Every weekday through November 4, Bleeding Heartland will continue to post tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in Iowa’s four Congressional districts. The data come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. Click here for previous tables going back to September 22. For the first time since early voting started this year, Democrats lead Republicans in absentee ballot requests by fewer than 20,000.

In the 2010 midterm election, early ballots were cast by 155,421 Iowa Democrats, 136,243 Republicans, and 68,499 no-party voters. As of yesterday, 125,927 Iowa Democrats had requested an absentee ballot (81 percent of the 2010 total early Democratic vote), 106,982 Republicans had requested an absentee ballot (79 percent of the 2010 total early GOP vote), and 56,697 no-party voters had requested a ballot (83 percent of the 2010 total early vote by independents). Democrats claim that their canvassers have identified most of the no-party voters casting early ballots this year.

The new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News indicated that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst is slightly ahead of Democratic nominee Bruce Braley by 47 percent to 46 percent, but also found that “The Democrats’ aggressive early voting push is aiding Braley,” who leads by 56 percent to 38 percent among respondents who said they had already voted.  

Whose idea was it to hold so many Iowa candidate debates on Saturday nights this year? At 7 pm this evening, Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst face off in the second of three scheduled debates. (C-SPAN will televise nationwide, and KWQC TV will televise in the Quad Cities area.) Immediately after that, KWQC will broadcast the second and final debate between Representative Dave Loebsack and Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the second Congressional district race. (That debate will be taped earlier in the day.)

I won’t be able to watch either showdown live because of a family wedding, but I will catch up later with some links and recap, as well as highlights from the new Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. A bunch of links related to the IA-Sen race are after the jump. I still see the debate as equally risky for Braley and Ernst, for different reasons.

UPDATE: The new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll by Selzer & Co has Braley and Ernst nearly tied. Ernst is ahead by a statistically insignificant 47 percent to 46 percent. I do not believe Ernst lost a lot of ground during the last two weeks. I believe she was never as far ahead as the last Selzer poll indicated. Other polls in the field around the same time showed a much closer race. In particular, I do not believe that in two weeks, Braley went from a 25-point deficit among men to a 16-point deficit now.

SECOND UPDATE: The full debate video is on the KWQC website.

THIRD UPDATE: I wish every undecided voter in Iowa had seen this debate. Having finally watched the full video myself, I understand why shills for Ernst kept reaching for their security blankets on Saturday night. Talk about a disastrous performance. She repeatedly fell back on rote talking points that didn’t answer the question. On several occasions it was apparent that she did not understand the policy implications of her own words. I particularly loved how she insisted that the bipartisan Senate-passed immigration reform bill was “amnesty,” even though Braley had already explained why it was different from amnesty. She talked about securing the border, even though Braley had already explained that we would have 20,000 more border control agents if that immigration reform bill had become law. Toward the end of that exchange, though, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Ernst say she would not vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). A lot of conservatives were presumably surprised too, but not in a pleasant way.

At the end of this post I’ve linked to several pieces summarizing the debate highlights.

More than 278,000 Iowans have already requested absentee ballots this year, roughly one-quarter as many as voted in the 2010 midterm election. As of yesterday, more than 119,000 Iowans had returned absentee ballots to their county auditors, roughly one-third as many as the total number of absentee voters from 2010.

Follow me after the jump for the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts are after the jump. The data come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. Click here for previous tables going back to September 22.

Iowans who have voted early by mail can use the “track your absentee ballot” page of the Secretary of State’s website to confirm that your ballot reached your county auditor. Most years I have found it easier to vote early in person right at the auditor’s office. That way, you know your ballot has been received.

Following the instructions for absentee voting is critically important. Ballots will not be counted if the voter has not sealed the secrecy envelope, or has not signed the affidavit envelope. If you requested an absentee ballot but can’t find it, or made a mistake while filling it out, contact your county auditor for help. The easiest solution is to visit the county auditor’s office, fill out a form to void the ballot first sent to you, and vote early in person right there.

Iowans continue to vote early at a pace well ahead of any previous midterm election. Follow me after the jump for the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts are after the jump. The data come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. Click here for previous tables, which make it easier to spot trends in the numbers.

Democrats lead in early voting in the first, second, and third Congressional districts, while Republicans have requested and returned more ballots in the fourth district, where the GOP has a large voter registration advantage.

More than a quarter of a million Iowans have requested absentee ballots, and nearly 100,000 have already returned early ballots to their county auditor. The latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts are after the jump. The data come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office.

Click here for previous tables, which make it easier to spot trends in the numbers. For the first time since September 22, the statewide Democratic lead in absentee ballot requests has dipped below 30,000.  

The latest early voting numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office show Republicans continuing to gain ground. Statewide, the Democratic lead in absentee ballot requests has fallen to about 32,000. For the first time this year, Republicans have a small lead in absentee ballots requested in the fourth Congressional district (where the party has a voter registration edge of more than 55,000).

The latest tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts are after the jump. Click here for previous tables, which make it easier to spot trends in the numbers.

The big unanswered question remains: which party is mobilizing more voters who otherwise would not participate in a midterm election? A Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official told Philip Rucker of the Washington Post that among the Iowans who had requested absentee ballots by October 2, about 30 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of no-party voters did not vote in 2010. The Secretary of State’s Office declined to independently verify that claim. If accurate, it works out to about roughly 30,000 of the Democrats and 20,000 of the no-party voters who had requested ballots by October 2.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

When you don’t like a law on the books, you have a few options. You can work to change the law through the political system, such as by lobbying legislators, voting out incumbents, or running for the legislature yourself. You can challenge the law through the court system, building a case that the law was improperly enacted or violates constitutional rights. Or you can use civil disobedience to call attention to the unjust law.

A growing number of conservatives are embracing a fourth option: make it a crime to implement or enforce laws you don’t like. As Talking Points Memo first reported on Friday, State Senator Joni Ernst answered yes to the following question on the Campaign for Liberty’s 2012 questionnaire: “Will you support legislation to nullify ObamaCare and authorize state and local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement the unconstitutional health care scheme known as ObamaCare?”

At the time Ernst filled out that survey, no one knew that Democrats would retain control of the Iowa Senate after the 2012 election. She could easily have found herself in the majority, voting for a bill to make it a crime to implement the 2010 health care reform law.

Nor was this an isolated position taken by Ernst. Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register features a front-page article by Jennifer Jacobs analyzing bills and resolutions co-sponsored by Ernst in the Iowa Senate and Representative Bruce Braley in the U.S. House. This nugget was buried in the middle:

Ernst has 12 gun-rights bills in her portfolio. They include “stand your ground” legislation that would allow Iowans to use reasonable force, including deadly force, if necessary to protect themselves or others from death or serious injury. Another bill would eliminate the requirement for a permit to carry a weapon. And another would criminalize enforcement of federal gun laws.

