# Libertarian Party



New Iowa law complicates Libertarian plans for 2024 caucuses

Joseph Howe is a political strategist and former Libertarian Party of Iowa state chair with experience working on campaigns as a state director such as Gary Johnson 2016 as well as campaign director for Rick Stewart 2022 and Jake Porter 2018. He also served as the Polk County co-chair for Rand Paul’s campaign in 2016. In addition to his political work, Joseph is a financial services operations manager and resides in Beaverdale with his wife Amanda and son John.

Last week, Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation that will not only impact the Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus plans but also have ramifications for the Libertarian Party of Iowa (LPIA). Although House File 716 primarily targets Iowa Democrats due to the loss of first in the nation status, it raises concerns for Iowa Libertarians as well, as I discussed in a previous Bleeding Heartland post

While the final version of the bill did not include the initial requirement to register with your political party of choice 70 days before the caucus date, it did mandate in-person caucusing for major party presidential processes. The LPIA was the first major party to give options other than in-person caucusing via a hybrid online/county megasite strategy in 2018, a tradition that carried into 2020 and 2022.

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Iowa caucus business is private party business

Joseph Howe is a political strategist and former Libertarian Party of Iowa state chair with experience working on campaigns as a state director such as Gary Johnson 2016 and Rick Stewart 2022. He also served as the Polk County co-chair for Rand Paul’s campaign in 2016. In addition to his political work, Joseph is a financial services operations manager and resides in Beaverdale with his wife Amanda and son John.

Iowa Republican legislators,

I am writing as a fellow proponent of limited government intervention and individual freedom, to express my concerns about House File 716, the bill aimed at regulating political parties’ caucuses, which was recently introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives.

It is important to remember that the true purpose of a caucus is to organize county parties. That can get lost in the media attention around presidential candidates and the money involved. The caucus process is the first step in organizing at the county and precinct level, which is critical to building strong and representative political parties. Would most Iowans who truly support limited government put money and prestige ahead of small “r” republican principles?

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Iowa Libertarians opt out of federal, most statewide races: What it means

Iowa’s filing period for the 2022 general election closed on August 27 with no third-party candidate qualified for the ballot in any federal race, or any statewide race other than for governor and lieutenant governor.

The landscape could hardly be more different from four years ago, when the Libertarian Party of Iowa fielded a full slate of federal and statewide candidates, and no-party candidates also competed in three of the four U.S. House districts.

The lack of a third-party presence could be important if any of Iowa’s Congressional or statewide elections are close contests.

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Iowa's third-party candidates have more time to qualify for ballot

Iowa candidates not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties will have until August 27 to qualify for the general election ballot, under a recent federal court ruling.

A law enacted in 2019 required third-party and independent candidates to submit nominating papers by the same mid-March filing deadline that applies to Democratic or Republican primary election candidates. But Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Helen Adams ruled the law unconstitutional earlier this month, saying the early deadline “imposes a substantial burden” on the Libertarian Party of Iowa’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Whereas major parties are allowed to nominate candidates after the June primaries, the law forced “non-party political organizations” or independent candidates to collect signatures during the winter months. They also had to recruit all of their candidates “well before the political landscape is fleshed out, before the primary elections in June, before the Political Party candidates are solidified and finalized, before the current election issues are fully developed, and before voters are truly engaged in the election process,” the court determined.

Bleeding Heartland’s review of recent candidate filings indicated that fewer third-party candidates seeking state or federal offices qualified for the ballot after the 2019 law went into effect. No independent candidates filed for statewide or federal offices before this year’s March filing deadline. The Libertarian Party of Iowa fielded a ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, but no candidates for other statewide offices or for U.S. House or Senate.

A brief the state submitted to the federal court this week acknowledged that since the March deadline has been declared unconstitutional, “the filing deadline that existed prior to the 2019 amendments remains in force.” Under that version of the code section, independent or third-party candidates running for state or federal offices must submit nominating papers to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office “not more than ninety-nine days nor later than 5:00 p.m. on the seventy-third day before the date of the general election to be held in November.”

By my calculation, that sets this year’s filing window from August 1 through August 26. (Communications staff for the Secretary of State’s office did not respond to an inquiry.) UPDATE: The Secretary of State’s office later published a document showing the filing period would run through August 27.

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Court: Iowa's early filing deadline for third parties unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled that Iowa’s early filing deadline for third-party candidates “imposes a substantial burden” on the Libertarian Party of Iowa’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Iowa legislators changed the state’s election law in 2019 to require independent candidates or those affiliated with a non-party political organization (like the Libertarian or Green Party) to file nominating papers for state or federal offices by mid-March, the same deadline as for Democrats and Republicans running in primaries.

The Libertarian Party and Jake Porter, the party’s 2018 nominee for governor, filed suit in 2019, saying the change put “heavy burdens” on third parties, and the adverse treatment served no legitimate state interest.

Helen Adams, chief magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, ruled on April 8 that Iowa’s legal framework places third parties “at a disadvantage” compared to the major parties, and the state’s “articulated interest in effective and equitable administration of election laws” did not justify those burdens.

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Barriers for third-party candidates reduced Iowa voters' choices

New laws enacted by Republican legislators and Governor Kim Reynolds succeeded in limiting third-party competition for Iowa’s state and federal offices.

According to the general election candidate list published by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office on March 21, only one minor-party candidate qualified for a federal office this year: Bryan Jack Holder, who is running in the fourth Congressional district. Libertarians are fielding candidates for governor and lieutenant governor: Rick Stewart and Marco Battaglia. In 2018, Libertarian candidates were on the ballot for all of Iowa’s statewide and federal offices.

No independent candidate filed for any federal or statewide office in Iowa this year. For most of the last decade’s elections, independent candidates were on the ballot for several of those offices.

