Iowans will elect county supervisors and vote on many local ballot initiatives across the state tomorrow, so I thought I’d put up a thread for Bleeding Heartland readers to discus any local races of interest. Iowa City’s vote on the 21-only bar ordinance will be the most closely-watched city election result. If the “yes” side prevails, the city’s ordinance barring 19- and 20-year-olds from bars after 10 pm will be thrown out. If “no” wins, the ordinance will stand. Strong early voting among University of Iowa students suggests that the ordinance will be tossed out. If I lived in Iowa City, I’d vote no. To my mind, this is a public safety issue, and the drop in downtown crime since the ordinance went into effect is compelling. I see no reason to make Iowa City a drinking destination for underage people in a large area of eastern Iowa. People who view this as a rights issue should be agitating to lower the drinking age.

In Polk County, the most contested local race is in the third supervisor’s district, where former Republican Congressional candidate Dave Funk is challenging two-term incumbent Tom Hockensmith (more background here). Funk is running on a small-government, lower-taxes agenda. He also claims Polk County isn’t spending enough on public safety. I have heard that Funk is advertising on the radio, but I haven’t caught any of those commercials, so I don’t know the script. Hockensmith has been up on Des Moines television stations with a 30-second ad for the last week or two. A transcript of the Hockensmith commercial is after the jump.

Funk has some ground to make up tomorrow. According to Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald, as of November 1 his office had received 4,588 absentee ballots from registered Democrats in the third supervisor’s district, 2,595 from Republicans, 1,157 from no-party voters and 5 from voters with some other registration. In 2006, Hockensmith defeated Republican Wes Enos by 16,936 votes to 11,121.

Any comments on local Iowa elections are welcome in this thread.

Iowans are set to cast at least a third of this year’s general election votes early, and the partisan breakdown of ballots cast so far looks encouraging for incumbent Representatives Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). The Iowa Secretary of State’s Office has been updating statewide absentee ballot totals daily and absentee ballot numbers by county every Friday. I tallied the numbers for the counties in the first, second and third Congressional districts based on October 29 numbers (pdf file). Details are below.

UPDATE: Tim Sahd of the National Journal ranked the 90 House seats most likely to change hands as of October 28. Loebsack’s district is number 75 on his list, Braley’s is 86 and Boswell’s isn’t even on the list. In other words, Sahd expects none of the Iowa incumbents to lose unless tomorrow brings an unprecedented catastrophic Democratic defeat.  

If the Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll is accurate, Senator Chuck Grassley will cruise to re-election by a similar margin to his last four victories. However, Roxanne Conlin hasn’t thrown in the towel. She spent the final weekend campaigning around the state with Governor Chet Culver and other Democrats. Her schedule is packed for Monday too. Grassley hasn’t held many public events in the past week, but you can hardly turn on a television in Iowa without seeing one of his commercials.

As usual, most Iowa newspapers have endorsed Grassley for re-election, including the Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Mason City Globe-Gazette, Sioux City Journal, Dubuque Telegraph-Herald and Quad-City Times. Rare exceptions include the Iowa City Press-Citizen (“Conlin can become the senator that Grassley should be by now”) and the Burlington Hawk-Eye (“Roxanne Conlin has not earned this endorsement so much as Grassley has turned his back on it”).

Bleeding Heartland discussed the Senate candidates’ only debate here. It looked like a tie to me, which is as good as a win for the candidate who’s ahead. Closing tv ads and campaign themes for Grassley and Conlin are after the jump.

Television commercials on the Iowa attorney general race remain in heavy rotation statewide, and over the weekend both parties raised questions about how that advertising was funded. Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn demanded an investigation yesterday into loans received by Attorney General Tom Miller’s campaign. The Iowa Democratic Party highlighted heavy spending in support of Republican Brenna Findley by outside groups, some of which don’t disclose their donors.

Follow me after the jump for more details.

The latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register finds Republicans leading the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races and Iowa’s Supreme Court justices likely to be ousted. Selzer and Co sampled 805 likely Iowa voters between October 26 and 29.

Terry Branstad leads Governor Chet Culver 50 percent to 38 percent. That’s down from a 19-point lead in the Register’s September poll, but still a comfortable advantage. Culver’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing a much tighter race, with Branstad ahead 46-40. I had assumed Republican internal polling also showed Culver gaining, because the Cook Political Report just shifted its rating on the Iowa’s governor’s race from safe Republican to leaning Republican. I don’t think they would make that rating change if private polling showed Branstad at 50 percent with a double-digit lead.

Kathie Obradovich blogged tonight that Culver leads by 9 percent among respondents who had already voted, even though he trails by 12 percent among the whole sample. The Register’s other piece on the new poll refers to “the electorate’s conservative profile” but gives no details about the partisan breakdown of the sample. I will update this post if more details emerge about the poll’s demographics.

Selzer and Co found Senator Chuck Grassley leading Roxanne Conlin 61 percent to 30 percent, virtually the same margin as in the Register’s September Iowa poll.

The news for Iowa Supreme Court justices wasn’t much better:

A third of likely Iowa voters say they will vote to retain Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit. Thirty-seven percent say they will vote to remove all three. Ten percent plan to retain some. The rest either don’t plan to vote on judicial retention or haven’t made up their minds.

I thought it was foolish for the anti-retention groups to feature Representative Steve King in their radio commercials, but if voters throw out the judges, King will be able to take some credit.

Obradovich didn’t give poll numbers for the Congressional races but noted, “Mariannette Miller-Meeks appears to have the best chance of any of the GOP challengers to unseat an incumbent Democrat.” That would be quite an achievement, since Iowa’s second district has the strongest Democratic lean. However, Miller-Meeks has been campaigning hard, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s latest commercial against her is atrocious. It wouldn’t surprise me if that ad drives more voters toward Miller-Meeks than toward incumbent Dave Loebsack.

Iowa Democrats need to get out the vote and hope the Register’s poll contains faulty assumptions about who will turn out on Tuesday.

UPDATE: One positive sign for Loebsack is the large lead Democrats have in early voting in the IA-02 counties (pdf file).

SECOND UPDATE: The best news in the poll: Tom Miller 45, Brenna Findley 34.

Findley, a 34-year-old Dexter lawyer and tea party favorite, has spent more on advertising than Miller, who was first elected in 1978. However, Miller leads Findley among independent voters by 20 percentage points and nets a larger share of support from Democrats than Findley receives from Republicans.

How’s your weekend going? Don’t forget to enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest if you think you know Iowa politics.

It’s Halloween and probably the last weekend for political commercials on Iowa television until Republican presidential candidates start running ads next year. Negative ads far outnumber positive ones, especially in the Iowa House and Senate races.  Judging from this blog’s traffic, a lot of people are searching for information on “Iowa heated sidewalks,” presumably because Republican House candidates are using the “heated sidewalks” canard against many Democratic incumbents. I also see references to flowerpots or trolleys in Des Moines and Iowa’s so-called billion-dollar deficit that doesn’t exist. Bleeding Heartland readers in other Iowa media markets have told me they see similar claims in ads for Republican statehouse candidates.

Many commercials feature “zombie lies,” claims that have been debunked repeatedly.  

The “newspaper Iowa depends upon” won’t endorse a candidate in this year’s races for attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture or state auditor, Des Moines Register editorial page editor Linda Fandel confirmed to me this week. Fandel told me the newspaper has been inconsistent about endorsing candidates for those offices in the past. She said limited staff time and resources lay behind the decision not to endorse this year. The Register did endorse candidates in the races for governor, U.S. Senate and all five U.S. House seats, as well as the Iowa Supreme Court retention vote, which the editors called the most important election in the state this year.