I knew Ernst was for just about everything on the gun activists’ wish list, but I hadn’t heard that she believes it should be a crime to enforce federal laws such as background checks. Either she doesn’t read things carefully before she signs them, or she truly believes enforcing some federal laws should become a state crime. But no worries, I’m sure she’ll have a perfectly rehearsed excuse for taking this ridiculous position in the unlikely event someone asks her about it at one of the two remaining IA-Sen debates (October 11 in the Quad Cities and October 16 in Sioux City).

UPDATE: Maybe Ernst should go back to the women’s shelter where she used to volunteer and explain to the women why their abusers should have unlimited freedom to carry guns, with no permit required.

A. When it happens in a campaign debate.

Since last night, I’ve been thinking about a ridiculous unwritten rule of our political culture.

On the one hand, we have former State Senator Staci Appel. While debating her opponent in Iowa’s third Congressional district, she expressed herself in a slightly inarticulate way. Later, she and her campaign staff clarified her position: she supports going through the existing system for revoking passports of people affiliated with terrorist organizations. But what she thinks doesn’t matter to her opponents. They will keep twisting the meaning of her awkward phrase over and over on television.

On the other hand, we have State Senator Joni Ernst. While debating her opponent in the U.S. Senate race, she misrepresented a constitutional amendment she co-sponsored, which calls for recognizing and protecting “the inalienable right to life of every person at any stage of development.” Ernst insisted the “personhood” amendment would not threaten access to birth control or in-vitro fertilization, even though independent fact-checkers have confirmed that yes, it would. This wasn’t some offhand comment on a topic she wasn’t expecting to come up. Ernst agreed to co-sponsor the “personhood” amendment. Four of her fellow Iowa Senate Republicans and more than two dozen Iowa House Republicans chose not to co-sponsor similar legislation, because they understood its implications. In yesterday’s debate, Ernst stood by her support for “personhood” as a statement of faith. She also stood by her false claim that it wouldn’t affect birth control or fertility treatment options for women.

At best, Ernst’s comments reveal stunning ignorance and a failure to research bills before signing on to them. At worst, she knows what “personhood” would mean if enacted, and was lying during the debate. Neither option is acceptable.

Yet for some reason, the smooth way Ernst spoke during the exchange over abortion rights is not considered a “gotcha” moment. Today, she’s probably more worried about news emerging that her husband sued a house painter over unfinished work, when she has spent months depicting herself as willing to resolve conflicts “the Iowa way” in contrast to “litigious” Bruce Braley. I’m sick of trivia dominating our political discourse and elections being about everything but the candidates’ real stands on real issues.

LATE UPDATE: Lynda Waddington wrote a good column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Ernst’s “personhood” comments during the debate.

In a few minutes Representative Bruce Braley and State Senator Joni Ernst will start their first debate at Simpson College in Indianola. You can watch the debate on KCCI-TV in the Des Moines viewing area and on C-SPAN across the country (in central Iowa that’s channel 95).

I previewed what I see as the biggest potential pitfalls for each candidate here. I’ll be liveblogging after the jump and will also update later with some reaction to the debate.

UPDATE: KCCI has posted the debate video online. I cleaned up some typos and filled in gaps in the liveblog below.

Representative Bruce Braley and State Senator Joni Ernst face off today for the first of three scheduled debates. You can watch at 5 pm on C-SPAN or on KCCI-TV if you live in the Des Moines viewing area. KCCI and the Des Moines Register will live-stream the debate as well.

Debates rarely change election outcomes, but they are high-stakes events because a mistake provides fodder for a wave of attack ads. Republicans have been bashing Staci Appel for two weeks already over one awkward response she gave during her Congressional candidate debate with David Young.

Follow me after the jump for a preview of the major risks for each candidate in the IA-Sen debate. Braley goes in under more pressure after the latest Des Moines Register Iowa poll showed him behind by 6 points. But the format creates some potential pitfalls for Ernst too.

By the way, in her ongoing quest to displace WHO-TV’s Dave Price as the favorite journalist of central Iowa Republicans, the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs put her thumb on the scale in her debate preview. Jacobs attributes negative views of Braley to “voters” while dismissing criticism of Ernst as coming from “Democrats.” Memo to Register publisher Rick Green: we know you’re conservative, but it’s embarrassing for your chief political reporter to express such a clear preference ahead of a debate your newspaper is co-sponsoring. Maybe you should move Jacobs over to the opinion page during your upcoming job shuffle.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This evening the Des Moines Register rolled out partial results from its first Iowa poll since forming a partnership with Bloomberg News on political coverage. The news isn’t encouraging for Democrats: State Senator Joni Ernst leads U.S. Representative Bruce Braley by 44 percent to 38 percent, outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent. CORRECTION: That’s the margin of error for each candidate’s support. The margin of error for Ernst’s lead over Braley would be larger.

I’ve posted excerpts from the Register’s coverage after the jump. The most worrying points include: Ernst has a double-digit lead among independents; her 25-point lead among men more than compensates for Braley’s 13-point lead among women; she leads among every age group (though only by 1 percent among senior citizens); Braley is not ahead in the first Congressional district, despite representing much of northeast Iowa since 2007.

Some Democrats have been grumbling this evening about the biased tone of the Register’s write-up. For instance, Jennifer Jacobs dwelled on Braley’s negatives, even though the poll showed a higher unfavorable rating for Ernst (44 percent) than for Braley (42 percent). In general, I can’t remember a Des Moines Register political reporter showing a stronger bias than Jacobs has shown toward Ernst this whole year. It’s remarkable. But that’s far from Braley’s biggest problem right now.

I expected the Braley campaign to respond that this poll is out of line with their internal numbers, or with other recent polls showing the IA-Sen race tied. But the memo from Braley’s campaign manager Sarah Benzing was much more alarming, since it accepted the Register’s numbers as a “snapshot of where this race begins” as voters start paying attention. It argued that the race was tied all summer, when “the TV spending numbers were closer to parity.” In contrast, “the Ernst campaign and its backers have spent over $500,000 more than the Braley campaign and Democratic groups on television” in the past two weeks. “Unless this disparity is equalized over the next few weeks, there is a real chance that spending by outside groups will determine the Iowa Senate race […].”

I’ve enclosed the Braley memo after the jump. There’s some happy talk about the Democratic ground game, which supposedly will deliver for Braley “as long as Democratic spending in Iowa matches the firepower that the other side is contributing to the air war.” Really, that’s your spin? News flash: Democrats won a bunch of close Senate races in 2012 despite being outspent on television. They were able to connect with voters despite that deficit. Moreover, pro-Ernst and anti-Braley spending will probably continue to surpass Democratic spending for the whole month of October. Braley’s campaign manager should not be suggesting her candidate can’t win under those circumstances.

