Iowa Down Ballot

We kicked off the post-election episode still running on fumes after a night that felt like a blue tsunami nationally and a mini one in Iowa. Laura said she knew something big was happening when Polk County came in with a 75,000-vote margin for Rob Sand, far past her expectations. Eric pinned part of the blame on Joni Ernst’s vote for Pete Hegseth and the affordability fallout from the war in Iran, while Laura wondered how many Republicans crossed over and how much ten years of a GOP trifecta wore on voters.We also talked through Iowa’s new all-freshman congressional delegation, what divided government could mean for Rob Sand and Chris McGowan, and the tax-limiting constitutional amendment that could squeeze Sand’s budget before 2030. We closed with Chuck Grassley’s insistence that he isn’t retiring, plus a little Grassley biography trivia from Eric.We’re taking next week off and expect to be back the weekend of the 20th and 21st. Thanks for sticking with us through this long campaign. If you are able to contribute financially you can click on the button above, or click on the button below for a one-time donation of any amount. We really appreciate it!Auto-generated transcript below:Kathie Obradovich: Hello, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Kathie Obradovich, here with Laura Belin and Eric Woolson, and we are all well-rested, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed after Tuesday’s election, right? Everybody got caught up on sleep?Laura Belin: Absolutely.Kathie: More or less, right?Eric Woolson: To say that I am running on fumes would be an understatement, Kathie.Laura: Yeah, it usually gets me a couple days later. You have the adrenaline of doing all the mop-up work the day after the election on three hours of sleep, so it pushes the collapse later in the week.Kathie: We’ve been building up to this all year. Super interesting election night. A blue tsunami throughout the country, maybe a mini tsunami in Iowa. I don’t know how you want to describe it. Laura, why don’t you take us through the top headline as far as you’re concerned?The Polk County momentLaura: The top headline, of course, is Rob Sand and Josh Turek winning. But the moment I realized this really was going to be some kind of a wave was when the Polk County results came in on Tuesday night. Polk County is usually one of the first to report. I had looked at the results from 2018, and I knew Cindy Axne came out of Polk County with a margin of about 33,000. Fred Hubbell had about 38,000, which wasn’t enough for Hubbell, but it was enough for Axne.So I had in my mind that Rob Sand would be looking for a margin of maybe 50,000. Then Polk County reported, and his margin was in the range of 75,000. Sarah Trone Garriott’s margin in the congressional race was around 46,000, and I thought immediately that Zach Nunn would never be able to make up that difference in the rest of the district. As it turned out, he didn’t even win Dallas County.That was so far beyond anything I expected. And Nate Willems, the attorney general candidate, had a margin of over 50,000 votes. That’s when I started thinking he had a real shot at beating Brenna Bird.Kathie: Which he did.Laura: Yeah.Kathie: If you look down the ballot, Democrats did better in Iowa than most of us expected. What do you think, Eric?Whose fault was it?Eric: I take a bigger-picture look at it. There’s the old saying, I think from Stanisław Lec, that no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. Losing candidates often blame something else, and there’s always something they did. But I have a different take.Not only was this a referendum on Donald Trump, who said “pretend I’m on the ballot,” and voters did, hence the blue tsunami. I also blame Joni Ernst, frankly, not just for Hinson’s loss or the congressional district loss in Iowa, but for losses nationally.People ask why. Affordability was the issue. Gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices were up because of the war in Iran. It was Pete Hegseth who talked Trump into going to war in Iran and how easy it would be to defeat Iran, and Joni Ernst was the deciding vote for Pete Hegseth. She could have stopped him, and she didn’t. A lot of Iowa Republicans probably aren’t going to like this perspective, but I lay a lot of this defeat nationwide at her feet.Kathie: That’s really interesting. In Iowa, having that vacancy at the top of the ticket, along with Kim Reynolds, I think made a lot of this possible. I’ve been saying for months that this is a generational opportunity for change for Democrats because of those vacancies. We know how Iowans love to reelect their incumbents. Hence Chuck Grassley still in office, and our former governor, Terry Branstad, being the longest-serving governor in the history of the country. Incumbency has a really heavy