Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

It’s a startling statistic, but it’s not true.

Joni Ernst has gotten a lot of attention recently for her claim that only 6 percent of federal employees work in person on a full-time basis.

The New York Post ran with it. So did Elon Musk. The Des Moines Register quoted it, too.

It’s not true.

Before I dig into the details, a little background:

The House Majority PAC, one of the biggest spenders supporting Democrats in U.S. House races, has confirmed Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts are among its “top targets” for the 2026 election cycle.

The PAC also put IA-02 on a list of sixteen House districts that “could become competitive” in 2026.

Senator Joni Ernst has her first declared 2026 primary challenger. Joshua Smith announced on X/Twitter on December 5 that he plans to run against Ernst as a Republican in 2026. The “blue-collar, working-class veteran” and father of seven promised he would be “the most pro-life, pro-family, small government candidate running for a federal office” next cycle.

So far, Smith’s campaign looks more like a bid for online engagement than a serious threat to Ernst’s career. But in a December 9 telephone interview, he explained why he’s confident he can build a strong GOP primary campaign.

Eleventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Many factors helped Iowa Republicans expand their already large state legislative majorities in 2024. Two of the most important were Donald Trump’s dominance in the presidential race, and the continued decline in ticket-splitting.

By my calculations, Trump carried 71 of the 100 Iowa House districts, up from 63 state House districts the last time he was on the ballot in 2020. In all four Democratic-held House districts that flipped this year, voters preferred Trump. That helped Republican Ryan Weldon defeat State Representative Molly Buck in House district 41 (Ankeny), David Blom defeat Sue Cahill in House district 52 (Marshalltown), Jennifer Smith defeat Chuck Isenhart in House district 72 (Dubuque), and Christian Hermanson win the open House district 59 (Mason City).

Trump also carried 20 of the 25 state Senate districts that were on the ballot, including both where Democratic incumbents lost: Mike Pike defeated Nate Boulton in Senate district 20 (eastern Polk County), and Dave Sires defeated Eric Giddens in Senate district 38 (mostly located in Black Hawk County). The only Iowa GOP lawmaker to lose in 2024, State Senator Brad Zaun, faced Matt Blake in a district where voters preferred Kamala Harris for president.

Ticket-splitting used to be more common in Iowa. Republicans maintained control of the state House in 2012, even as Barack Obama carried 61 of the 100 districts that year. (No wonder few observers expected Iowa’s hard shift to the right, beginning in 2016.)

But in 2020 and again this year, only seven Iowa legislators managed to win in districts where voters preferred the other party’s presidential nominee.

I calculated the 2024 numbers using certified precinct-level vote totals from the Iowa Secretary of State’s election results website. Figures on the 2020 presidential vote in each district come from the Iowa House and Iowa Senate maps Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App.

This post covers the six Iowa House members and one state senator in descending order, by how much they outperformed the top of their own party’s ticket.

Tenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Across the country, voters elected a record number of women to serve in state legislatures in 2024. About a third of all U.S. state lawmakers will be women next year, and in seven state legislative chambers, women will comprise 50 percent or more of members.

In contrast, the 2024 elections moved the Iowa legislature further away from gender parity. The decline was steeper in the state House, where Iowans elected fewer women than at any point since 2014. A retirement produced a smaller drop in female representation in the upper chamber.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Many people would rather get their teeth drilled than discuss economics. If you are one of them, dial up your dentist, because today’s topic probably will make you uncomfortable.

Some politicians like to talk about other countries “stealing” the jobs of American workers. The politicians would have us believe these countries are snatching jobs right from under the noses of unwilling, and unwitting, employers in the United States.

A menswear writer named Derek Guy recently provided an important dose of context for American consumers. The story he told shows politicians have not been completely candid about the economic realities behind this trend.

Ninth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

With the 2024 election results finalized following the December 2 meeting of the State Board of Canvass, we know the basics about Iowa’s general election turnout.

More information about voter participation by age group, gender, and party affiliation will be available when the Iowa Secretary of State’s office publishes the statewide statistical report in January 2025.

A few takeaways for now:

Eighth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Iowans could reasonably view the 2016 general election as an anomaly. Diverging sharply from the national mood, this state voted for Donald Trump by more than a 9-point margin, even as Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular vote by a little more than 2 points. But maybe that was a one-off; Iowa had been a swing state for the previous six presidential elections.