Only two candidates not representing a major party filed for any of the the 34 Iowa Senate seats on the ballot in 2022; both are running in Senate district 17. Across the 100 Iowa House races, only three Libertarian candidates and four independents will appear on the November ballot.

Before Republicans passed new restrictions in 2019 and 2021, Iowa voters were able to choose candidates not representing either major party in more elections.

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Four thoughts about Mary Ann Hanusa's state auditor campaign

Former State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa finally gave up her Congressional ambitions and announced on January 5 she’s running for state auditor. She won’t face any competition in the Republican primary, coming out of the gate with endorsements from Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator Joni Ernst.

Democrat Rob Sand won the 2018 state auditor’s race by 660,169 votes to 601,320 for GOP incumbent Mary Mosiman (50.9 percent to 46.4 percent). Turnout set a modern midterm record for Iowa that year. Participation could be far lower in 2022—perhaps 1.1 million to 1.2 million voters.

Whether Hanusa emerges as a strong challenger will become more clear as her campaign unfolds, but here are some initial thoughts.

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Revised GOP election bill would exclude thousands more Iowa voters

UPDATE: Governor Reynolds signed the bill on March 8. Top Democratic election attorney Marc Elias posted on Twitter, “This is the first major suppression law since the 2020 election. Expect litigation here and elsewhere GOP legislatures follow this path.” Bleeding Heartland covered the lawsuit Elias filed here. Original post follows.

On a party-line vote of 30 to 18, the Iowa Senate on February 23 approved Senate File 413, a new version of a bill that would restrict every aspect of the early voting process. The following day, the Iowa House approved the bill on a party-line 57 to 37 vote. Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill; Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley have each endorsed limits on early voting in recent days.

Although State Senator Roby Smith’s amendment addressed a few of the concerns raised by county auditors and advocates for vulnerable populations, the revised legislation would make it even harder for thousands of Iowans to have their absentee ballots counted. In a new twist, it shortens election-day voting hours as well.

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Nate Boulton to face Libertarian ToyA Johnson in Iowa Senate district 16

Less than two years after ending his campaign for governor and facing widespread calls to resign from the legislature, State Senator Nate Boulton drew no Democratic primary challenger or Republican general election opponent in Iowa Senate district 16.

However, Libertarian ToyA Johnson submitted nominating papers to run in this district shortly before the March 13 filing deadline.

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Iowa House district 16 preview: Mary Ann Hanusa vs. Jen Pellant

UPDATE: Hanusa announced in March 2020 that she will not seek re-election. Original post follows.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the Iowa House after the 2020 elections. One seat that wasn’t on the party’s 2018 target list (but should have been) was House district 16, covering part of Council Bluffs. State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa had a close shave there, defeating Democrat Steve Gorman by only 114 votes, a roughly 1 percent margin.

Gorman is running for the Iowa Senate this cycle, but as of October 1, Democrats have a strong challenger for the House seat: Jen Pellant.

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Iowa Libertarians have strong case against early candidate deadline

The Libertarian Party of Iowa and its prospective candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020 have filed a federal lawsuit charging that a new law violates their “violates fundamental voting and associational rights,” as well as equal protection guarantees, by requiring candidates from minor political parties to file nominating papers in mid-March, when Democratic or Republican candidates could qualify for the general election ballot as late as August.

Previous court rulings indicate they have a strong case.

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Iowa absentee ballot law improved, new voter suppression plans blocked

Iowa lawmakers adjourned for the year on April 27. Bleeding Heartland continues to catch up on some of the legislature’s significant work. Previous reporting related to the 2019 legislative session can be found here.

Republicans have enacted new voting restrictions in some two dozen states this decade. Iowa became part of that trend in 2017 with a law requiring voter ID, shortening the early voting period, and imposing new absentee ballot rules that are on hold pending litigation.

The march toward voter suppression appeared set to continue, with Governor Kim Reynolds winning a four-year term and the GOP retaining control over the Iowa House and Senate last November. Senate State Government Committee chair Roby Smith introduced a horror show election bill days before the legislature’s first “funnel” deadline in March. His Republican colleagues in the upper chamber later approved a bill with most of Smith’s bad-faith proposals.

But in a plot twist, House Republicans agreed to remove all the provisions that would make it harder to vote when House File 692 came back to the lower chamber. The final version, which Reynolds signed on May 16, contained largely technical code revisions and big improvements to the process for tracking and counting absentee ballots.

Follow me after the jump for a short history of a voter suppression tragedy averted.

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Libertarians lose political party status in Iowa

The Libertarian Party of Iowa will become a non-party political organization again after two years on the same legal footing as the Democratic and Republican parties. Unofficial results show Libertarian nominee Jake Porter received 21,095 votes for governor, about 1.6 percent of the statewide vote.

Iowa law defines a political party as an organization whose nominee for president or governor “received at least 2 percent of the total votes cast at the last general election.” Libertarians gained that status after Gary Johnson received nearly 4 percent of the 2016 presidential vote in Iowa.

Although Porter improved slightly on the 20,321 votes Lee Hieb received in the 2014 governor’s race, the Libertarian share of the vote decreased due to unusually high turnout for a non-presidential year in Iowa.

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IA-Gov: New Register poll points to winning paths for Hubbell, Reynolds

If Iowans were voting for governor today, 43 percent would support Democrat Fred Hubbell and 41 percent Governor Kim Reynolds, according to a new poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. Another 9 percent of the 555 likely voters surveyed were undecided, and 7 percent backed Libertarian Jake Porter. The poll validates the view of leading election forecasters that the governor’s race is a toss-up. Selzer’s poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 points.

If this snapshot of the race accurately reflects the views of Iowans likely to vote in November, I’d rather be Hubbell than Reynolds. An incumbent barely above 40 percent despite much higher name recognition than her opponent is not in a strong position. Nevertheless, the Register’s survey points to ways either Reynolds or Hubbell could improve their prospects during the final six weeks of the campaign.