sway in Iowa. Those two seats at the top of the ticket cascaded down, with the openings in the congressional districts, and so on. So you add that national blue tsunami to those openings in Iowa, and Joni Ernst, of course, was part of that.Laura: I would argue that Ashley Hinson was in some ways a tougher candidate for Democrats to face than Joni Ernst. In retrospect, when Kim Reynolds announced she wasn’t running for re-election, I wrote a post called “A Great Day for Rob Sand,” because I thought he clearly had a much better chance in an open race than against Kim Reynolds. But looking at what happened around the country, especially Greg Abbott losing in Texas, I think even if Kim Reynolds had run for another term, she might have lost. And I wonder how much voter fatigue with ten years of Republican trifecta in Iowa affected the outcome.When the turnout reports come out, I’m going to be curious to see whether Republican turnout was down significantly, or whether it was high and a lot of Republicans voted for some Democrats this year. Rob Sand couldn’t come out of Polk County with a margin of 75,000 unless quite a lot of Republicans voted for him.Kathie: Did you all read J.D. Vance’s social media post yesterday? The vice president said he was talking to pollsters, saying “our people are going to get out to vote,” and the pollster told him, “Yeah, but they’re not going to vote for you. They’re mad at you.” So at least nationally, I think the feeling was that MAGA Republicans did go out and vote, but they didn’t vote for Republicans.Eric: To build off your comments on the down-ballot races, Kathie, and Laura’s thoughts too: I look at Dallas County and the county Republican officials who lost. I think voters went into the polls and voted against every single Republican on the ballot in some cases. A lot of the voters I saw here in Dallas County, I wondered if they had even voted before. As we talked about before, when you’re mad, you vote. I think a lot of voters came in mad, and I frankly think many probably didn’t know any of the county officials at all. They were voting against, not voting for. This wasn’t an election for the Democrats. It was an election against the Republicans.Laura: Democrats won four out of five county supervisor seats in Dallas County, and the fifth one they didn’t win was uncontested. That was not on anybody’s radar, I don’t think.TurnoutKathie: Speaking of turnout, we’re recording this on Friday morning, by the way. Secretary of State Paul Pate held a news conference on Thursday saying this midterm turnout set a record. Numerically, it was a record: the most voters ever turned out. Percentage-wise, it wasn’t quite what 2018 was. So more people generally turned out than in 2018, but the percentage of the electorate was higher in 2018. I don’t know what to make of that, except that any time you set a record in a midterm, it says people were engaged, and certainly we could see that talking to people all year long.Iowa’s new congressional delegationKathie: Let’s talk about the congressional races. We now have three Democrats and one Republican representing Iowa in Congress. Iowa will have three members in the majority, because the… Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe

Happy Halloween!We started with President Trump’s shifting Sunday schedule. After canceling in favor of a tele-rally, he’s apparently coming to Iowa in person after all, though the location is still unclear. We agreed Dubuque makes the most sense given the toss-up race in the Second District between Joe Mitchell and Lindsey James, and that Zach Nunn probably doesn’t want him anywhere near Des Moines.We also covered the week’s debates. Nunn and Sarah Trone Garriott both got their messages out in the only televised Third District debate. The third governor’s debate between Rob Sand and Zach Lahn was less fiery than the first, and we still want to hear more from Sand on the constitutional amendment and no-bid contracts.On closing arguments, we got into the dueling bird ads in the attorney general’s race, where Brenna Bird and Nate Willems are now rated a toss-up. The Secretary of State’s race got the same rating. Laura pointed to the CO2 pipeline as a problem for Bird in rural Iowa.On turnout, early voting is surging, with Democrats leading, but the big question mark is Republican turnout. We’ll be watching Polk County’s margin, Sioux County, and the Mississippi River counties of Des Moines, Muscatine, and Clinton.Laura expects the governor’s race to land within five points, with Democrats flipping at least two congressional seats. Eric wisely declined to predict, and we wouldn’t be surprised by record midterm turnout.Please turn your ballot over to vote on the constitutional amendment and the judges. If you still have a mail ballot, hand deliver it to your county auditor by 