover the basics of the process and how the results will be reported, which is quite different for Iowa Republicans and Democrats. Over the next several days, this series will examine other elements of the caucus system:

Part 2 will explore barriers to participation in the caucuses and why it can be challenging to turn out even highly politically engaged Iowans.

Part 3 will focus on caucus math, which can create different ways to win an Iowa Democratic precinct.

Part 4 will discuss ways a good precinct captain or other volunteers can help a presidential candidate.

Part 5 will explain why the Iowa caucuses are, in Mark Blumenthal’s words, a “pollster’s nightmare.”

Part 6 will lay out the leading arguments for and against the Iowa caucus system, as opposed to a primary.

Donald Trump’s first television commercial grabbed attention for its unsubtle race-baiting on the topic of immigration. His latest commercial hits Ted Cruz as “pro-amnesty,” citing the Texas senator’s past support for legislation that would have provided legal status for some undocumented immigrants.

In between those spots, the Trump campaign released an ad that has been in heavy rotation on Iowa tv stations since January 15. “Our Country” hammers home Trump’s promise to “make America great again,” which inspired me to look back at how Ronald Reagan used the same words in one of his 1980 campaign commercials.

Trump has communication skills, but he’s not on Reagan’s level.

“The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas the public will accept.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

The Overton Window matters in a Presidential election year because it not only determines the range of ideas that are discussed but also the range of candidates and, most importantly, the range and number of citizens who will or will not be enfranchised to participate in the democratic process. That in turn will determine the range of policy proposals that democratically elected officials will be encouraged to pursue in the following four years. If the interests of a segment of the population are not discussed in debates and town halls then then they will be disenfranchised and unrepresented in our democracy.

The political press plays a crucial role in determining the scope of the Overton Window.

Iowans continue to share their reasons for choosing a presidential candidate. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I will be caucusing for Martin O’Malley next week. When I decided to write a post, I began by highlighting a laundry list of Gov. O’Malley’s accomplishments and his goals for the country. He has an outstanding progressive record in Maryland and he put forward a well-founded program for the country. But that’s not WHY I am supporting O’Malley.

I am supporting Martin O’Malley because I want America to move FORWARD.