When Joe Biden failed to flip a single Iowa county in 2020—even heavily Catholic counties where he should have done substantially better than Clinton—I concluded that Iowa was no longer a swing state. That post got some pushback from Democrats who thought I was reading too much into the results.

Trump’s third win in Iowa, by his largest margin yet, underscores how far this state has moved from the center of the national electorate. As Democrats search for a way back to winning more statewide and down-ballot races, they need to recognize that reality.

Seventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Republicans will hold 35 of the 50 Iowa Senate seats when the legislature reconvenes in 2025, a net gain of one from the 34-16 GOP majority of the past two years. The results were finalized on November 22 and November 25 following recounts in two close races.

According to the legislature’s official website, the fifteen-member Democratic caucus will be the smallest contingent for the party in the Iowa Senate since the early 1960s. Maintaining a two-thirds majority means Republicans will be able to confirm Governor Kim Reynolds’ nominees without any Democratic support.

Redistricting played a role in all three districts where party control changed. The demise of ticket-splitting was also apparent, as three incumbents lost in areas where their constituents preferred the other party’s presidential nominee.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst will be a leading Congressional partner of President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to drastically cut federal spending. On November 22 her office “announced the founding of the Senate DOGE Caucus, which will work hand in hand with the Trump administration’s recently formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify and eliminate government waste.”

That “department” is actually a non-governmental advisory body, co-led by Trump’s billionaire buddy Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Staying outside the government allows DOGE to operate without Congressional authorization, and avoid federal rules on transparency and conflicts of interest.

In recent days, Ernst shared her spending cut proposals with Ramaswamy and traveled to Florida to meet with Trump, Musk, and others in the incoming administration.

Going all in on DOGE is a risky strategy.

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

As the phrase “your body, my choice” has infiltrated social media in the days following the 2024 presidential election, Linda Crownover-Inch, the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) of Quad Cities chapter leader and a doula, posted the following on Facebook:

There is one place where this phrase has been accepted and normalized for decades and will not disappear until people rise up and face it head on. That place is in the medicalized maternity care setting.

In my experience as a seasoned doula, every one of the medical maternity care providers (OB’s and medicalized midwives) that provided labor and birth service for my client’s, have violated my clients right to bodily autonomy in ways that should be categorized as assault.

Sadly, US medicalized birth culture has normalized assault during labor and birth as “That’s just the way it happens” and “They need to do those things to me to make labor and birth safe”, or “I can’t tell them what to do”. Too often I’ve stood in circles of people retelling, All the while normalizing trauma and assault in their medicalized birth stories.

While I’m sure many will balk at applying this horrendous saying to standard maternity care in most of the United States, Linda’s post resonated with my experience as a maternal health advocate in Iowa. The current reality is that most women seeking prenatal, birth, and postpartum care in Iowa face inadequate care options and degrading experiences, all in the name of so-called health care. 

State Senator Janice Weiner will be the new leader of Iowa Senate Democrats, replacing State Senator Pam Jochum, who did not seek re-election this year.

Weiner “grew up in a politically aware family in Coralville” and was a career Foreign Services officer with the U.S. State Department before moving back to Iowa in 2015. She represents Iowa Senate district 45, the chamber’s bluest district, covering Iowa City and University Heights in Johnson County. She first ran for the legislature in 2018, finishing second to Zach Wahls in the Democratic primary for a Senate district covering Coralville. She won a seat on the Iowa City council in 2019 and ran for the legislature again in 2022, when long-serving State Senator Joe Bolkcom retired.

Weiner is known for the well-researched comments she has often delivered during Iowa Senate committee meetings or floor debate.

Jon Muller is a semi-retired policy analyst and energy consultant.

I’ve been looking to buy an EV for a long time. This week, I bought a 2022 Chevy Bolt EUV with 21,000 miles. It has about five more years of battery warranty. EV Tax credits are not likely to survive the new year. The primary beneficiaries of the end of EV tax credits will be people who bought them before January 1, 2025.

First, the specifics. The vehicle cost about $21,000. I received a $4,000 tax credit, which was taken off the price of the vehicle. More on the tax rules later in the piece. The net cost of the vehicle to me was about $17,000. The original new price was about $35,000.

I evaluated the total cost of ownership and factored in the impact of no future EV subsidies.