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Iowa Republicans left many Democratic lawmakers unchallenged

The Republican Party is not fielding a candidate in more than two dozen Democratic-controlled Iowa House or Senate districts, while Democrats have left only seven GOP-held legislative seats uncontested. The disparity in party strategies is a departure from the last midterm election, when each party failed to nominate a candidate in more than two dozen state House districts alone.

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Third-party candidates on ballot for all Iowa federal, statewide races (updated)

For the first time, at least one third-party candidate has qualified for every Congressional or statewide office in Iowa. Although third parties haven’t traditionally fared well in Iowa, Libertarians had their best showing ever here in 2016 and have nominated a record number of candidates for this November. Since several U.S. House or statewide races could be very close, even a small percentage of the vote for candidates other than the Democratic or Republican contenders could become significant.

With the filing period for Iowa’s general election ballot closed as of 5:00 pm on August 25, it’s time for an overview of the landscape. The full candidate list is posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. UPDATE: John Deeth notes that candidates may have filed on the last day, which wouldn’t be reflected on the version currently posted online. I will update as needed; the key point is that there will be no statewide or Congressional races in Iowa this year with only Republican and Democratic options on the ballot. SECOND UPDATE: The Secretary of State’s office uploaded an amended candidate list on August 27. No new candidates filed for statewide office, but one additional person qualified for the ballot in the fourth Congressional district. Scroll down for further details.

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Libertarian candidate challenges Kim Reynolds, David Young nominations

The Libertarian candidate in Iowa’s third Congressional district has challenged the nomination petitions submitted by Governor Kim Reynolds and Representative David Young for the June 5 Republican primary. Bryan Jack Holder charges that Reynolds and Young collected many signatures on petitions that were not “substantially” in “the form prescribed by the state commissioner of elections.” He further claims the governor and U.S. House incumbent violated voters’ privacy rights by collecting personal information that was not redacted from petitions turned in to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

Although Holder is extremely unlikely to knock either Republican off the primary ballot, his objections may produce more clarity on how much Iowa candidates for state or federal offices can modify their nominating petitions.

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Record-breaking showing gives Libertarians political party status in Iowa

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson received 58,796 votes in Iowa, about 3.8 percent of ballots cast.

Before this year, the most successful Libertarian ticket in Iowa gained 1 percent of the vote, way back in 1980. Although Johnson wasn’t able to maintain his much higher polling numbers from the late summer, he more than quadrupled his 2012 raw vote total and share of the vote here.

The result gives the Libertarian Party full “political party status” in Iowa. What does that mean in practical terms?

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Thoughts on Gary Johnson's Des Moines rally and Iowa prospects

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made his first Iowa campaign stop this year over the holiday weekend. His September 3 rally in Des Moines attracted hundreds of people, making it possibly the largest Libertarian event in Iowa history. You can watch his full speech at C-SPAN or Caffeinated Thoughts.

Johnson will qualify for the ballot in all 50 states and is consistently polling far better than the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the only other minor-party candidate routinely included in public opinion surveys. I continue to hear the Libertarian’s radio ads on various Des Moines-based stations and have seen pro-Johnson television commercials by the Purple PAC on some cable networks.

The four most recent Iowa polls measured Johnson’s support at 8 percent (Emerson College), 12 percent (Quinnipiac), 6 percent (Suffolk), and 12 percent (Marist). Polls have historically overstated support for third-party candidates. Nevertheless, if the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump remains very close here, even a 2-3 percent showing for Johnson could determine who wins Iowa’s six electoral votes.

Though I wasn’t able to attend Saturday’s rally, listening to Johnson’s stump speech reinforced my view that he is on track to outperform all previous Libertarian presidential candidates in Iowa by a considerable margin.

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Iowa among the target states for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson has begun airing radio commercials in Iowa. I heard some of the spots on stations in the Des Moines market over the weekend and will update this post with full transcripts if I can record them. Daniel Strauss reported for Politico on August 26 that the Libertarian candidate “is spending $806,195 this month on radio ads in Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.”

One of the ads features Johnson arguing that “if a Democrat is elected president, if a Republican is elected president, in four years we will still be at war, America will be four years deeper in debt, we will have four more years of rising taxes.”

A second ad is Johnson arguing against a two-party system.

“Google me, 60 percent of you have said you want another choice in 2016 and now you have one in me,” Johnson says in the ad. “We the people have a chance to do something in 2016 that may not come again in our lifetime. We have a legitimate chance to elect one of our own to the highest office in the land.”

Iowa may be an appealing place to advertise because air time is less expensive here than in many other swing states.

Super-PACs supporting the Libertarian ticket have produced some television and radio commercials, but I haven’t seen or heard any of those yet. AUGUST 31 UPDATE: This Purple PAC ad is on the air in the Des Moines market. I’ve added the video below.

The early advertising push is designed to boost Johnson’s support in national polls to at least 15 percent. The Presidential Debate Commission has said candidates must hit that threshold to be included in the three debates featuring presidential nominees and the one vice presidential debate.

No Libertarian presidential candidate has ever won more than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa; I compiled our state’s results for all previous tickets here. In the last three public polls of likely Iowa voters, Johnson had support from 12 percent, 6 percent, and 12 percent of respondents in a four-way race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, and Jill Stein of the Green Party.

The Libertarian Party of Iowa has a far stronger organization than any other third party in this state. In addition to Johnson and vice presidential nominee Bill Weld, Libertarian candidates are running for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat, for the U.S. House in the third Congressional district, for six Iowa Senate seats, and for twelve Iowa House seats. Some of these candidates already have yard signs and other campaign materials.

In contrast, the Green Party did not nominate any candidates in Iowa other than Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka, even though access to the general election ballot is relatively easy here.

Johnson’s first rally in Iowa this election cycle is scheduled for this Saturday, September 3, at the Grand View University Johnson Wellness Center, 200 Grandview Avenue in Des Moines. Doors open at 1 pm. Stein will headline a Green Party rally at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines on Sunday, September 11.