I understand limits on resources. Compared to previous election cycles, the Register’s newsroom staff is smaller, and its editorial pages contain less content. However, a newspaper that claims to have a statewide profile shouldn’t punt on elections offering such significant contrasts to voters. More thoughts on these campaigns are after the jump.

Today is the last day for Iowans who want to vote by mail to request an absentee ballot. Tomorrow county auditors’ offices will be open across Iowa for early voting in person. Meanwhile, political parties and candidates have many outstanding absentee ballots left to chase. Today’s numbers from the Secretary of State’s Office show that Iowans have requested 372,778 absentee ballots, but county auditors have received only 295,132 ballots. Some ballots are in the mail en route to county auditors, but tens of thousands of Iowans probably have ballots sitting at home.

Approximately 34,000 ballots requested by Iowa Democrats haven’t been received yet by county auditors. Republicans have about 25,000 ballots requested but not returned, and the comparable figure for no-party voters is about 20,000. Voters sitting on an absentee ballot have these options:

Absentee ballots CANNOT be delivered to polling places on Election Day. On Election Day, voters who have been issued an absentee ballot but have not yet returned their absentee ballot to their county auditor have the following options:

The voter may deliver the ballot to the county auditor’s office before the polls close on Election Day.

The voter can “surrender” the absentee ballot at the polling place for the precinct in which the voter is registered to vote. The voter will then be allowed to vote a regular ballot at the polling place.

If a voter cannot “surrender” the absentee ballot at the polling place, the voter will be allowed to vote a provisional ballot at the polling place for the precinct in which the voter’s registered to vote.

If returned by mail, the ballot must be clearly postmarked by the day before the election by an officially authorized postal service and received by the county auditor’s office no later than noon on the Monday following the election. For school elections and some city and special elections there may be an earlier deadline. Read the instructions sent with the ballot.

Volunteers who can help with “calling and chasing” absentee ballots should contact your county Democrats or a nearby state legislative campaign. Early voting saved several Iowa House and Senate Democrats in 2008 and won the House district 90 special election for Curt Hanson last year, so it’s imperative not to leave those votes on the table.

The big purple Judge Bus completed its Iowa tour on October 28, but the groups urging Iowans to oust three Supreme Court justices aren’t winding down their voter persuasion efforts. Representative Steve King has recorded a radio commercial asking Iowans to “send a message against judicial arrogance.”

The ad script is after the jump, along with news on the Judge Bus and the “Homegrown Justice” events, which called on Iowans to retain all the judges on the ballot.

Despite the salmonella outbreak and egg recall that made national news two months ago, Iowa’s secretary of agriculture race has been overshadowed this fall by campaigns for other offices and the unprecedented drive to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices. In fact, Democrat Francis Thicke’s campaign has attracted more interest from nationally-known sustainable food advocates than from many Iowa news organizations. Peter Rothberg wrote in The Nation, “there may not be a more important contest this year for farmers and food activists nationwide.”

Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has been running television commercials for several weeks, but Thicke starts running his own campaign ad in the Des Moines market today. His campaign has an opportunity to increase the ad buy, and due to an unusual situation I’ll cover below, any additional air time Thicke reserves will reduce Northey’s television exposure during the final days of the campaign.

Commercials for Northey and Thicke are after the jump.

It’s time for political junkies in the Bleeding Heartland community to make their best guesses about what will happen next Tuesday. Twenty questions about this year’s elections in Iowa are after the jump. To enter the contest, post your predictions in this thread before 7 am on November 2. Remember, percentages don’t always have to add up to 100 percent; several contests feature minor-party candidates.

The contest winner will receive no prize, just bragging rights for being the the Bleeding Heartland community’s most astute observer of Iowa politics in 2010. Can you match American007’s performance in 2008 or ModerateIADem’s prowess in this year’s primary election contest?  