8 p.m. Tuesday.Thanks for going along the ride to the midterms, we’ll be back next week to dissect the results. If you’d like to become a free or paid subscriber please click the button above. Make a one-time donation of any amount by clicking the button below. Be safe this weekend, and VOTE!Auto-generated transcript below:Kathie: Hello, and thanks for joining us on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Kathie Obradovich, your underpaid and overqualified host. No, I think it’s probably the other way around, overpaid and underqualified host again this week while our handsome and charming leader, Dave Price, is on assignment. With me is Laura Belin of Bleeding Heartland and longtime political consultant, advisor, and equally charming and handsome, Eric Woolson.Laura: Hello, friends.Eric: Great to be here.Laura: Good to see you.Kathie: Last show before Election Day, can you believe it? We’re going to give you the lay of the land as we know it from our perch here on Friday morning, with the proviso that things can move and change pretty quickly before the ballots are counted.And speaking of things moving quickly, President Donald Trump was scheduled to be in Iowa on Sunday, and then he canceled last night and said they were going to do a tele-rally instead. Now, as of this morning, we are hearing the latest that he is still going to appear in person in Kansas and in Iowa on Sunday. We don’t know yet what the location is going to be, whether the time is different, etc. Laura, what do you think is going on here?Laura: I don’t know. I mean, his travel schedule has been really intense. I would find it challenging to keep up that schedule. And what they said yesterday was that he was so in demand that they could reach more people doing these tele-rallies. But I’m not sure what’s going on. I don’t know if the polling has them concerned. He was supposed to be in Dubuque, which could potentially help Joe Mitchell, or maybe in Northeast Iowa. But now it sounds like we don’t know where he’s going to be. And I think if he comes to Central Iowa, that’s not necessarily going to be helpful for the Republican candidates.Kathie: Yeah, they’re talking about potentially back-to-back Kansas and Iowa rallies. He was supposed to be in Kansas on Saturday and then come to Iowa on Sunday. And it sounds to me like these schedules are still being nailed down. Eric, you worked on a lot of campaigns. How big of a headache is this for candidates who are trying to set their final schedules to get out around the state?Eric: Great question. Logistically, an amazing amount of work goes into moving any candidate around, but a president especially is super difficult. The Secret Service, probably at this point, is trying to figure out where they’re going to go and what security they need to do. I’m surprised they’re not going back to Dubuque, frankly.As far as reasons, it might be that they’ve decided they don’t need to do some of these tele-town hall rallies in other states. Might be they’ve decided those aren’t going to be helpful. Could be that they’ve decided he needs to be here in Iowa and he needs to be here in Kansas. They may be looking at some numbers that say it’s more important for him to be here after all. As you said, things change so much in the last 72 hours of a campaign. Hard to really know.Or, Trump being Trump, it could just be that he wants a live audience. He may have changed his mind and said, “Gosh, I’m going to override the staff and I’m going to go out and do my usual routine in front of an adoring audience.” So there could be a number of reasons. But again, back to your original point, it’s going to be a lot of work for a lot of campaign people over the next 24 hours or so, and been there, done that, wish them luck.Kathie: Yeah, when you talk about moving people around, it’s a hassle for me to tell a reporter, “Okay, you’re going to Dubuque on Sunday. Wait, no, no, now you’re not going to Dubuque. Let’s go here instead. Oh, wait. Now we’ve got a Sunday and we don’t know when it is, we don’t know where it is. It could be in Dubuque, we don’t know.” So that is going to be an interesting thing. Plus, all the other campaigns plan their messaging. The Democrats plan their messaging to counter what’s going on with Trump, if he’s going to be here. So there’s a lot of logistics that have to change.But Eric, Trump was just here. He was in Sioux City last week. Do we think his appearance moved the needle in any way? Did he help Republican voter turnout? Is there any way to know that?Eric: Yeah, I have to assume, not necessarily from empirical evidence but anecdotally, that it helps Northwest Iowa, obviously. Only 25% of the vote, or 25% of the population, as we’ve talked about before, but a heavy, heavy Republican area. And not just Sioux City. It really affected that Nebraska