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Iowa Senate district 28 preview: Mike Breitbach vs. Jan Heikes

Hours after Democrats across the country had begun to celebrate President Barack Obama’s re-election on the night of November 7, 2012, Iowa’s political junkies were still on the edge of our seats, waiting for votes to be reported in the last few state Senate races. Sometime after 1 am, results from Senate district 42 in Iowa’s southeast corner confirmed that Democrats would control at least 26 seats in the upper chamber. For at least two more years, that firewall would stop Republicans from implementing some of the disastrous policies seen in places like Wisconsin, Kansas, or Ohio.

Democrats are still clinging to the ledge with a one-seat Iowa Senate majority. While Republicans have several districts to target in their quest for 26, Democrats have only one obvious pickup opportunity: Senate district 28 in the northeast corner of the state. This race was the “one that got away” four years ago, as former State Representative John Beard fell an agonizing 17 votes short against Republican Mike Breitbach in the battle for an open seat. Now Breitbach has the advantages of incumbency as he seeks re-election against Jan Heikes.

Follow me after the jump for more on this district’s political make-up and voting history, along with background on both candidates and Breitbach’s first television commercial.

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Ten presidential candidates qualify for the Iowa ballot

The filing deadline to run in Iowa’s general election ended at 5 pm today, and the Secretary of State’s Office has updated the list of candidates who submitted nominating papers and petitions with enough signatures. The following ten presidential tickets will appear on Iowa ballots:

2016 presidential candidates in Iowa
Names Party affiliation
Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence Republican
Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine Democratic
Darrell L. Castle/Scott N. Bradley Constitution Party
Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka Iowa Green Party
Dan R. Vacek/Mark G. Elworth Legal Marijuana Now
Gary Johnson/Bill Weld Libertarian
Lynn Kahn/Jay Stolba New Independent Party
Gloria La Riva/Dennis J. Banks Party for Socialism and Liberation
Rocky Roque De La Fuente/Michael Steinberg Nominated By Petition
Evan McMullin/Nathan Johnson Nominated By Petition

The last three public polls in Iowa put Johnson at 12 percent, 6 percent, and 12 percent in a four-way race against Clinton, Trump, and Stein. Although those surveys probably overstate Johnson’s support, the unusual unpopularity of this year’s major-party nominees gives the Libertarian a good chance to improve on all of his party’s previous showings in Iowa. Click here to view results for Libertarian presidential candidates going back to 1976. At a Polk County Democratic event last night, a number of activists were concerned that Johnson’s name was not yet on the Secretary of State’s candidate list, because Johnson is presumed to draw more support from traditionally Republican-leaning voters. Libertarian activists cut it close by submitting nominating papers today, but all’s well that ends well.

Others who filed on the last possible day included Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer who launched his presidential campaign only last week, and the candidates for the New Independent Party and Legal Marijuana Now, which seem like decent names for picking up protest votes.

Five candidates qualified to run for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat: Republican Charles E. Grassley, Democrat Patty Judge, Libertarian Charles Aldrich, Jim Hennager of the New Independent Party, and Michael Luick-Thrams, “Nominated By Petition.”

Only major-party candidates will appear on the ballot in three of Iowa’s four Congressional districts: Republican Rod Blum and Democrat Monica Vernon in IA-01, Republican Christopher Peters and Democrat Dave Loebsack in IA-02, Republican Steve King and Democrat Kim Weaver in IA-04.

The field will be more crowded in IA-03, with Republican David Young, Democrat Jim Mowrer, Libertarian Bryan Jack Holder, and two candidates to be listed as “Nominated By Petition”: Claudia Addy and Joe Grandanette.

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Will 2016 be a record-setting year for Libertarians in Iowa?

The two most recent national polls of the presidential race showed unusually high levels of support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. In the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey conducted between June 19 and 23, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was backed by 39 percent of respondents, to 38 percent for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, 10 percent for Johnson and 6 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. An ABC/Washington Post poll in the field between June 20 and 23 found 47 percent of respondents for Clinton, 37 percent for Trump, 7 percent for Johnson, and 3 percent for Stein.

Even taking into account the reality that support for third-party candidates “usually diminishes over the course of the [U.S. presidential] campaign,” and third-party candidates have often received less than half as much support on election day as they did in nationwide surveys from June, Johnson has potential to shatter previous records for Libertarians. A former Republican governor of New Mexico, Johnson received 1,275,821 popular votes as the Libertarian presidential nominee in 2012, just under 1 percent of the nationwide vote. The best showing for a Libertarian ticket in terms of vote share was 1.06 percent (921,128 votes) in 1980 for Ed Clark and his running mate David Koch, better known as one half of the Koch brothers.

I haven’t seen any Iowa polls yet that gave respondents the option of choosing Stein or Johnson as alternatives to Clinton and Trump, but now seems like a good time to examine Libertarian presidential performance in Iowa over the last four decades and Johnson’s chances to improve on his 2012 results.

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Libertarian candidate for Iowa House District 38

Note from desmoinesdem: The major-party candidates in House district 38 are four-term Republican incumbent Kevin Koester and Democrat Heather Matson. Brett Nelson is challenging Koester in the GOP primary. Click here to view a district map. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show that House district 38 contains 6,555 active registered Democrats, 7,083 Republicans, and 6.282 no-party voters.

Jeff Meyers was nominated for State House District 38 at the Libertarian Party convention held on Saturday, March 19th. Jeff is from Ankeny and works as a fraud analyst. He is running for Iowa House to help lead the charge in the legalization of medical marijuana and cannabis/hemp production in Iowa. He wants to help Iowa students by returning to common sense education, not common core, higher budget for schools and more support for teachers. He supports the repeal of the lifetime ban on voting for past criminals. He wants to be accountable to the taxpayers by fighting for a smaller, more efficient state government and the return of the liberties that our country was founded on.