Continuing his pattern of selecting unqualified loyalists for prestigious jobs, President-elect Donald Trump announced on November 20 that he will name former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker as U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In a written statement, Trump described Whitaker as “a strong warrior and loyal Patriot, who will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended. Matt will strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability – He will put AMERICA FIRST.”

Whitaker has no foreign policy or diplomatic background. He served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa during George W. Bush’s presidency, and held several roles in the Justice Department during the Trump administration. For several months after the 2018 general election, Whitaker served (unconstitutionally) as acting U.S. attorney general. The New York Times reported in 2020 that during that period, Whitaker blocked a probe of “a state-owned Turkish bank suspected of violating U.S. sanctions law by funneling billions of dollars of gold and cash to Iran.”

Ann Selzer is stepping back from polling elections after conducting the Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register for the last 27 years, she announced on November 17.

Top Iowa Republicans reacted by accusing Selzer of “skewing” her numbers or publishing “fake news polling”—all because her final Iowa Poll was way off the mark.

The attacks on Selzer—not from MAGA randos, but from the heart of the GOP establishment—reflect a broader Republican strategy to discredit mainstream media outlets like the Des Moines Register. They also validate unhinged behavior like President-elect Donald Trump’s call for Selzer to be criminally investigated.

Sixth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

The 2024 elections could hardly have gone worse for Iowa Democrats. Donald Trump carried the state by more than 13 points—a larger margin than Ronald Reagan managed here in either of his campaigns, and the largest winning margin for any presidential candidate in Iowa since Richard Nixon in 1972. The GOP swept the Congressional races for the second straight cycle and expanded their lopsided majorities in the legislature.

Support for Democrats has eroded in Iowa communities of all sizes—from large metro areas like Scott County (which voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time since 1984) to rural counties that were always red, but now routinely deliver more than 70 percent of the vote to GOP candidates.

This post highlights the growing problem for Democrats in Iowa’s mid-sized cities. I focus on eleven counties where Democratic candidates performed well in the recent past, but now trail Republicans in state and federal races.

Changing political trends in mid-sized cities explain why Democrats will have smaller contingents in the Iowa House and Senate than at any time since 1970. Voters in six of these counties also saved U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks from a strong challenge by Democrat Christina Bohannan in the first Congressional district.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has not officially been re-elected in Iowa’s first Congressional district, where Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan is seeking a recount in all 20 counties. But a message to fellow House Republicans indicates the IA-01 incumbent is already worried about the “tough road” facing members from swing districts during the 2026 election cycle.

Miller-Meeks failed in her bid to become House Conference secretary, the sixth-ranking GOP leadership position. It’s not clear how many Republicans supported her on November 13, when she finished third of three candidates on the first ballot. Caucus members then elected Representative Erin Houchin of Indiana over Mark Alford of Missouri. Both represent safe GOP districts.

A “Dear colleague” letter Miller-Meeks circulated on November 12—enclosed in full below—warned Republicans will struggle to expand their majority without including members from “battleground districts” in the party’s leadership.

For the first time in six years, Iowa’s junior Senator Joni Ernst will not have a position on the leadership team of U.S. Senate Republicans.

On November 13, members of the GOP caucus chose Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas over Ernst for Senate Republican Conference chair, the third-ranking leadership position. According to Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News, the vote was 35 to 18.

ERNST HAD JOINED LEADERSHIP IN HER FIRST TERM

First elected in 2014, Ernst joined GOP leadership shortly after the 2018 elections, when she competed against Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska for the fifth-ranking leadership position. She moved up to the fourth-ranking role after the 2022 elections.

Cotton was considered the favorite for conference chair going into the November 13 leadership vote, in part because he has a better relationship with President-elect Donald Trump. Cotton was on Trump’s short list for vice president earlier this year and was one of just seven people to get a speaking slot at all of the last three Republican National Conventions. Ernst spoke during prime time at the RNC in 2016 and 2020 but was snubbed this year—possibly because even though she did not endorse a presidential candidate before the Iowa caucuses, she was widely perceived to favor Nikki Haley. Ernst didn’t endorse Trump until March 6—the same day Haley ended her presidential campaign.

Republican lawmakers re-elected their party’s top leaders in the Iowa House and Senate on November 12 after increasing their already large majorities in both chambers.