Democrats need to hope that either Braley can turn things around in the debates, or that this poll will turn out to be one of Selzer & Co’s occasional misses (like when the Register’s Iowa poll had Terry Branstad 28 points ahead of Bob Vander Plaats a few days before he won the 2010 GOP primary by 9 points). It’s too bad the Register didn’t commission an Iowa poll shortly after the June primary, so we would all have a baseline for comparison. But Public Policy Polling has an Iowa survey in the field this weekend too, and claims Ernst is running ahead.

UPDATE: On September 28, Harstad Strategic Research released partial results from a poll conducted between September 21 and 25 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. This poll showed Braley and Ernst tied at 42 percent each and Braley leading among independents by 40 percent to 36 percent. The survey drew respondents from the Iowa voter file rather than through the random-dialing method used by some pollsters. I’ve added the memo at the end of this post.

Few members of Congress have done more to link themselves with the “No Labels” movement than U.S. Representative Bruce Braley. He spoke at the group’s launch event in December 2010. He participated in the group’s December 2011 release of a 12-point action plan to “Make Congress Work.” In 2012, Braley co-sponsored “No Budget, No Pay” legislation supported by No Labels; similar language was included in a budget bill President Barack Obama signed the following year. A review of Braley’s voting record on a wide range of issues shows many examples of the Democrat voting with the majority of House Republicans and against most members of his own caucus.

When Braley received the No Labels “Problem Solver Seal of Approval” this July, his U.S. Senate campaign enthusiastically spread the news along with a long list of his bipartisan accomplishments in the House.

It must have come as a shock when No Labels turned around and gave Republican State Senator Joni Ernst the same “Problem Solver Seal of Approval” a few days ago. Just in time for the Senate nominees’ first debate on Sunday, without any bipartisan legislative accomplishments to speak of, Ernst got outside validation for her campaign’s otherwise laughable pivot from the “mother, soldier, conservative” tag line to “mother, soldier, independent leader.” All she had to do to gain equal status with Braley was pay lip service to the No Labels “National Strategic Agenda.”

I’ve long believed that No Labels is an “astroturf” (fake grassroots) movement founded on false premises, and that Democrats who got mixed up with the latest incarnation of Beltway “centrists” were making a mistake. Braley may not be the last to learn this lesson the hard way. Follow me after the jump for more thoughts on No Labels’ wrong-headed policy stands and political choices.  

This morning the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office started posting absentee ballot statistics for this year’s general election. They will update the chart on weekdays here (pdf).

As in 2012, Bleeding Heartland will update the absentee ballot totals daily as they become available. The first set of numbers are after the jump. I’ve organized the data a bit differently from the Secretary of State’s Office. For each day’s totals, I will create two charts: the first shows the number of absentee ballots Iowans have requested, in each of the four Congressional districts and statewide. The second shows the number of absentee ballots county auditors have received from voters, in each of the four Congressional districts and statewide. (For now, those numbers are small, because most of the county auditors have not yet mailed ballots to voters who requested them.)

In-person early voting will begin on September 25 at county auditors’ offices. Some counties will open satellite locations for in-person early voting as well. When an Iowan votes early at the auditor’s office, that counts as an absentee ballot requested by the voter and as an absentee ballot received by the auditor on the same day.

Today’s press release from the Secretary of State’s Office noted that “demand for absentee ballots with 43 days before the election is much higher this year for all party affiliations than at a similar point in 2010.” Absentee ballot requests as of September 21 totaled 112,178 statewide, compared to 56,725 at this point in Iowa’s last midterm election campaign. Registered Democrats had requested 57,869 absentee ballots (versus 34,318 at this point in 2010), Republicans had requested 31,099 ballots (12,710 in 2010), and no-party voters had requested 23,043 ballots (9,664 in 2010). Click here for more information about voting early, or to download an absentee ballot request form.

Note that not every mailed-in absentee ballot will count. Some ballots mailed late will not get a postmark proving voters sent them before election day. John Deeth goes over other common errors that can lead to absentee ballots not being counted, such as voters not signing the “affidavit envelope” or re-opening the affidavit envelope after sealing it. Everyone planning to vote by mail needs to read the instructions carefully and follow them exactly.

UPDATE: I should have noted that if this year’s turnout is similar to 2010, about 1.1 million Iowans will cast ballots, meaning that roughly 10 percent of those likely to participate in the midterm have already requested a ballot. The Republican Party of Iowa’s first mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms went out in early September, while the Iowa Democratic Party’s went out last week.

SECOND UPDATE: Adding latest daily numbers after the jump.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. I live-blogged yesterday’s gubernatorial debate, for those who missed it.

Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register includes a big feature by Jason Noble and Jeffrey C. Kummer on the $13.8 million spent so far on television commercials to influence Iowa’s U.S. Senate race. I’ve posted some excerpts after the jump.

Does anyone else think we’ve passed the point of diminishing returns on tv ads in this race? The vast majority of ads aired have been negative, and the overall quality has been poor. One of the biggest anti-Ernst spenders, NextGen Climate Action, has not produced a decent commercial yet. Most of the output has been so bad, I honestly believe Braley would be better off if NextGen had not gotten involved in this campaign at all. The Sierra Club’s spots are only marginally better. Some of the Braley campaign’s own negative ads have struck me as potentially effective, but at this point I suspect most Iowans are tuning out political ads. The volume has been overwhelming in the targeted media markets.

Pro-Republican groups, starting with fronts for the Koch brothers and now including one of Karl Rove’s outfits, keep pounding at the same two points to make Braley look bad: he insulted Senator Chuck Grassley and allegedly all Iowa farmers, and he missed a lot of House Veterans Affairs Committee meetings. But I have to wonder: once someone has heard 500 times about Braley’s alleged insult to Iowa farmers, will hearing it another ten or twenty times make any difference? Craig Robinson thinks Republicans are putting too many eggs in these baskets, and I tend to agree. The biggest accomplishment of these anti-Braley ads has been to force the Democrat to spend a lot of his money countering these charges (for instance, with tv spots on his connection to his grandparents’ farm or about what he has done for Iowa veterans). They have dictated the terms of his positive messages.

Probably the best outside ad money spent so far has been by the Chamber of Commerce. They’re running ads with Senator Chuck Grassley and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey endorsing Ernst. Simple, positive messages.

Iowa’s U.S. Senate campaign has been stuck in a holding pattern for most of the summer. Seven straight opinion polls showed either a tied race between Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst, or one candidate ahead by 1-2 percentage points, well within the margin of error. For weeks, I’ve seen negative ads against both candidates almost every day on television, with a positive spot occasionally sprinkled in. I keep hearing the same anti-Braley or anti-Ernst ads again and again on radio too. Since no major external event has occurred to change the dynamic of the race, I was expecting to see more statistically tied polls at least until the first of three debates to which the candidates have agreed.

Instead, last week Loras College released a poll showing Braley ahead by 45.3 percent to 40.5 percent. Braley had better favorability ratings than Ernst.

Today Quinnipiac released a poll showing Ernst ahead by 50 percent to 44 percent. Ernst had better favorability numbers, led among independents, and had a much bigger lead among men than Braley’s lead among women.