Four reasons Mike Gronstal will win another term in Iowa Senate district 8

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal celebrated his 65th birthday on January 29. The Des Moines Register’s William Petroski caught up with Gronstal after fellow senators sang “Happy Birthday” and confirmed that the longtime Democratic leader has no plans to retire. He’s up for re-election next year in Senate district 8, covering the Council Bluffs area and Carter Lake (scroll to the end of this post to view a detailed map).

Now that Tom Harkin has retired, Gronstal may be the Iowa Democrat whom Republicans most love to hate. But I have news for them: he’s going to win another term in 2016, and here’s why.

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Iowa Senate district 12 special: Mark Costello vs. Steve Adams and Don Brantz

Republicans nominated State Representative Mark Costello for the December 30 special election to replace Joni Ernst in Iowa Senate district 12. The district covers Mills, Fremont, Montgomery, Page, Taylor, and Ringgold counties in southwest Iowa. This post includes a map.

Seven candidates sought the GOP nomination in this strongly Republican district, containing more than twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats. Besides the five candidates Bleeding Heartland discussed here, David Sieck and Charla Schmid joined the GOP race. Sieck is a Mills County farmer who has been active on Missouri River management issues. Schmid has served several terms on the Montgomery County School Board and is active in Business and Professional Women/Iowa. She also serves on the board of directors of 50/50 in 2020, a bipartisan group encouraging more Iowa women to run for office.

The Iowa Republican’s Craig Robinson wrote up last night’s nominating convention, where Costello led from the beginning and secured the nomination on the fourth ballot.

A Democratic district convention will meet this weekend to nominate Steve Adams of Red Oak. He is a community development specialist with Iowa State University Extension.

Earlier this week, Libertarians nominated Don Brantz for the Senate district 12 special. He is “a longtime Mills County supervisor and southwest Iowa social worker” who is running on a platform of increasing funding for rural schools and abolishing the state Department of Education. It’s smart for Libertarians to compete here. Odds are long, but anything can happen in a low-turnout environment, and how many people will show up to vote on December 30?

Costello is the heavy favorite. If he wins, a special election will be needed in Iowa House district 23, covering Mills and Fremont counties, plus most of Montgomery County. House Republican leaders did not assign any committee chairmanship to Costello, perhaps expecting that he would soon leave for the Iowa Senate.

Regardless of who wins the Senate district 12 special, the number of women in the Iowa Senate will drop from ten the past two years to seven for the next two years. First-termer Amy Sinclair will be the only woman in the Iowa Senate GOP caucus.  

IA-03: First Staci Appel/David Young debate discussion thread (updated)

Democrat Staci Appel and Republican David Young are holding their first debate in the third Congressional district race. Iowa Public Television will live-stream the Council Bluffs debate on the “Iowa Press” page. You can also watch on C-SPAN 2, which is channel 87 for Mediacom subscribers in Des Moines. I will be live-blogging the debate after the jump.

P.S.-I’ve also enclosed below the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s latest television commercial against Young. The format seems a little stale, and I wonder how many people even remember Young’s magic-themed ads before the Republican primary.

UPDATE: I didn’t realize the Appel campaign is also running a new ad. Scroll to the end to see that video and transcript.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Iowa Public Television has the debate video up on the “Iowa Press” page and will broadcast this debate tonight at 7 pm and Sunday morning.

I’ve added lots more below, including post-debate spin and Young’s second television commercial of the general election campaign, which started running on September 12. Young is presenting himself as a reasonable, moderate, experienced problem-solver. The theme of the Democratic communication is that Young spent the debate hiding from more radical positions he took as a Republican primary candidate for U.S. Senate and later for IA-03. That’s accurate, but the reality is that Young does not present as a wild-eyed extremist. Voters may conclude that he was just pandering to wingnuts during the primary campaign.

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Third-party and independent candidates in Iowa's 2014 elections

The filing period for general election candidates in Iowa closed last Friday, so it’s a good time to review where candidates not representing either the Democratic or Republican Party are running for office. The full candidate list is on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website (pdf(. After the jump I discuss all the federal, statewide, and state legislative races including at least one independent or minor-party candidate. Where possible, I’ve linked to campaign websites, so you can learn more about the candidates and their priorities.

Rarely has any Iowa election been affected by an independent or third-party candidate on the ballot. Arguably, the most recent case may have been the 2010 election in Iowa’s first Congressional district. Final results showed that Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley defeated Republican challenger Ben Lange by 4,209 votes, while conservative candidates Rob Petsche and Jason Faulkner drew 4,087 votes and 2,092 votes, respectively.

Any comments about Iowa’s 2014 elections are welcome in this thread.

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IA-03: Zaun's out but two "Liberty" candidates are in

Catching up on news from last week, State Senator Brad Zaun confirmed on the July 10 edition of Simon Conway’s radio show that he will not leave the Republican Party or run for Congress as an independent in Iowa’s third district. I had a feeling Zaun was just seeking attention or fishing for compliments with his July 4 Facebook post about friends “encouraging me to switch to an Independent.” He told Conway, “I basically just put out a provocative post […] I didn’t commit myself one way or the other and of course it exploded.”

Zaun’s third term in the Iowa Senate expires in 2016. He has reportedly been telling people he does not plan to seek re-election to the state legislature again. Zaun left his party’s Iowa Senate leadership team shortly after Republicans failed to regain a majority in the 2012 election.

Meanwhile, at least two conservative third-party candidates are running in IA-03 this year. Ed Wright received the Libertarian Party of Iowa’s nomination in June. His campaign is on the web, Facebook, and Twitter.

Council Bluffs native Bryan Jack Holder officially announced his campaign in March as a Republican, but he did not qualify for the GOP primary ballot. Last month he confirmed on Conway’s radio show that he will file to run for Congress as an independent.