With recounts likely in a few races, Republicans are on track to hold a 67 to 33 majority in the Iowa House (a net gain of three seats) and a 35 to 15 majority in the Senate (a net gain of one seat). Those are the largest contingents for the majority party in either chamber for more than 50 years.

Fifth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Matthew P. Thornburg is an associate professor at Misericordia University who studies elections. His mother’s side of the family hails from Greene and O’Brien counties, and he maintains close ties to Iowa and its politics.

In precincts lying in the path of the Summit Pipeline, Randy Feenstra underperformed the rest of his district slightly. However, most voters there and elsewhere in the fourth Congressional district remained straight ticket Republicans. Much of Feenstra’s mild underperformance arose from voters in O’Brien County, home county of his Republican primary opponent Kevin Virgil.

Carbon dioxide pipelines remain the issue Iowa Republicans wish would go away. While most political issues in the state are subsumed into the greater red vs. blue polarization of the country—where Republicans in Iowa enjoy the advantage–CO₂  pipelines create an intraparty split between the Iowa GOP establishment and some in the party’s conservative wing.

Ground zero for that tension is Iowa’s fourth Congressional district, where CO₂ pipelines were a prominent issue in both the Republican primary and general election.

Fourth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections. This post has been updated with certified results as of December 2.

As ticket-splitting has declined in recent election cycles, few Iowa candidates have managed to win where the other party has a big advantage at the top of the ticket. So it was in Iowa’s 2024 Congressional races: former President Donald Trump outpolled Vice President Kamala Harris in all four U.S. House districts, which helped GOP incumbents hold off their Democratic opponents.

But one challenger massively outperformed Harris, and Trump barely pulled one underachieving incumbent over the line.

Election analyst Drew Savicki was first to publish the 2024 presidential vote and swing in Iowa’s U.S. House districts. I later confirmed his calculations, using unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

Recent news articles have reported on NexEra’s interest in restarting the Duane Arnold nuclear plant. We need to consider the consequences of such an action.

Restarting a closed reactor in decommissioning status has never been attempted. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admits there are no regulations authorizing the restart of a closed reactor. In order to restart Duane Arnold, NextEra will have to cobble together a daisy chain of existing regulations that is of doubtful legality, as is being attempted at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Nor is there any assurance that the operation could be done safely.

Third in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Donald Trump’s mastery of Iowa in the 2024 election is no more apparent than his performance in a batch of counties that border the Mississippi River.

For the last eight years, this region has been clearly in Trump’s corner. But it shifted even more decisively in his favor Tuesday.

Trump won these ten counties by more than 34,000 votes, according to unofficial results.

There were still a small number of ballots to be counted, but Trump’s victory in this region approached Barack Obama’s historic wins in 2012, at least in numeric terms. And, compared to four years ago, Trump won this stretch of Iowa by more than double the number of votes than he did against Joe Biden.

Second in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections. This post has been updated with certified results as of December 2.

The successful Republican effort to knock Libertarians off the ballot in three U.S. House districts may have influenced the outcome in at least one of them.

All three affected Libertarian candidates—Nicholas Gluba in the first Congressional district, Marco Battaglia in the third, and Charles Aldrich in the fourth—indicated that they would continue to run as write-in candidates. Unofficial results show write-in votes for Iowa’s four U.S. House races this year totaled 3,616—about 0.23 percent of the 1,602,409 ballots cast for a Congressional candidate.

When Libertarian candidates have been on the ballot for recent Iowa Congressional elections, they have typically received 2-3 percent of the vote.

AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE FIRST DISTRICT

In IA-01, unofficial results show Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks leads Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by 796 votes (49.98 percent to 49.79 percent). Bohannan has not conceded, and the race has not been called. But it’s unlikely that enough provisional ballots remain to be counted for her to overtake Miller-Meeks. Iowa no longer counts absentee ballots that arrive after election day.

First in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Two years ago, Iowa appeared to be on a different trajectory than much of the country. As Democrats won many of the midterm election races, including in our Midwestern neighboring states, Iowa experienced yet another “red wave.” Six of the last eight general elections in Iowa have been GOP landslides.

On November 5, Donald Trump improved on his 2020 performance almost across the board: in blue states like New York and New Jersey, swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, and red states like Texas and Iowa. He gained in rural counties, suburban counties, and urban centers, in states where both presidential candidates campaigned intensely, and in states where there was no “ground game” or barrage of political advertising. He gained among almost every demographic group except for college-educated women. He may become the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004, and only the second GOP nominee to win the popular vote since 1988.