The Loras poll of 1,200 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.82 percent. The Q-poll of 1,167 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent. At least one of these polls is way off. Neither Loras nor Quinnipiac have polled in Iowa before this election cycle, so we don’t have a track record to judge them by. For what it’s worth, the available evidence hasn’t convinced me that either Braley or Ernst has a significant lead, and here’s why.

UPDATE: Fox News is out with their latest Iowa poll: Braley and Ernst are at 41 percent each. Notably, the sample includes 36 percent self-identified Democrats, 34 percent Republicans, and 25 percent independent/other.

During prime-time last night, President Barack Obama spoke to the nation about the U.S. response to the terrorist group ISIS. You can read the full text of his remarks here. I don’t have a lot of confidence that airstrikes will weaken support for ISIS where they are powerful, nor do I know whether there are enough “forces fighting these terrorists on the ground” for our support to matter. At least the president isn’t sending massive numbers of ground troops back to Iraq.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from several members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation as well as candidates for federal office. I will update this post as needed later today. Feel free to share your own thoughts about the appropriate U.S. policy in the region.

UPDATE: Added more comments below. As of Thursday evening, I have not seen any public comment on the president’s speech from Senator Tom Harkin, Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01 and the Democratic nominee from U.S. Senate), IA-01 Democratic nominee Pat Murphy, his Republican opponent Rod Blum, IA-02 GOP nominee Mariannette Miller-Meeks, or Representative Steve King (IA-04). I would think anyone who represents or wants to represent Iowans in Congress would want to weigh in about this policy, at least on whether the president should be able to act without Congressional authorization.

I agree with State Senator Matt McCoy, who posted on Facebook, “The President did not make a credible case for sending 475 Americans into IRAQ. The bar should be set very high before a President takes action without Congressional authorization. This crisis needs more dialog and study.”

Sunday night, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines marked its 100th anniversary at a dinner gathering downtown. The gala was unusual in several respects. For one thing, I don’t recall seeing such a large and bipartisan group of Iowa politicians at any non-political local event before. Attendees included Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Terry Branstad, State Senator Jack Hatch, Lieutenant Governor nominee Monica Vernon, Representative Bruce Braley, State Senator Joni Ernst, Representative Dave Loebsack, IA-03 candidates David Young and Staci Appel, State Senator Matt McCoy, Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, State Representatives Helen Miller, Marti Anderson, and Peter Cownie, and several suburban mayors or city council members. (Insert your own “a priest, a rabbi, and an Iowa politician walk into a bar” joke here.)

The keynote speech was even more striking. It’s standard practice to invite a Jewish celebrity to headline major Federation events. This year’s guest was award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss. But other than a “Borscht belt”-inspired opening riff about learning to nod and say “Yes, dear” to his wife, Dreyfuss left obvious material aside. He didn’t dwell on humorous anecdotes from his Hollywood career, or talk about how being Jewish helped his craft. Instead, Dreyfuss reminisced about a cultural place and time that could hardly be more foreign to his Iowa audience, regardless of age or religious background.

More than a half-dozen potential presidential candidates have visited Iowa since Bleeding Heartland’s last news roundup on the field. Any comments about the 2016 Iowa caucus campaign are welcome in this thread. Lots of links are after the jump.

Lest anyone think that ordinary people are unable to influence public discourse, consider this: Rand Paul’s latest Iowa visit will likely be remembered for how he ran away from the DREAMers who confronted Representative Steve King.

The Iowa State Fair opened a few minutes ago and runs through August 17. I’m a big fan of the event, and after the jump, I’ve posted some of my favorite tips for enjoying the fair, along with the schedule for candidate appearances at the Des Moines Register’s “soapbox” on the Grand Concourse. The Register will live-stream speeches by candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, as well as a few nationally known politicians from out of state.

The fair has almost endless free entertainment, but bring cash with you anyway, because the State Fair board had to backtrack on plans to eliminate cash purchases for food. Instead, vendors have been encouraged to accept credit and debit cards. I suspect most will stick with a cash-only system.  

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right not to provide contraception coverage in its health insurance package for employees. The Obama administration had already exempted some religious organizations and non-profits from the contraception mandate in the 2010 health care reform law. Today’s ruling allows a closely-held (that is, not publicly traded) for-profit corporation to claim religious rights that override the rights of their employees, not to mention the need to comply with federal law.

You can read the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision and dissents here (pdf). Justice Samuel Alito wrote the “opinion of the court,” joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy. Strangely, Kennedy wrote a separate concurring opinion “in an attempt to show how narrow the Court’s decision was.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer dissented. The majority ruling appears to apply only to contraception health care services, as opposed to other medical procedures to which some groups have religious objections (such as vaccinations or blood transfusions). Still, Ginsburg seems on track when she warns that the court “has ventured into a minefield” by “approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation.” Analyzing today’s decision, Lyle Denniston predicted more litigation will be needed to clarify the limits of the new religious exemption for closely-held companies.

For background on the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case (formerly Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius) and the implications of the ruling, check the Alliance for Justice and SCOTUSblog websites.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from various Iowa elected officials and candidates. So far Iowa Democrats have been quicker to respond to the Hobby Lobby ruling than Republicans. I will update this post as needed.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Republican Party of Iowa held its state convention today in Des Moines. Links and highlights are after the jump.

Forty men and ten women currently serve in the Iowa Senate. No senators are African-American, Latino, or Asian-American.

Seventy-five men and 25 women currently serve in the Iowa House. Five state representatives are African-American and none are Latino or Asian-American.

Time for a look at how those numbers might change after the November election, now that primaries have determined the major-party nominees in all state legislative districts. Click here for the June 3 unofficial election results and here for the full list of candidates who filed to run in the primaries.

Earlier this year, I would have predicted high Republican turnout for Iowa’s June 3 primary elections. The five-way race for the U.S. Senate nomination was highly competitive, as was the six-way contest in the open third Congressional district. Multiple candidates contested GOP primaries in the first and second Congressional districts too. The 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses, which involved going out for an hour or more on a cold night in January, attracted a record turnout of roughly 122,000 people.

Yet according to unofficial results, just 158,031 Iowans cast ballots in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, and 156,275 cast ballots in the governor’s race, where Terry Branstad had a token challenger.

The 2010 midterm election saw much higher Republican turnout, with some 227,404 people voting for one of the three GOP gubernatorial candidates. There weren’t any high-profile statewide Republican primary contests in 2006, but in the 2002 midterm year, 199,234 Iowans cast ballots in the three-way GOP primary for governor, and 197,096 Iowans cast ballots in the two-way GOP primary for U.S. Senate.

In IA-03, five of the six Republican candidates raised enough money to run district-wide campaigns before this year’s primary. Yet only 42,948 Iowans voted in a Congressional district with 160,660 active Republican voters as of June 2014. The seven-way 2010 GOP primary in IA-03 attracted more than 46,000 votes in a district that included only one-fifth of the state’s population at the time and 118,850 active Republican voters. (Iowa lost one of its Congressional districts after the 2010 census).