Exactly one week before election day, State Auditor David Vaudt released his report on Iowa’s film tax credit program, which Governor Chet Culver halted in September 2009. The audit found problems with about $26 million of the $32 million in tax credits awarded under the program. The Des Moines Register summarized the key findings and covered the civil and criminal cases filed so far in connection with fraudulent film tax credits.

Getting this fiasco back in the spotlight is likely to hurt Culver and help GOP candidate Terry Branstad, whom Vaudt has endorsed and joined on the stump. Branstad’s campaign seized on the chance to slam inadequate oversight of the film tax credit program. Vaudt probably also benefits from making news just before voters will see his name on the ballot. The audit featured prominently in newscasts on October 26 and was a front-page story in many Iowa newspapers the following day. According to Radio Iowa,

Vaudt, a Republican, was asked about the timing of the release of the report the week before the election.

Vaudt says the governor actually requested the investigation, and his office worked in collaboration with the Department of Revenue and the Attorney General’s office. Vaudt says they handled this report like any other and released it once the report was completed.

More like two months after completing the report. Radio Iowa posted the full report here (pdf file). On page 6, a cover letter from Vaudt and his chief deputy, Warren Jenkins, states, “Copies of this report have been filed with the Department of Management, the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Attorney General’s Office and the Polk County Attorney’s Office.” That letter was dated August 19, 2010. What’s Vaudt’s excuse for waiting nearly ten weeks to release the report to journalists?

Culver told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, “The timing is interesting. It was purely political but [Vaudt]’s been the most partisan auditor that we’ve ever had so it’s not a surprise.” Scott Harrington, campaign manager for Democratic candidate for state auditor Jon Murphy, on 26 October asked Vaudt “to provide a detailed timeline as to how today was determined to be the appropriate date to release this report.” I’m not holding my breath until that happens.

State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald has been mostly invisible during this year’s campaign. As the longest-serving state treasurer in the country and a survivor of the 1994 Republican wave, Fitzgerald may have less reason to be worried than other Democratic incumbents. Still, I’ve been wondering when he was going to get around to asking voters to re-elect him.

Today I caught the first television commercial for Fitzgerald’s campaign. As far as I know, it went up on the air this week. I haven’t found a video to embed here, but my transcript and description of the visuals are after the jump, along with the transcript of the radio ad Fitzgerald’s opponent is running. UPDATE: I’ve added the script for Fitzgerald’s radio commercial.

Six days before the general election, the number of early ballots already returned in Iowa now exceeds the total early votes cast in any previous midterm election, the Secretary of State’s office announced today.

As of this morning, 355,192 Iowans have requested an absentee ballot and of those ballots, 254,836 have been received back by auditors’ offices.

In the 2006 General Election, 242,385 Iowans voted absentee. Four years prior in the 2002 General Election, 242,357 voted absentee.

Among Iowans who have requested absentee ballots, 158,286 (44.6%) are registered Democrats, 129,316 (36.4%) are Republicans, 67,288 (18.9%) are no-party voters and 302 have some other registration. Those whose ballots have already been returned to county auditors include 114,193 Democrats (44.8%), 97,398 Republicans (38.2%), 43,037 no-party voters (16.9%) and 208 voters with a different registration.

The total number of Iowa votes cast in the 2006 general election was 1,044,459.

Both parties have improved their early voting programs, especially the Iowa GOP, which didn’t have much going on this front in past midterms. On election night we’ll find out which party had more success banking early votes in the battleground state legislative districts.

From the numbers released today, it’s not clear whether most of the early votes came from Iowans who would have turned out anyway on November 2. Although everyone’s vote counts the same, an absentee ballot returned by someone who normally votes only in presidential years is more valuable than an absentee ballot returned by someone who never misses an election.

There’s still time for Iowans to vote early. I posted three ways to do so here.  