The Trump resurgence isn’t unique to Iowa, or even the U.S.—grievance politics has been winning elections all over the world lately.

But that’s no comfort to Democrats here, who probably won’t win back any Congressional districts and suffered more losses among their already small contingents in the Iowa House and Senate.

This post has been updated with the unofficial results from each race. Original post follows.

Democrats go into the November 5 election with the smallest Iowa House contingent they’ve had in five decades. But even though control of the chamber is not in question, this year’s state House races matter.

Despite having a 64 to 36 advantage for the past two years, Republicans struggled to find 51 votes for some of their controversial legislation, such as Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to overhaul the Area Education Agencies. So chipping away at the GOP majority could help limit further damage to public education or civil rights.

Conversely, a net loss of Democratic-held seats would allow the majority to govern with even fewer constraints.

This post highlights nine Iowa House seats most at risk of flipping, plus seven districts that could be competitive, or where the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. I will update later with unofficial results from all of these races.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

In November of last year, I asked, “Are Republicans really gaining among Black voters?” Since then, political reporters have written article after article on the subject. A New York Times story about a recent poll declared, “Black voters drift from Democrats, Imperiling Harris’s Bid.” This week, Newsweek wrote about a different poll using the headline, “Donald Trump sees surge in support among Black Virginia Voters.”

Before I get the data, I want to make a serious point. These stories insulate Trump from the plain meaning of his language. See, he tells his supporters, I am not a racist: Black people are voting for me. So, while this question may seem like something only data nerds should care about, media coverage of the African-American vote has very real consequences for the political conversation in this country.

This post has been updated with unofficial results from the November 5 election, as well as the final pre-election campaign finance disclosures and absentee ballot totals as of November 2. Original post follows.

Republicans currently hold 34 Iowa Senate seats—the largest GOP contingent in that chamber since 1973. Democrats are not realistically contending to regain the Senate majority in November. So why pay any attention to these legislative races?

Although the most competitive state Senate races won’t determine control of the chamber, they could reveal a lot about each party’s strengths with certain kinds of voters. A good night for Republicans would indicate that the Trump-era realignment has moved further into Iowa’s former blue regions. A good night for Democrats could pull the GOP below the two-thirds threshold, which has allowed Senate Republicans to confirm all of Governor Kim Reynolds’ nominees without any support from the minority party.

This post highlights four state Senate districts at most risk of flipping, and another seven districts where even without a big investment by Democrats or Republicans, the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. A forthcoming article will cover state House races to watch in 2024.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Pundits are fond of saying that elections are about the economy, and people’s relationship to it. “It’s the economy, stupid” and all that. It may be true—but there’s certainly evidence to the contrary.

Look no further than the reaction to Donald Trump’s tariff proposals from Iowans whose livelihoods depend on the agriculture sector.

Maybe the more accurate comment would be “What reaction?”

Marty Ryan previously published a version of this essay in the November 2024 issue of the Prairie Progressive.

Campaign strategist Jim Carville coined the phrase “[It’s] the economy, stupid” back in 1992 when he worked on Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. That phrase “was directed at the campaign’s workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on.”

Evidently, the intent, if not the quote, has come back to the 2024 campaign. U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been insisting in one of her campaign’s television commercials that “we gotta bring these prices down.” Good luck!

Kevin Virgil made waves in August when he urged supporters of his GOP primary campaign to vote for Democrat Ryan Melton in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. But when the conservative Republican cast his own general election ballot, he wrote in his own name for Congress.

Virgil had called on voters to shock the Republican establishment by supporting Donald Trump for president and Melton in the IA-04 race. He explained in August that while he disagreed with the Democrat on many issues, “the only way that our so-called leadership is going to get the message is if ‘we the people’ demonstrate that we are no longer willing to tolerate bad candidates.” He stood by that position even as Iowa GOP leaders circled the wagons around U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, the two-term incumbent who defeated Virgil in the primary.

But on October 24, Virgil announced in Facebook and X/Twitter posts, “I will be voting later today and will write my own name in on the congressional ballot.” He confirmed to Bleeding Heartland that he did so at the O’Brien County elections office.

Linda Schreiber is a member of the League of Women Voters of Johnson County.

Amending the Iowa Constitution is a long process. State lawmakers must approve identical language in two consecutive separately elected legislatures before a proposed amendment goes on a statewide ballot.