market, too, where there’s a thought that maybe that congressional district, Don Bacon’s district, is going to go Democratic, and that the Senate candidate, Ricketts, needs some help. So Sioux City was helpful for turnout, both in Nebraska and in Iowa.Dubuque is a long way away from Sioux City, as both of you know from covering both. A lot of driving involved there. So it’s a long reach, and I think it makes sense for him to be over in that Second District, where, frankly, there have been some rumblings that it’s obviously going to be a close race, a toss-up race, and the question is who’s going to win that one.Kathie: Yeah, our D.C. bureau reported yesterday that the Second District race between Joe Mitchell and Lindsey James, who represents Dubuque in the statehouse, is one of the 16 toss-up races in the country. We’ve got three competitive congressional races in Iowa, two of which are now rated as lean Democrat. So that does make Dubuque a kind of pivotal spot if the president is going to come to Iowa. Logistically it might make sense for them to go back to Dubuque, but it seems to me there’s some political advantage to that as well.Laura, there was also some question about whether the president would come to Des Moines. Would that be helpful for Zach Nunn, do you think?Laura: Boy, if I’m Zach Nunn, I do not want him in Des Moines. I mean, he was already in the Des Moines area. He did a rally in Clive. The vice president was here in the Des Moines suburbs in May. And I just don’t think that would be helpful for Zach Nunn. His messa… Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe

Please help spread the word about this podcast by sharing it with your friends on social media. Kathie and Laura welcomed back conservative blogger and commentator Shane Vander Hart. We opened by sending our best wishes to First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds as he recovers from surgery.We then turned to President Trump’s Sioux City rally and his return trip to Dubuque on November 1st. We debated whether big rallies actually drive turnout, how awkward his off-message remarks were for Ashley Hinson, and what the Dubuque stop means for the Second District race between Joe Mitchell and Lindsey James. We also talked about why forecasters now see that race as a toss-up.From there, we broke down this week’s First District debate between Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Christina Bohannon, including the case for including independent Michael Bridgford and the steel mill claim that went unchallenged.We wrapped up with record-setting governor’s race fundraising, a look at Rob Sand’s and Zach Lahn’s money, the radio ad gap, and early voting. Long lines are showing up in Polk and Dallas counties, so plan ahead.We appreciate all of our subscribers. If you value our work enough, please become a paid subscriber by clicking the button above. To make a one-time donation of any amount the button below is the one for you. Thanks!Auto-generated transcript below:Kathie: Hello, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. We’re recording on Saturday morning this week, and our guests are Shane Vander Hart, a longtime conservative blogger and commentator, and Laura Belin, publisher of Bleeding Heartland and a longtime Iowa reporter and commentator. Glad you both could be here. I’m Kathie Obradovich. I still sound like Lauren Bacall after three weeks of having the crud, but we’ll get through this. Dave Price, our regular host, continues to be on assignment, and we hope to see him back.First, on behalf of the group, I want to send our best wishes to First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds. It was announced that he has had a recurrence of his cancer and is recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor. We want to extend our best wishes for a speedy recovery. Does either of you want to add anything?Shane: It’s unfortunate to hear. I’ve definitely been praying for him and his family. Cancer sucks, and I hate hearing that.Laura: It’s terrible. The governor’s statement on Monday said he’s going to begin radiation therapy. She said they’ve been married 44 years and have faced a lot of ups and downs, and that they appreciate the strength and support of others and the prayers being sent.Kathie: That’s so important. I’m glad Governor Reynolds will have more time to focus on that, as well as on caring for her own elderly parents. Keep the thoughts and prayers coming for the family.Trump’s Iowa visitsKathie: On to politics. We’re now inside two weeks until Election Day, believe it or not. Trump was in Sioux City this week for an evening rally, and he’ll be back November 1st, two days before the election, in Dubuque on the opposite side of the state. None of us were surprised he went to the Fourth District first. Turnout there is super important