A similar story took shape in IA-02, where about 30,500 people cast ballots in this year’s GOP primary, compared to nearly 40,000 who voted in the 2010 primary, at a time when the district covered one-fifth of the state’s population rather than one-fourth.

In this thread, please share your thoughts on why Republicans didn’t show up to vote in larger numbers this year. Julie Stauch, a veteran of many Democratic campaigns, speculated that the low turnout “is the cumulative result of every extreme and outrageous statement over the last four years. The current Republicans in Iowa are only talking to those who agree with them 100 percent, which creates a rapidly shrinking base as every outrageous statement drives away a few more people. We can see the effect of this from the loss of 40 percent of the 2010 participants. That’s a serious decline over any range of time, but very bad over four years.”

I thought State Senator Joni Ernst would win the U.S. Senate primary outright, but I never thought she’d take more than 56 percent of the vote. A more detailed post on Mark Jacobs’ collapse will come later, but for now, here is my first take on the Ernst triumph.

Sam Clovis has been campaigning hard around the state since last summer, but contrary to what he’d hoped and planned for, he appears not to be able to run any of his own radio or television commercials before next Tuesday’s primary for U.S. Senate. Clovis’ total fundraising through the end of March was less than $300,000, and a strong statewide paid media campaign would cost at least that much. The Citizens United Political Victory Fund, which previously endorsed Clovis and gave his campaign $5,000, is stepping in with a small television buy on his behalf. $53,000 won’t buy many points, but it’s better than nothing. The commercial features 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses winner Rick Santorum. He endorsed Clovis earlier this month. As a talk radio host in northwest Iowa, Clovis among Santorum’s more influential supporters before the caucuses. After the jump I’ve posted the video and transcript of the Citizens United ad.

I’ve also enclosed below the video of Clovis’ recent meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board. Listening to him speak on a wide range of topics, I so wished he’d be able to raise the funds to get his name and views out there. He should have been a phenomenally appealing candidate to the Republican base. He speaks with more authority than the others in the Senate field. I think Bob Vander Plaats hurt Clovis badly by spending so long dropping hints about his own possible Senate candidacy. If he’d ruled out running last summer, rather than stretching out his decision to promote a book project, Clovis would have had a better shot.

Maybe Clovis will do surprisingly well on a shoestring budget, as Ed Fallon did in the 2006 Democratic primary for governor. But I doubt Clovis will manage to keep State Senator Joni Ernst below the 35 percent threshold for winning the nomination outright on June 3. I have been wondering whether he might get some fringe benefit from Mitt Romney’s Iowa visit on behalf of Ernst, though. That will generate a lot of media coverage, and Romney isn’t popular in some conservative Republican circles.

Public Policy Polling released its latest Iowa survey yesterday; click here for the memo and here (pdf) for full results from the poll of 914 registered voters between May 15 and 19 (margin of error plus or minus 3.3 percent). Some highlights are after the jump.

Good news continues to pile up for State Senator Joni Ernst. After nabbing prized conservative endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association, Ernst saw a new Loras College poll confirm that she is the front-runner in the five-way GOP primary for U.S. Senate. In mid-April, the inaugural Loras College poll found Ernst and Mark Jacobs essentially tied, but the new poll of 600 registered Republicansshows Ernst with 30.8 percent support to 19.3 percent for Jacobs, 9.5 percent for Sam Clovis, 7.3 percent for Matt Whitaker, and 2.3 percent for Scott Schaben. Even a small portion of the 29 percent undecided voters would push Ernst past the 35 percent threshold needed to win the primary outright. Full poll results are here (pdf); I’ve posted part of the polling memo below. I disagree with the methodological decision to include only registered Republicans in the poll sample, as a sizable number of Iowa no-party voters are likely to participate in the primary. On the other hand, it’s noteworthy that lists from which the poll sample was drawn “included only those who voted in the 2010 Republican primary or 2012 Republican primary.”

Hoping to blunt Ernst’s momentum, the Jacobs campaign rolled out its biggest endorsement yet last week, from Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. (Bleeding Heartland will cover that in more detail in a future post.) Ernst’s team was able to respond quickly with a press release hailing support from two past presidents of the Iowa Farm Bureau. I’ve posted that statement below.

Finally, the Sunday Des Moines Register endorsed Ernst yesterday. Although the Register’s editorial board disagrees with most of the policy stands they mentioned in the endorsement (such as repealing Obamacare, “absolutist position on the Second Amendment”), they appreciated Ernst’s “nuanced grasp of details” on several issues. More important, I suspect, the Register’s editors were motivated to pick the candidate they view as likely to win the primary. The commentary cited her “impressive statewide political campaign,” which has attracted “support from many establishment Republicans.” More excerpts are below.  

Sam Clovis is arguably having the best week of his U.S. Senate campaign. Former Senator Rick Santorum, who narrowly won the 2012 Iowa Republican caucuses, finally got behind Clovis on Wednesday. I’ve posted the official announcement after the jump. Earlier this week, Clovis got the public backing of two other popular figures among Iowa social conservatives: talk radio host Steve Deace and former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats. All of the above have way more stature among Iowa Republicans than the fringe figures who had previously endorsed Clovis, such as Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas.

I was surprised Santorum didn’t take this step sooner. As a talk radio host in northwest Iowa, Clovis was a big supporter of Santorum’s last presidential campaign, and he modeled his Senate bid on the same grassroots approach. Last fall, Clovis hired Chuck Laudner, a veteran of the 2012 Santorum effort in Iowa, to manage his Senate campaign.

I have no idea whether Santorum can help turn things around for Clovis, who can’t afford anything like the paid media supporting State Senator Joni Ernst, let alone self-funder Mark Jacobs. But even if Clovis fails to win the GOP primary, backing him may boost Santorum’s reputation in Iowa among Republicans looking for an uncompromising conservative. His previous endorsements in this year’s Congressional races were a bit of a bust. State Representative Walt Rogers didn’t even make it to the starting line as a candidate in IA-01, and Secretary of State Matt Schultz has had to contend with embarrassing news about his management as he fights for the GOP nomination in IA-03.

Two other past GOP presidential candidates have endorsed Republicans running for Iowa’s open U.S Senate seat. Texas Governor Rick Perry is backing Matt Whitaker, while 2012 nominee Mitt Romney is backing Ernst, as is Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible presidential contender in 2016 or 2020.

Talk radio host Steve Deace, an Iowa social conservative icon, announced his support for Sam Clovis yesterday in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Deace asserted that Clovis is “most prepared to actually govern” and pointed out that he “was the only candidate who publicly did everything he could to assist Iowa’s historic judicial retention election of 2010, which in our opinion is the most important election we’ve ever been a part of.” Furthermore, Deace noted that “those working and volunteering for Sam Clovis’ campaign are some of the most devoted patriots and principled conservatives we know in Iowa politics.”