After the jump I’ve posted some background information on Wright and Holder from their respective campaign websites. Neither candidate will raise enough money to reach voters district-wide through traditional campaign methods. However, these advocates for restoring freedom and the Constitution could influence the outcome if the race between Democrat Staci Appel and Republican David Young is close. In 2010, two little-known conservative candidates in Iowa’s first district gained more votes combined than Representative Bruce Braley’s winning margin against Republican Ben Lange.

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Romney backers seeking to knock Gary Johnson off Iowa ballot (updated)

A three-member panel voted today to allow Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson to be on the Iowa ballot, but supporters of Republican Mitt Romney are expected to take their case to court.

UPDATE: Added more background below on why the Iowa Secretary of State’s office rejected the Libertarians’ first set of petitions to place Johnson on the ballot.

SECOND UPDATE: A Polk County district court will resolve this dispute.

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IA-Gov: No joy for Culver in new Register poll (updated)

The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll shows Republican Terry Branstad leading Governor Chet Culver by 52 percent to 33 percent among likely voters. Selzer and Co surveyed 803 Iowa adults, of whom 550 were classified as likely Iowa voters, between September 19 and 22. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percent.

I expected Branstad’s numbers to drop somewhat following the Republican primary, but his margin over Culver is almost exactly the same as the Register found the last time it polled this matchup in February. At that time Branstad led Culver 53-33, and Culver’s approval rating was 36 percent.

The new Selzer poll has no good news for Culver. His approval rating is 35 percent. Not only is Branstad polling above 50 percent, he leads “with voters from communities of all sizes, in all congressional districts and from all age groups and income levels.” No-party voters support Branstad by a 46 percent to 27 percent margin.

Culver’s campaign issued this statement on September 25:

“We believe that this poll serves as wake up call to Iowa voters,” said Governor Culver’s campaign manager, Donn Stanley. “When all is said and done, we believe that Iowans will ultimately choose Chet Culver, a leader who stands for Iowa values.

“The fact is,” Stanley continued, “all one has to do is look back as recently as Tom Vilsack’s race against Jim Ross Lightfoot in 1998 to see that this poll is not a harbinger of things to come. At this point in the race, Tom Vilsack was down a full 20 points in the Iowa Poll. I’m sure Governor Lightfoot would be happy to tell you the degree to which the Iowa Poll predicts the outcome of the race.”

That’s true, but Vilsack was not an incumbent with low approval ratings in a tough economy. Only 59 percent of likely voters said their minds were “firmly made up,” but I don’t know how Culver can convince the other 41 percent to give him another chance. It’s not as if no one ever heard of Branstad’s shortcomings:

Overall, 53 percent of likely voters say the candidate they are supporting is someone they can most easily tolerate, while only 36 percent say he is the best person for the job.

I hope the Culver campaign has budgeted well enough to stay up on television from now through election day. I doubt the Democratic Governors Association will spend any more money in Iowa this year.

UPDATE: More findings from the Register’s new poll are after the jump.

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Weekend open thread: Third-party candidates edition

August 13 was the deadline for third-party candidates seeking state offices to submit their nominating petitions to the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. (Third-party candidates for county offices have until August 25 to do so).

This pdf file contains the complete list of candidates who have qualified for the ballot for federal offices, statewide offices or seats in the Iowa House and Senate.

Four candidates filed for the governor’s race: Jonathan Narcisse of the Iowa Party, Eric Cooper of the Libertarian Party, David Rosenfeld of the Socialist Workers Party, and a “fathers’ rights” activist named Gregory James Hughes. John Deeth noted that Iowa has more gubernatorial candidates than in any cycle since 1994, and that “the first cycle since 1998 that the Greens have had no top of the ticket candidate” in Iowa.

When Narcisse announced plans to run for governor, many people assumed he would draw votes primarily from Governor Chet Culver, whom Narcisse supported in 2006. However, Narcisse told the Des Moines Register this week,

“One pleasant surprise has been the number of [Bob] Vander Plaats supporters breaking our way. They understand, despite the rhetoric of candidate [Terry] Branstad, that his sixteen years in office make it clear he just doesn’t care about their priorities. So I’m seeing a lot of that support pour my way especially from rural communities,” said Narcisse.

Libertarian candidates also filed for U.S. Senate and in the first and second Congressional districts, as well as for secretary of state. Given how easy it is to qualify for the ballot in Iowa House and Senate districts (50 signatures for a House race and 100 signatures for a Senate race), I was surprised not to see more Libertarian candidates file for the state legislature. They didn’t venture beyond college towns. Libertarian candidates filed in Senate district 15 and House district 30, both in the Iowa City area where Republicans didn’t field a candidate against Democratic incumbents (Senator Bob Dvorsky and State Representative Dave Jacoby). They also fielded a candidate in House district 46, which includes a big chunk of Ames. Democratic incumbent Lisa Heddens has a Republican challenger too.

The Libertarian candidate for governor, Eric Cooper, has set a goal of winning at least 2 percent of the vote this year to gain major-party status. After that, Libertarians would field candidates in as many statehouse districts as possible in 2012 and beyond. But why wait until then? If I were a Libertarian trying to spread a message about the Republican Party betraying small-government principles, I would have fielded candidates against lots of Republican incumbents, especially those who have no Democratic challenger. They might have received a surprisingly large protest vote, generating some free media attention for the Libertarians in November.

This is an open thread. Share anything on your mind this weekend, whether or not it relates to the upcoming elections.

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Poll shows majority of Iowans favor marriage equality

Research 2000’s latest Iowa poll for KCCI-TV contains good news for supporters of marriage equality. The survey asked, “Now that more than a year has gone by since the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, do you favor or oppose marriage rights for same-sex couples?” 53 percent respondents said they favor those rights, 41 percent opposed them and 6 percent were unsure.