This November, in addition to electing candidates for federal, state, and county offices, Iowans will consider two proposed state constitutional amendments: on Voting Age and Citizenship, and on Gubernatorial Succession.

Voters will decide in November whether to let Iowa Supreme Court Justice David May serve in that role for another eight years.

Justice May is heavily favored to keep his job. There is no organized statewide campaign against him, comparable to the well-funded efforts to oust Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010 and 2012. His two colleagues who were up for retention in 2022 each received about 67 percent “yes” votes.

However, many reproductive rights advocates have circulated emails or social media posts calling on Iowans to vote against the newest justice, because in June he joined the 4-3 majority opinion that allowed the state to enforce a near-total abortion ban. Abortion is a more salient issue in this year’s election than it was two years ago.

It can be difficult for voters to find detailed information about the judges on the ballot. This post provides context on how Justice May has approached Iowa Supreme Court cases in several areas of the law. Bleeding Heartland previously covered the highest- and lowest-rated Iowa Court of Appeals and District Court judges who are up for retention this year.

If Justice May receives more “no” than “yes” votes—as happened with three Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010—his tenure on the court will end in December. The State Judicial Nominating Commission would interview candidates for the vacancy and send three finalists to Governor Kim Reynolds for her consideration. Notably, nine of the seventeen commission members are themselves Reynolds appointees, so conservatives would likely end up on the short list of Supreme Court nominees.

Continuing a Bleeding Heartland tradition, I will post Iowa’s latest absentee ballot numbers, statewide and for each Congressional district, every weekday, based on figures released by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. That office also publishes daily absentee ballot totals by county, state House district, and state Senate district.

You can compare this year’s numbers to daily charts from the last six election cycles by clicking through to Bleeding Heartland’s archive of absentee ballot totals from 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, and 2012. But use caution when comparing, because Iowa’s early voting window lasted for 40 days through 2016, and was 29 days for the 2018 and 2020 elections. Only the most recent midterm also used the 20-day window currently in effect.

Also, keep in mind that this year’s early voting numbers will certainly be much lower than in 2020, when a majority of Iowans who participated cast a ballot before election day. Voting by mail skyrocketed during the last presidential election cycle, because the COVID-19 pandemic discouraged many from voting in person, and the Secretary of State’s office sent absentee ballot request forms to all registered Iowa voters. Republican legislators and Governor Kim Reynolds subsequently prohibited county auditors and the secretary of state from sending absentee ballot request forms to any voter who had not requested one.

The Secretary of State’s office now breaks down ballots received by voting method: mail, in person at a county office, in person at a satellite location, through a drop box, at a health care facility, or by email or fax (options for military or overseas voters). I’m keeping it simple with one table each day for ballots voters in each Congressional district have requested, and one table for ballots county auditors have received. After the election, I will write about how many Iowans used the various early voting options, and the partisan split for each.

In recent years, Iowa Democrats have been far more likely than Republicans to cast early ballots. However, the Iowa GOP has invested in a big early voting push this year. So far, Republicans are not far behind in early ballots requested and received in the first, second, and third Congressional districts. The GOP leads in early voting in the fourth district, where the party has a massive voter registration advantage.

Remember, though: the tables below show how many Iowans of various partisan affiliations have voted early. That doesn’t mean they all voted a straight party ticket.

Iowans will decide this November whether to allow one Iowa Supreme Court justice, four Iowa Court of Appeals judges, and 64 Iowa District Court judges to remain on the bench. Since our state adopted the current judicial selection system in 1962, each judge must periodically go on the ballot—every eight years for Iowa Supreme Court justices, every six years for those serving on other courts.

Iowa voters have retained almost all judges over the past six decades. But any jurist who receives more “no” than “yes” votes in November—as happened with three Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010—will be out of a job. Governor Kim Reynolds would fill any vacancies in early 2025, after receiving a list of finalists from the State Judicial Nominating Commission or its district-level counterpart.

While some people routinely approve or reject every judge up for retention as a matter of principle, voters who want to make informed choices often find it difficult to learn anything about the judges listed on the back of the ballot.

This post highlights the appeals and district court judges who received the highest and lowest ratings in the 2024 Judicial Performance Review, the main public source of information about Iowa’s judges. I will also explain why I plan to vote against retaining a member of the Iowa Court of Appeals and a district associate judge in Polk County.