I’m only surprised it took him so long to make up his mind. Deace considered Clovis, State Senator Joni Ernst, and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker. You can read how each of those candidates responded to the radio host’s questions here, here, and here. Clovis sent the most detailed reply by far. Ernst was the only candidate who did not reply directly, but had her campaign consultant David Polyansky respond on her behalf. In a not very subtle swipe at Ernst, Deace urged conservatives not to let “the media” pick the Republican nominee and praised Clovis for being “willing to have a serious and substantive discussion about the future of the country,” in contrast to those who “just regurgitate talking points or get by on focus grouped catch phrases.”

Meanwhile, three-time Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Clovis this morning. I’ve posted the campaign’s press release after the jump. Vander Plaats told the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs that Clovis has the courage of his convictions and is “most prepared to make a difference” in the U.S. Senate. It’s the very least Vander Plaats can do after his long flirtation with a Senate campaign kneecapped Clovis for many months. Who knows how many donors and volunteers stayed on the sidelines while Vander Plaats kept dropping hints that he might run for Senate, in what appears to have been a marketing strategy for his latest book. Clovis worked hard to support the campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010, and in return Vander Plaats gave him a gesture that’s likely too little and too late.

A number of right-wing groups have previously endorsed Clovis, including Citizens United, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Tea Party Patriots, and the Gun Owners of America. But his campaign’s fundraising has been weak, and the latest FEC filing showed only $54,845 cash on hand as of March 31. In three weeks we’ll find out whether conservative activist energy can deliver for Clovis, in the absence of statewide direct mail and paid media.

State Senator Joni Ernst told the Washington Post last week, “I consider myself the front-runner” for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. I agree, for reasons Bleeding Heartland discussed here–and that was before I knew Ernst had snagged one of the ultimate conservative establishment endorsements: from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In what must be a painful blow to Mark Jacobs, who has made business prowess a cornerstone of his Senate campaign, Chamber of Commerce National Political Director Rob Engstrom said in today’s press release,

“Joni understands that big government is an impediment to job creation, and that the best way to turn the economy around and create jobs is through pro-growth economic policies. The U.S Chamber is proud to stand with Joni and highlight her work removing regulatory barriers and encouraging competition in Iowa. In today’s economy, that’s the type of leadership we need in Washington.”

I don’t know what work they’re talking about–as a first-term state senator in the minority caucus, Ernst hasn’t been in a position to remove regulatory barriers or encourage competition. More likely, the Chamber of Commerce settled on Ernst as the most credible alternative to Jacobs.

Over at The Iowa Republican blog, Craig Robinson reviews recent tv ads and campaign spending in the IA-Sen primary. By June 3, Jacobs will have spent more than $1.4 million on broadcast and cable television, plus about $24,000 on radio spots. Based on ad time Ernst has reserved up to now, she will close out the primary race having spent just under $240,000 on broadcast and cable tv. She and her strategists must feel very confident; otherwise they would allocate more campaign funds ($427,201 cash on hand as of March 31) to paid media.

In their Washington Post piece about how Ernst’s debut tv ad “transformed Iowa’s U.S. Senate race,” Philip Rucker and Dan Balz quoted Jacobs supporters Nick Ryan and Doug Gross criticizing Ernst’s ads. Her media consultant Todd Harris shot back, “People should remember that Joni is a mom, a grandmother who has volunteered at a crisis hotline, and that part of her bio will be told.” Thanks for the preview of Ernst’s general election transformation: the pig castrating, Harley-riding, leather-wearing “farm girl” who’s going to “unload” on Obamacare will become a mom and grandmother who volunteered at a crisis hotline. I’m surprised anyone with experience comforting victims would use “Make ‘Em Squeal” as the main slogan on her t-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign bus. Many Americans instantly recognize that phrase from a rape scene in the movie “Deliverance.”

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

P.S. – I think Balz and Rucker should have acknowledged the convenient timing of Ernst’s tiny ad buy for the “Squeal” spot. I find it hard to believe that a campaign endorsed by Mitt Romney didn’t get any advance warning from the Romney-connected outside groups America Rising and Priorities for Iowa, which dropped a bomb on Bruce Braley just as Ernst launched that attention-getting ad.

UPDATE: The National Rifle Association announced its endorsement of Ernst on May 13. The press release is after the jump.

The more I see of the Republican race for U.S. Senate, the more I’m convinced that State Senator Joni Ernst will win the GOP nomination, barring some major gaffe or new revelation about her record.

Three reasons are after the jump.

During the 2014 legislative session, the Iowa Senate confirmed all but a handful of Governor Terry Branstad’s more than 200 nominees for state boards and commissions. It’s not unusual for senators to vote down one or two appointees, but this year the Senate confirmed everyone who came up for a vote on the floor.

The only close call was former Iowa House Republican Nick Wagner, confirmed to the Iowa Utilities Board last month with just one vote to spare. Branstad originally named Wagner to the three-member utilities board in 2013 but pulled his nomination when it became clear that senators would not confirm him. Branstad named Wagner to that board anyway, right after the Senate adjourned for the year in 2013. By the time his nomination came up for consideration this year, a couple of factors that worked against him were no longer relevant. Former State Senator Swati Dandekar had resigned from the board to run for Congress, so there would no longer be two of three members from Marion (a Cedar Rapids suburb). Furthermore, Branstad named attorney Sheila Tipton to replace Dandekar, so senators could no longer object to the lack of a lawyer on the Iowa Utilities Board.

Still, most of the Democratic caucus opposed Wagner’s nomination. State Senator Rob Hogg cited the nominee’s support for a bad nuclear power bill that the legislature considered a few years back. Meanwhile, State Senator Matt McCoy (who incidentally wanted to pass the nuclear bill) noted that as a key Iowa House Republican on budget matters, Wagner “was not willing to listen” and “took very difficult and very hard-line positions.” After the jump I’ve posted the roll call on the Wagner nomination; 11 Democrats joined all 24 Republicans to confirm him.

As in recent years, the governor withdrew a handful of nominees who were not likely to gain at least 34 votes (a two-thirds majority) in the upper chamber. A few nominees for low-profile boards had to go because of party imbalance issues. Chet Hollingshead, one of seven Branstad appointees to the Mental Health and Disability Services Commission, never came up for a vote, presumably because of a theft incident Bleeding Heartland user Iowa_native described here.

I am not sure why Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal informed Branstad that Jason Carlstrom was unlikely to be confirmed as chair of the Iowa Board of Parole. The governor first appointed Carlstrom to that position in the summer of 2012, to fill out the remainder of someone else’s term. The Iowa Senate unanimously confirmed him during the 2013 legislative session. When Branstad reappointed Carlstrom to the parole board this year, I didn’t expect him to run into any trouble. I will update this post if I learn more details.

