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.

The use of eminent domain to build carbon capture pipelines is a uniquely controversial issue in Iowa politics. Unlike most issues in the state, which fit neatly into the red vs. blue paradigm of modern U.S. politics, CO₂ pipelines put Iowa’s Republican establishment on the wrong side of most voters in the state and divide the Republican Party base. The issue remains salient in Des Moines as potentially competitive primary and general election contests loom for governor of Iowa in 2026.

Among recent developments in the governor’s race, U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) has reportedly raised millions of dollars for his bid for the nomination, and has rolled out a slew of endorsements from other Iowa GOP elected officials. Feenstra is no stranger to the pipeline issue. The Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline most heavily affects his district in northern and western Iowa. His 2024 opponents all emphasized the issue: Kevin Virgil in the Republican primary and Democrat Ryan Melton and Libertarian Charles Aldrich in the general election.

Feenstra’s perceived indifference on the CO₂ pipeline offers an opening for rivals in the upcoming Republican primary for governor.

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.

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.

Kevin Virgil, who gained nearly 40 percent of the vote in the Republican primary to represent Iowa’s fourth Congressional district, has encouraged his supporters to consider splitting their votes: Donald Trump for president and Democrat Ryan Melton for Congress.

Virgil shared one of Melton’s posts on X/Twitter on the evening of August 23, praising the Democrat for opposing “land seizure for CO2 pipelines” and “corporate capture in Iowa and in DC,” while asking “hard questions about Iowa’s sky-high cancer rates.”

“If you care about our children’s future,” Virgil wrote, “then it’s time to think about voting for a split-ticket with Trump and @melton4iowa.”

Libertarian candidates have qualified for the general election ballot in three of Iowa’s four U.S. House districts.

A state party convention in early June nominated Nicholas Gluba in the first Congressional district, Marco Battaglia in the third, and Charles Aldrich in the fourth.

All three candidates spoke to Bleeding Heartland about their goals and priorities at the state capitol on July 29. That was the first day federal candidates who did not compete in a major-party primary could submit nominating papers to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office for the November 5 election.

Ryan Melton is the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. These are his prepared remarks for the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration in Des Moines on July 27. You can listen to the speech as delivered here.

At the Mills County Fair Democratic party booth in Malvern a couple Saturdays ago, a high school freshman to be asked me what motivates me to keep going despite the odds in our district, so he too could buy in and join the effort.

Here’s what I told him:

The president of the Congressional Leadership Fund (the main super-PAC aligned with U.S. House Republicans) congratulated U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on her “resounding victory” in the June 4 primary to represent Iowa’s first district.

U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra hailed the “clear message” from fourth district voters, saying he was “humbled by the strong support for our campaign.”

They can spin, but they can’t hide.

Pulling 55 to 60 percent of the vote against an underfunded, first-time candidate is anything but a “resounding” or “strong” performance for a member of Congress.

UPDATE: Jay Brown announced in late December 2023 that he was withdrawing from the race and endorsing Melton. Original post follows.

A two-way Democratic primary is shaping up in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. Ryan Melton, the 2022 Democratic challenger to U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, announced on July 4 that he plans to seek the office again. And last week, first-time candidate Dr. Jay Brown launched his campaign.

Disclosure: Brown grew up in the house next door to mine in Windsor Heights, and our families have been close friends for decades. Bleeding Heartland will not endorse in this race. As with any competitive Democratic primary, I will welcome guest commentaries by the candidates or by any of their supporters.