I haven’t seen the full poll results, showing support for same-sex marriage rights among men, women, Democrats, Republicans and independents. I will update this post with a link to the cross-tabs when I find them. Bryan English of the Iowa Family Policy Center told KCCI he didn’t think the poll was representative of Iowans’ views, but several other statewide polls have shown that the majority of Iowans are not eager to overturn marriage equality. As time passes, public acceptance should increase if the experience of Vermont and Massachusetts are guides.

The KCCI poll also found that 62 percent of respondents support legalizing medical marijuana in Iowa, 33 percent oppose doing so and 5 percent are unsure.

Getting back to the same-sex marriage issue, I give huge credit to the Libertarian candidate for Iowa governor, Eric Cooper. On Thursday he made the case for tolerance while speaking to the Ames Conservative Breakfast Club.

Here’s my rough transcript of the first part of this clip:

You know who the Pilgrims were? The Pilgrims were a group of people in England, and everybody in England hated their guts. And you know what they did? They came to America to live here. And the reason–they came here because we were the land of the free. We started the land of the free. That is, even if everyone in surrounding society hates your guts, in America as long as you’re not hurting other people and their property, you can live the way that you want, as long as you’re being peaceful.

To me, that’s the most American story there is. If you’re a peaceful person who’s not hurting other people, you get to live your life according to your cultural traditions. OK, well, guess what? There are some homosexuals in America today, and to me, they’re the Pilgrims, ok? Surrounding society doesn’t like ’em very much, but you know what? What America is, is you get to live the way that you want to live. And if their cultural tradition is that they can get married, I think that’s America, to allow them to follow that cultural tradition. No, I don’t think that’s [unintelligible] surrounding society as a whole, and I think if we’re gonna restrict that, we’re not America anymore, we’re England, ok? And we’re better than England, we’re America.

Now people say, “Well shouldn’t we be allowed to vote on marriage and what marriage means in the state of Iowa?” Well, yeah, legally, there are mechanisms by which a sufficiently large supermajority can persecute any minority they want. Yes, legally, we could all vote to persecute the Pilgrims if we wanted to and yeah, legally, we could all vote to say, you know, gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry if we want to. But that’s not America anymore, ok?

Cooper’s a bit off on the history. The Pilgrims were far from laid-back and accepting of other people’s traditions. In fact, “New England Puritans, long viewed as a persecuted group in England, were the least tolerant of other faiths.” But I cut Cooper slack. He’s a neuroscientist, not a historian, and what he did took guts.

You’d expect a Libertarian addressing a Republican group to focus on likely areas of agreement: reducing taxes and the size of government. Instead of just preaching to the choir, Cooper challenged his audience to think about a charged issue differently. He had to know that most people at that breakfast club oppose what the Iowa Supreme Court did.

Post any thoughts on same-sex marriage in Iowa in this thread. The Des Moines Register reports that Iowa’s leading gay wedding planner may star in a television “docu-reality series” about his work. Beau Fodor created Gay Weddings With Panache soon after the Varnum v Brien decision was announced last year.

UPDATE: On Sunday the Des Moines Register published results from a Selzer and Co. Iowa poll of 501 likely Iowa Republican primary voters, which was in the field from June 1 through June 3. The survey included several questions about gay marriage. About 77 percent of likely GOP primary voters agreed that “Iowans should have a chance to vote on changing the constitution to specifically ban gay marriage,” but 20 percent disagreed with that statement. Meanwhile, only 50 percent of likely GOP primary voters agreed that “Iowans should vote to remove current Supreme Court justices from their office because of their decision on gay marriage.” About 45 percent disagreed with that statement. Regarding the statement, “Some Iowans have overreacted to this issue, and having gay marriage in Iowa is just not that big a deal,” 35 percent of likely Republican primary voters agreed, while 62 percent disagreed. I find those numbers encouraging.

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Iowa Libertarian candidate comments on Rand Paul, workplace regulations

The day after Rand Paul won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, his views on civil rights legislation sparked a media feeding frenzy so intense that Paul became only the third guest in recent history to cancel a scheduled appearance on “Meet the Press.”

Several prominent Republicans, including Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley, have distanced themselves from Paul’s ideas about whether the government should be able to bar discrimination by private businesses. Paul walked back his comments on civil rights too.

I contacted the campaign of Iowa’s Libertarian candidate for governor, Eric Cooper, to get his take on Paul’s remarks and government regulation of businesses in general. Cooper’s responses are after the jump.

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Can the Libertarians' "10 percent strategy" pay off in Iowa?

The Libertarian Party of Iowa convened on April 24 to nominate several candidates for statewide offices. The Libertarian candidate for governor is Eric Cooper, a neuroscience expert in the Iowa State University Psychology department. In his speech to the delegates, Cooper said frankly that the Libertarian Party had not been effective in the past. He laid out a “10 percent strategy” for Libertarians to “get everything we want without ever winning an election.” You can watch Cooper’s whole speech here, but I posted a rough transcript of some interesting parts after the jump.

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Surprising results for minor-party presidential candidates

On the whole, Americans rejected minor presidential candidates. The nationwide popular vote stands at 66.3 million for Barack Obama (52.7 percent) and 58.0 million for John McCain (46.0 percent).

Out of curiosity, tremayne at Open Left reviewed the vote tallies for other presidential candidates:

530,200 votes: Ralph Nader

519,800 votes: Bob Barr

179,900 votes: Chuck Baldwin

147,600 votes: Cynthia McKinney

 30,800 votes: Alan Keyes (in CA)

 28,300 votes: Write-in/other

 10,500 votes: Ron Paul (in MT)

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office does not yet have the general election results on its website, and the Des Moines Register’s election results page only gives the numbers for Obama and McCain, but wikipedia gives these vote counts for Iowa:

818,240: Barack Obama

677,508: John McCain

7,963: Ralph Nader

4,608: Bob Barr

4,403: Chuck Baldwin

1,495: Cynthia McKinney

I am surprised that Nader got so many votes. That’s a lot less than he received in 2000 but at least 60,000 more votes nationwide than he received in 2004.