The highest-profile nominee withdrawn by Branstad was former Iowa House Republican Jamie Van Fossen, whom the governor wanted to chair the Public Employment Relations Board. Cityview’s Civic Skinny described the backstory well; I’ve posted excerpts after the jump. Van Fossen still serves on that board, having been confirmed to a full term in 2012. But the new chair will be Mike Cormack, a Republican who served four terms in the Iowa House and later worked for the State Department of Education. Senators unanimously confirmed Cormack last month. The outgoing Public Employment Relations Board chair, Jim Riordan, has alleged that the board faced political pressure from Branstad staffers to hire an employer-friendly administrative law judge.

Iowa Republicans are shouting from the social media rooftops about the Washington Post’s new “Election Lab” forecast, which predicts Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat. You can read about the Election Lab methodology here; it includes metrics such as U.S. Senate election results from 1980 to 2012 and President Barack Obama’s share of the vote in a given state in 2012. The Election Lab gurus are not factoring opinion polls into their model yet but plan to do so later. Candidate quality does not seem to be reflected in their model, although weak Republican nominees clearly blew several winnable Senate elections in 2010 and 2012. I’m sure the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee Bruce Braley would rather run against some of the Republicans candidates than others.

Over at the New York Times blog The Upshot, Nate Cohn, Josh Katz, and Amanda Cox compared Senate forecasts from six prominent websites or political analysts. Iowa was one of the few states where the Election Lab forecast was markedly different from the rest of the group. For now, the New York Times model gives Democrats an 83 percent chance of holding Iowa’s Senate seat. Nate Silver’s website 538.com has put those odds at 75 percent. The Cook Political Report, Rothenberg Political Report, and Larry Sabato’s website all list IA-Sen as a “lean Democratic” race.

Granted, several of those projections came before Republicans made hay from Braley’s comments about Senator Chuck Grassley, but a couple of public polls since then have suggested the Iowa Senate race will be very tight. I wouldn’t give either party a clear advantage right now, certainly not a 65 percent advantage. (For what it’s worth, Silver hedged his bets on whether Braley’s gaffe will be a “game-changer.”)

Incidentally, the Election Lab’s forecast for Iowa’s U.S. House races was even more strange. The Washington Post’s analysts give Republicans a 60 percent chance of winning the open first district. I will eat my hat if likely nominee Rod Blum pulls that off. The Iowa Democratic Party and Braley’s campaign will be pushing GOTV extremely hard in the key IA-01 counties. I believe any of the five Democrats running for that seat could beat Blum. Election Lab sees Republicans with an 80 percent chance of winning the open third district. To my mind, some of the GOP candidates in IA-03 would be much tougher opponents for Staci Appel than others. Election Lab gives four-term Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack a 90 percent chance of winning IA-02 and six-term Republican incumbent Steve King a 99.8 percent chance of winning IA-04.

Yesterday the Iowa Senate approved by 36 votes to 12 a bill to legalize the use of medical cannabis oil for treating certain seizure conditions. You can read the full text of Senate File 2360 here. After the jump I’ve posted State Senator Joe Bolkcom’s floor statements in support of the bill, which summarize its key points and limited scope. An Iowa Senate Democratic research staffer provided a more detailed analysis of the bill here (pdf).

The roll call in the Senate Journal shows that all 26 Iowa Senate Democrats voted for the cannabis oil bill, joined by the following ten Republicans: Mike Breitbach, Mark Chelgren, Minority Leader Bill Dix, Joni Ernst, Hubert Houser, David Johnson, Tim Kapucian, Charles Schneider, Amy Sinclair, and Brad Zaun. The twelve Republicans who voted no were Bill Anderson, Jerry Behn, Rick Bertrand, Nancy Boettger, Jake Chapman, Randy Feenstra, Julian Garrett, Sandy Greiner, Dennis Guth, Ken Rozenboom, Roby Smith, and Jack Whitver. Republicans Mark Segebart and Dan Zumbach were absent.

During the floor debate, several Republicans warned that passing the bill would send the wrong message to teenagers, leading to more recreational use of marijuana. That’s hard to fathom, since the bill does not legalize smoking marijuana, even for terminally or chronically ill Iowans who could benefit from medical cannabis in that form.

Key Iowa House Republicans and Governor Terry Branstad have made clear that for now, they would consider only a bill to allow access to medical cannabis oil. I hope a study committee on broader use of medical marijuana will go forward. Senate File 2360 is a step in the right direction and will give families like this one options other than moving to Colorado. However, the bill leaves out too many suffering people.

P.S.- A sign of how far the political ground has shifted in the medical marijuana debate: Joni Ernst and Brad Zaun are in fiercely competitive GOP primaries (for U.S. Senate and IA-03, respectively). Both of them voted for this bill.

The Suffolk University Political Research Center asked 800 Iowa “likely voters” about this year’s biggest races. The margin of error for the survey, conducted between April 3 and April 8, is plus or minus 3.5 percent. Suffolk’s press release summarizing the highlights is here. Full results are here (pdf). Tables are here (pdf).

Representative Bruce Braley leads all Republican rivals for U.S. Senate in the first Iowa poll conducted after Braley’s comments about Senator Chuck Grassley gained wide attention. Braley is still better-known than the GOP candidates, and more Iowans have a favorable than unfavorable impression of him. The bad news for Braley is that he is below 40 percent against each of the Republican candidates.

Suffolk’s poll indicates that the GOP IA-Sen primary is now a two-tier race, with State Senator Joni Ernst and Mark Jacobs each commanding more than 20 percent support, and the other candidates in the single digits. That makes sense, since Ernst and Jacobs have the most establishment support and are the only Senate candidates who have been able to raise their name recognition through paid advertising. But 40 percent of respondents were undecided.

Governor Terry Branstad’s still in positive territory, with 48.5 percent of respondents viewing him favorably and about 35.4 percent unfavorably. His lead over Democratic State Senator Jack Hatch is smaller in this poll than in any other Iowa survey I’ve seen, though: 42.4 percent to 32.1 percent.

Among respondents who said they are likely to participate in the 2016 Democratic caucuses, 63 percent favor Hillary Clinton. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren was far behind with 12 percent, followed by Vice President Joe Biden with 10 percent. It’s hard to say who is really in second place, since the margin of error for the Democratic caucus-goer subsample is quite large (plus or minus 8.4 percent). Nevertheless, Clinton clearly maintains a commanding lead.

I wouldn’t read much into the Iowa GOP caucus results from this survey. All the potential presidential candidates (Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Marco Rubio, and Condoleezza Rice) are clumped close together, between 6 and 11 percent support. That’s within the the margin of error of plus or minus 8.7 percent for that subset of the Suffolk poll.

The Des Moines Register ran a front-page feature today on retiring Republican State Senator Hubert Houser. Having served for ten years in the Iowa House and twelve in the Iowa Senate, Houser stopped showing up for work at the statehouse in early March. He plans to return only for “a day or two” at the end of the session. He has taken on more responsibilities at his family farm and contends that he doesn’t need to be at the capitol, since Republicans are the minority party. They can’t bring their own bills to the Iowa Senate floor and don’t need Houser’s vote.