The attorney general’s race isn’t getting much coverage in Iowa print or broadcast media. Higher-profile campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate, as well as the unprecedented drive to oust Iowa Supreme Court judges, don’t leave much of a “news hole” for candidates seeking down-ballot statewide offices. I doubt many Iowans caught Attorney General Tom Miller and Republican Brenna Findley’s debate, since it has only been broadcast at odd hours on Mediacom Channel 22. The candidates had little time to discuss issues in depth during their joint appearance on Iowa Public Television.

As a result, 30-second commercials during news and entertainment programs will be all most Iowa voters see about the attorney general race. This week new ads targeting Miller and Findley hit Iowa tv screens. To my knowledge, none of the video clips have been posted online, but I taped the ads. Transcripts and descriptions of the visuals are below. UPDATE: Scroll down for a description of the Findley campaign’s latest commercial.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin are debating at 7 pm tonight on WHO Radio in Des Moines. Iowa Public Television will broadcast the debate statewide at 9 pm.

I’ll update this post later with my thoughts about the debate. Meanwhile, I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to weigh in on the debate or the Senate race in general.

LATE UPDATE: I forgot to post my notes on the debate, but they are now after the jump. The short version is, I think both candidates did fairly well and gave their supporters reasons to stick with them. Conlin kept Grassley on the defensive, but he seemed to have answers to most of her criticisms. Since she is behind in the race and needs to win over undecided voters and Grassley leaners, a tie in the debate is for all practical purposes a win for Grassley. I suspect being able to refer to notes during this debate helped him greatly improve on his performance during the candidates’ joint appearance on Iowa Public Television last month.

If you missed the debate, Kay Henderson’s write-up is worth a read.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Republican challenger Brenna Findley debated at the University of Iowa law school on October 20. I read the news coverage of the debate highlights at at the Des Moines Register blog, WCCC.com, Radio Iowa and IowaPolitics.com, but I was anxious to watch for myself. This afternoon Mediacom showed the debate, and I was able to take detailed notes, which you can read below. Both candidates communicated their central message well. Findley tried to keep the incumbent on the defensive, but I thought Miller handled her points and defended his record well. He also noted several times when her ideology or lack of experience seemed to affect her views on the attorney general’s proper role.

Unfortunately, Iowa Public Television isn’t showing this debate, and to my knowledge Mediacom has not posted the full video. Miller and Findley appeared jointly on IPTV earlier this month (video and transcript here), but although they touched on some of the same issues, that discussion lacked the depth and intensity of the one-on-one debate. Mediacom cable subscribers have one more chance to watch the attorney general candidates’ debate on Channel 22 this Sunday, October 31, at 7 am.

I have another post in progress on this campaign, because both candidates are running new negative television commercials this week. Also, the Progress Project, which is closely linked to the American Future Fund, is up on television with an attack on Miller.

My play-by-play of the Miller-Findley debate is after the jump.  

So-called reckless spending has been one of the Republicans’ top talking points in this year’s state legislative elections. Direct mail, television and radio commercials targeting at least two dozen incumbent Democrats have decried wasteful, pork-barrel spending. A few specific spending programs come up most frequently in GOP candidates’ messaging. Bleeding Heartland already discussed the misleading talk about “heated sidewalks” here. Three other popular examples of alleged out-of-control spending are $120,000 for flowerpots in Des Moines, $690,000 for trolley service in Des Moines, and $1.8 million for kayak waterways.

Follow me after the jump for background on those appropriations.

Representative Leonard Boswell and Republican challenger Brad Zaun are about to hold their only debate of the campaign on KCCI-TV at 7 pm. (They also taped a joint appearance on Iowa Public Television earlier this month.)

I’ll update this post later with thoughts on the debate. Share any thoughts about the debate or the third Congressional district race in this thread.

TUESDAY UPDATE: I only caught part of last night’s debate live, but watched the whole tape this morning. Boswell and Zaun had their strong and weak points, and I doubt many people’s minds were changed by the debate. Both candidates gave strong closing statements framing the choice in this election. More specific comments about the debate are after the jump.