A forthcoming Bleeding Heartland article will analyze how Iowa Supreme Court Justice David May has decided high-profile cases since Reynolds appointed him in July 2022.

As misinformation about the federal response to natural disasters hampers relief efforts in the southeast U.S., several Iowa Republicans have seized the opportunity to spread lies about the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Echoing “pants on fire” claims from former President Donald Trump, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Ashley Hinson (IA-02) have repeatedly asserted that FEMA lacks the resources needed to help those harmed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, because it has spent too much supporting undocumented immigrants. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst have likewise claimed Americans are being shortchanged due to FEMA’s allegedly excessive spending on migrants.

Those lies are part of a national effort by Trump supporters and the leading pro-Republican cable news network to assist Trump’s campaign. For Iowa Republicans as well, the false talking points direct voters’ attention toward immigration and border security, topics perceived to boost GOP candidates up and down the ballot.

Nunn, Miller-Meeks, and Hinson all invested in election-year messaging about immigration long before the hurricanes made landfall.

We often hear that Iowans like to re-elect their incumbents. But when it comes to members of the U.S. House, Iowa’s office-holders have less job security than many of their peers.

Across the country, voters have re-elected more than 90 percent of U.S. House incumbents in most elections over the past five decades. Here in Iowa, where our four districts are not gerrymandered, challengers defeated two sitting members of Congress in 2018, two in 2020 (one in the primary, one in the general election), and one in 2022.

Incumbents still enjoy inherent advantages in a Congressional campaign: higher name recognition, larger contributions from political action committees, more opportunities to generate news coverage, and an official budget that can fund outreach to constituents. But not all House members use the available tools the same way.

This post, the first in a series, will explore how Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has used her office to boost her re-election chances in Iowa’s first Congressional district.

Notably, Miller-Meeks has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on messages to constituents, with much of the spending going through her top campaign vendor. She has also built up goodwill by being one of the chamber’s most frequent floor speakers, and has used the earmark process to help fund projects in her district.

Members of Congress averted a federal government shutdown this week, approving a continuing resolution to keep funds flowing after the current fiscal year ends. Large bipartisan majorities in both chambers (341 to 82 in the House, and 78 to 18 in the Senate) voted on September 25 to fund the federal government at current levels through December 20. The bill also contains an extra $231 million in funds for the U.S. Secret Service to step up protection of presidential candidates.

All but one member of Iowa’s Congressional delegation supported the spending measure. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) has not publicly explained why he was among the 82 House Republicans who voted against the last opportunity to prevent a shutdown.

Every Iowa Democratic candidate had reason to celebrate the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, showing former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by just 4 points (47 percent to 43 percent). But arguably none had more grounds for optimism than Lanon Baccam, the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

According to calculations by the Daily Kos Elections team (now publishing as The Downballot), Trump outpolled Joe Biden across the IA-03 counties by 49.3 percent to 48.9 percent in 2020, while winning the state by an 8-point margin. So if Harris trails by only 4 points statewide now, she likely leads Trump in the third district.

Assuming the Selzer poll is off by the margin of error (plus or minus 3.8 percentage points), and Trump has an 8-point lead statewide, the major-party presidential nominees may be roughly tied in the IA-03 counties.

In other words, Baccam won’t have to overcome strong headwinds at the top of the ticket in order to beat first-term Republican Representative Zach Nunn, who carried this district by 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent in 2022.

I’ve been thinking about what else needs to happen for the challenger to win in November.

Editor’s note: This post discusses Selzer’s September 2024 poll of likely Iowa voters. Her final pre-election survey, which the Des Moines Register published on November 2, showed Harris leading Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent. Original post follows.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

Ann Selzer’s gold standard poll is out, and suggests a remade presidential race in Iowa.

The top line numbers from Selzer & Co’s latest poll for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom indicate former President Donald Trump has 47 percent support and Vice President Kamala Harris 43 percent among likely Iowa voters. This poll started contacting respondents on September 8 (before the debate) and concluded on September 11, the day after the debate. At the end of this piece is a summary of post-debate national polling, which has found a gain for Harris of about 1 percent.

When you compare the new survey to Selzer’s numbers from June (Trump 50 percent, President Joe Biden 32 percent in Iowa), you will find a 14 point shift in margin. But purely focusing on the margin may be a mistake.