I also find it interesting that nationally, Bob Barr got three times as many votes as Chuck Baldwin, even though Ron Paul endorsed Baldwin. Maybe the “brand name” of the Libertarian Party is stronger than that of the Constitution Party, or maybe Barr just has more name recognition because of his prominent role in the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings.

In Iowa, Baldwin and Barr received approximately the same number of votes.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers have contacts in the Ron Paul for president crowd, please post a comment and let us know how the activists split among McCain, Barr and Baldwin.

UPDATE: A Bleeding Heartland reader compiled all the county results from Iowa and noticed something strange about Dubuque County. As he commented at Swing State Project, Dubuque County showed

quite a few votes for third party candidates and in some instances (La Riva/Moses) more than in the whole rest of Iowa.

I suspect there’s either something wrong with those numbers or they had some strange butterfly ballot.

Did anyone out there vote in Dubuque County, and if so, was the ballot design strange in some way that would produce an unusually high number of minor-party votes for president?

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Ron Paul endorses Constitution Party candidate

A few weeks ago I read that Ron Paul was not endorsing any presidential candidate but was urging his supporters to vote for the third-party candidate of their choice–anyone but Barack Obama or John McCain.

However, this week Paul endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. The Wall Street Journal blog pointed me toward this letter from Paul to supporters, which contains a bit of a rebuke to Libertarian candidate Bob Barr:

The Libertarian Party Candidate admonished me for “remaining neutral” in the presidential race and not stating whom I will vote for in November.   It’s true; I have done exactly that due to my respect and friendship and support from both the Constitution and Libertarian Party members.  I remain a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and I’m a ten-term Republican Congressman.  It is not against the law to participate in more then one political party.  Chuck Baldwin has been a friend and was an active supporter in the presidential campaign.

I continue to wish the Libertarian and Constitution Parties well.  The more votes they get, the better.  I have attended Libertarian Party conventions frequently over the years.

In some states, one can be on the ballots of two parties, as they can in New York.  This is good and attacks the monopoly control of politics by Republicans and Democrats.  We need more states to permit this option.  This will be a good project for the Campaign for Liberty, along with the alliance we are building to change the process.

I’ve thought about the unsolicited advice from the Libertarian Party candidate, and he has convinced me to reject my neutral stance in the November election.  I’m supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate.

When you think about what an insiders’ club Congress is, it’s amazing that Paul (still a Republican Congressman from Texas) did not endorse his former colleague Barr, who represented Georgia for many years in the House. Barr has denounced the Republican Party for embracing big government and not insisting that the president abide by the law.

The big question for me is whether Paul’s endorsement of Baldwin will cut into Barr’s support in some of the key swing states. I’ve argued before that Barr could tip Nevada to Obama, but ProgressiveSouth writes that Barr could also be a factor in North Carolina.

Anyone out there know any Ron Paul voters or caucus-goers? Will they settle for McCain, sit out the election or vote for a third-party alternative?

For the record, nine presidential candidates will appear on the Iowa ballot, including Baldwin and Barr.

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What if they held a convention and no one showed up?

The Nevada Republican Party didn’t want to take that chance. They canceled their state convention, set for next Saturday, because the number of RSVPs from delegates was well below the level needed for a quorum.

This was the second attempt to hold the Nevada GOP convention. State party officials abruptly ended the originally scheduled event in April when Ron Paul supporters outnumbered supporters of John McCain among the delegates.

Nevada is in my opinion the state most likely to go Democratic thanks to Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Not only are there huge numbers of Ron Paul supporters who don’t back McCain, there is a relevant history. The Libertarian vote in the 1998 Senate race was large enough to hand a narrow victory to Democrat Harry Reid.

Speaking of Barr, he showed up at the liberal Netroots Nation gathering today. Daily Kos user dday landed an impromptu interview and put up this entertaining diary about it.

Bob Barr running for president as a Libertarian

Scout Finch put up a link to this article about Bob Barr announcing his presidential candidacy:

He first must win the Libertarian nomination at the party’s national convention that begins May 22. Party officials consider him a front-runner thanks to the national profile he developed as a Georgia congressman from 1995 to 2003.

Barr, 59, helped lead Bill Clinton’s impeachment. He quit the Republican Party two years ago, saying he had grown disillusioned with its failure to shrink government and its willingness to scale back civil liberties in fighting terrorism.

I despised Barr during the 1990s, and I still think impeaching Clinton was an abuse of the process intended to punish presidential “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

But I have to admit that he has shown a sincere belief in conservative principles during the past few years. Read this article about the reception he got at the February 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference:

“Are we losing our lodestar, which is the Bill of Rights?” Barr beseeched the several hundred conservatives at the Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park. “Are we in danger of putting allegiance to party ahead of allegiance to principle?”

Barr answered in the affirmative. “Do we truly remain a society that believes that . . . every president must abide by the law of this country?” he posed. “I, as a conservative, say yes. I hope you as conservatives say yes.”

But nobody said anything in the deathly quiet audience. Barr merited only polite applause when he finished, and one man, Richard Sorcinelli, booed him loudly. “I can’t believe I’m in a conservative hall listening to him say [Bush] is off course trying to defend the United States,” Sorcinelli fumed.

Even if he only gets a percent or two of the vote, Barr could throw some states to Barack Obama this November.

John McCain still has problems with some elements of the conservative base, including libertarians who voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. In a few states, such as Nevada, Paul outpolled McCain in the GOP primaries.

Neiaprogressive noted that Paul got 8 percent of the vote in the Indiana and North Carolina GOP primaries last week. That’s after he received nearly 16 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary.

It will be interesting to see if the beltway media give Barr more coverage than a minor-party presidential candidate would usually receive. He was an important figure in Washington for many years.

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