Iowans will elect 25 state senators today. Those races have attracted far less attention than this year’s Iowa House races, because Republicans have a lopsided 32-18 majority in the upper chamber and only a 53-47 advantage in the House.

Nevertheless, it’s important to keep an eye on the Senate races, because this year’s outcome will influence Democratic prospects under the new map coming in 2021.

This overview covers five districts where both parties are spending six-figure amounts, seven districts where Republicans spent a significant amount, and four more districts where the results could shed light on political trends in various parts of the state, even though neither Democrats nor Republicans targeted the race.

Fifteen months before the 2020 election, Democrats have at least one declared candidate in each of the four most vulnerable Republican-held Iowa Senate districts. That’s good news for a party that needs to start making up ground in the upper chamber, where Republicans hold 32 of the 50 seats.

Bleeding Heartland will publish a fuller review of the Iowa Senate landscape (comparable to this first look at 2020 state House races) when the field is set in more competitive districts. For now, here’s where things stand in the top Democratic targets:

Every election, a handful of Iowa legislative races turn out to be far closer than expected. One of the sleepers in 2018 was Steve Gorman’s rematch against Republican State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa in House district 16, covering part of Council Bluffs.

Hanusa was a four-term incumbent and had defeated Gorman by 6,847 votes to 5,120 (57.2 percent to 42.8 percent) in 2016. Last year, Republicans spent about $83,000 on direct mail, radio, and digital advertising for Hanusa (see here and here), far less than they spent in districts they worried about losing. By the same token, Democrats spent at least $100,000 in more than a dozen Iowa House races during the 2018 campaign, including $128,000 defending the other Council Bluffs-based seat. Gorman had to raise all of the $24,405.45 the party spent on his behalf.

Nevertheless, Gorman nearly pulled off an upset, losing to Hanusa by 4,949 votes to 4,835 (49.5 percent to 48.4 percent), with 208 votes going to Libertarian Steve Sechrest. Now Gorman’s the first announced Democratic candidate for a Republican-held Iowa Senate seat. Both parties will surely take his challenge seriously in 2020.

Every Iowan’s vote counts the same in determining whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will win our state’s six electoral votes.

I’ll be watching the returns from some of our 99 counties more closely than others.

Iowa House and Senate candidates were required to file their last pre-election campaign finance reports on Friday. In stark contrast to four years ago, Republicans are outspending Democrats in most of the contested state Senate districts. (I’ll address spending in the key Iowa House races in a different post.)

Currently, there are 25 Senate Democrats, 23 Republicans, and one independent. If former GOP Senator David Johnson makes good on his promise to remain an independent in 2017, and Democrats win the December special election to replace the late Senator Joe Seng, Republicans would need to pick up three seats to gain control of the upper chamber for the first time since 2004.

I enclose below in-kind contribution figures for the Senate districts expected to be in play next Tuesday. Candidates running elsewhere did not report large in-kind contributions from their respective parties.

The Iowa Firearms Coalition, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, has formed a political action committee that is targeting four Democratic-held Iowa Senate districts in its effort to strip power from “anti-gun Senate majority leaders.” The strategy is logical, because in recent years several high-profile gun bills died in the upper chamber after clearing the Republican-controlled Iowa House.

However, I was surprised to see a couple of Senate races missing from the Iowa Firearms Coalition PAC’s list.