On the one hand, I can imagine minority lawmakers must get tired of spending days at the Capitol, not accomplishing much while thinking about all the work that needs to be done at home. On the other hand, the Iowa legislature is only in session a few months of the year. Houser’s constituents elected him to do a job. He’s collecting a salary for work he isn’t doing.

Asked to comment on Houser’s prolonged absence today, Governor Terry Branstad said, “I respect individual legislators’ right to make the decisions that they make with regards to their vote and things like that,” adding that Houser has been a “great representative for the people of southwest Iowa.”

Missed Iowa Senate votes may become a salient issue in the U.S. Senate race. In early March, Rod Boshart was the first to start tallying GOP State Senator Joni Ernst’s many excused absences during this year’s legislative session. Only a few of the missed days could be chalked up to National Guard duty; others were related to campaigning or fundraising for her U.S. Senate bid. Ernst’s short political career doesn’t open up many lines for attack, but this will be a big one for Democratic candidate Bruce Braley if he faces Ernst in the general election. Republican blogger Craig Robinson, who is supporting Mark Jacobs in the IA-Sen GOP primary, has repeatedly called attention to Ernst missing Iowa Senate votes this year. I would not be surprised to see Jacobs’ campaign, or some dark money entity supporting him, make this case against Ernst before the June primary. Nick Ryan (best known to Bleeding Heartland readers as the head of the American Future Fund) is handling direct mail for the Jacobs campaign.

UPDATE: Speaking to the Des Moines Register, Secretary of the Senate Michael Marshall said Houser is still taking both his legislator’s salary ($25,000 annually) and per diem expense reimbursement payments. Marshall said Ernst “has sometimes asked not to be provided legislative per diem payments for certain days.”

Speaking to WHO-TV, Ernst said she has missed five days in the Iowa Senate this year for campaign-related activities.

SECOND UPDATE: Sounds like Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix leaned on Houser, who is now planning to show up for work and indicated that he will return per diem expense payments for days he’s missed.

Any Iowans who don’t already know that Representative Bruce Braley disparaged Senator Chuck Grassley at a fundraiser will likely hear about it very soon. Priorities for Iowa announced yesterday that it is spending $250,000 to run a television ad statewide featuring Braley’s remarks. Click through to watch the 30-second commercial. Priorities for Iowa was formed by supporters of Joni Ernst for U.S. Senate. We’ll probably never know who put up a quarter of a million dollars to run their ad, since 501(c)4 groups can keep their donors’ identities secret.

Meanwhile, rival GOP Senate candidate Mark Jacobs just launched a new 60-second radio ad featuring Braley’s comments. Click through to listen.

Lacking the money for paid advertising at this point, the other Republican contenders in the IA-Sen primary have to settle for condemning Braley in social media posts and e-mail blasts to supporters.

Braley’s staff got a couple of reminders yesterday that they need to raise their game. The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs dinged the campaign for misspelling the words “baling” and “detasseling” in a press release defending the Democratic candidate’s record on agricultural issues. (For what it’s worth, my spell-checker marked the correct spelling of “detasseling” in red.) Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski noticed that a stock photo accompanying a Braley Facebook post was of a farm in England, not Iowa.  

In what may be merely a coincidence, two stories related to Iowa’s U.S. Senate race made a big splash yesterday on national blogs and cable news networks as well as in local media.

In what may be merely a coincidence, State Senator Joni Ernst’s campaign released its first television commercial on the same day the 501(c)4 group Priorities for Iowa released a video drawing national attention to a gaffe by Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley.

In what may be merely a coincidence, several prominent Ernst supporters run that 501(c)4 group, which was created a few weeks after Ernst’s campaign launch.

It’s common nowadays for candidates’ campaigns to spend money spreading positive messages, while outside entities (political action committees, 501(c)4 advocacy organizations, or 527 groups) pay to get the best opposition research into the public sphere. But candidates are not allowed to coordinate messaging or timing with those outside groups.

I’m not saying someone from the Ernst campaign gave Priorities for Iowa a heads-up on when they were planning to release their tv ad. I’m not saying someone from Priorities for Iowa let Ernst staffers know ahead of time when they planned to drop their bomb on Braley. I’m just saying, the clip from a two-month-old speech by the Democratic candidate couldn’t have been released at a better time for Ernst to capitalize on her attention-getting “castration” spot.

Every candidate for public office has to learn basic rules of campaigning, such as, “Every mic is a live mic.” In other words, always assume you may be overheard when you stand next to a microphone, even if you think it’s not turned on.

In the age of camera phones and YouTube, candidates may be speaking into a live mic even when there’s no microphone to be seen. Representative Bruce Braley, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, learned that lesson the hard way today.  

Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey shows Mark Jacobs with a small lead over the rest of the Republican field in the U.S. Senate race. Democrat Bruce Braley leads all the major Republican contenders, but by a smaller margin than he did last July. Click here for complete results, including question wordings and cross-tabs. PPP surveyed surveyed 869 Iowa voters, including 283 Republican primary voters, between February 20th to 23rd, producing a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percent for the statewide poll and 5.8 percent for the Republican primary findings.

The GOP Senate candidates are still largely unknown, even to Republican voters, but Jacobs has the highest name recognition, thanks to radio and television commercials his campaign has been running since early December. Among PPP’s Republican respondents, 42 percent were undecided, followed by 20 percent for Jacobs, 13 percent for State Senator Joni Ernst, 11 percent for former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker, 8 percent for Sam Clovis, and 3 percent each for Paul Lunde and Scott Schaben.

Among the full sample, Braley has the highest name recognition but is still unknown to nearly half the respondents. He leads Whitaker by 40 percent to 34 percent, Ernst and Jacobs by 41-35, and Clovis by 42-34. In PPP’s July 2013 survey, Braley’s lead averaged 11 points. The polling firm’s Tom Jensen argued that the “pretty clear reason” for the tightening in the Senate race is that “Barack Obama’s approval rating in the state has dropped a net 10 points compared to the summer.”

Earlier this month, Jacobs’ campaign released partial results from an internal poll showing Jacobs leading the Republican field for the primary, with 22 percent support compared to 11 percent for Ernst, 8 percent for Whitaker and 6 percent for Clovis. Jacobs’ poll, conducted by Hill Research Consultants, found Jacobs and Braley essentially tied (Jacobs 42 percent, Braley 41 percent), with more upside than for Jacobs because of the Democrat’s higher name recognition.

I agree with the Republicans who claimed that Jacobs’ higher name recognition and GOP support is merely a function of his heavy spending on paid advertising. He should be polling better after two months of radio and television while his opponents’ campaigns are dark. On the other hand, who’s going to stop him if his GOP rivals lack the resources to get their message out before June?