to the statewide candidates, who need to run up the score and get every Republican out to vote. Shane, did Trump succeed in that mission?Shane: It’s hard to say. I think the people in the Fourth District who are motivated to vote are going to vote. I don’t think the president coming does much for turnout. I think it’s more of an ego stroke for him: “Look at this big rally I’ve got going.” That’s nice, but how many of those people even live in the district?Laura: I’ve never been impressed by big rallies. I don’t think they do much to drive turnout, frankly.Kathie: Laura, the president’s remarks were similar to what he’s been saying around the country, and he’s been going to a lot more red states than swing states. Iowa has the U.S. Senate race, and now you could argue three of the four congressional races are toss-ups or leaning Democratic, so it’s much more contested than many places he’s visited. But the remarks that differed from what he says elsewhere were about races in Minnesota and Ohio. What did you make of that?Laura: First, I think his late rallies here in 2018 and 2022 were genuinely helpful to Republicans. I’m not sure it will be as helpful this year, because by all the polling evidence his popularity is much lower now, even in those red areas.I was struck by how much time he spent. He spoke well over an hour, and a lot of it was a long diatribe about Ilhan Omar in Minnesota and about Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio. I thought that was particularly awkward for Ashley Hinson. Earlier in the day she had told a reporter that the ad Ramaswamy’s campaign is running in Ohio, the one featuring Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s mother, was ridiculous and should come down. Then Trump went on and on about what a great ad it was, and said Vivek called him and asked what to do, and he told him to keep running it. So it wasn’t really on message, though he did circle back to his usual comments about “radical left lunatics.”All the messages we’re hearing, not just from Trump but in most Republican ads, are focused on mobilizing the base. They aren’t persuasion messages for swing voters, at least not that I perceive.Kathie: We were speculating last week about whether this is good or bad for Ashley Hinson, who has been trying to distance herself from the Trump campaign on policy. She’s said the Iran war should end, even though she voted for all the war resolutions. She distanced herself on the Amy Acton ad, which has drawn bipartisan censure. She’s also said she would tell the president not to make the deal with Russia on buying diesel fuel. But she got up and spoke at the rally. Does this help her? Go ahead, Shane.Shane: Anytime she gets to talk to voters it helps her, and she gets national coverage. She just needs to keep bringing up where she differs with the Trump campaign. That’s the only thing that will really resonate with independents who are sitting on the fence. It’s also hard for a Senate candidate not to show up when the president visits. I’d like to think people understand that when you’re the same party, you’re going to attend that rally. You just kind of have to.I don’t think his comments were helpful, but Trump getting off message is hardly shocking. I don’t know why he came to Iowa to talk about Ohio and Minnesota. But I thought it was interesting that he talked about E15 and diesel exports, things that would affect our agricultural economy, whether or not they’re effective in the short term. You’re not going to get a policy-rich speech out of Donald Trump. That’s just not going to happen.Laura: What Hinson got out of the rally was Trump repeatedly saying it’s important to elect Ashley Hinson. She has some unique problems in Northwest Iowa, because a lot of people are still upset about the proposed carbon dioxide pipeline. She hasn’t spoken out in support of landowners trying to protect their land from eminent domain, and she’s taken campaign contributions from Bruce Rastetter and others who support the pipeline. There’s also a Libertarian, Thomas Lane, on the Senate ballot. So it’s very important for her to rack up big numbers in Northwest Iowa and not lose them to the Libertarian. A lot of conservatives who care about private property rights might not vote for a Democrat like Josh Turek, but they might vote for a Libertarian. So on balance, it was probably helpful for her to have Trump there. But some of what he said is going to get awkward, and I assume reporters will follow up with her on things like his comments about the Ramaswamy ad.Dubuque and the Second DistrictKathie: Now he’s coming back to the opposite side of the state, Dubuque, which is in the district Hinson has represented in Congress, where she’s arguably best known. The Second District race is also in play, with Joe Mitchell running against Lindsey James, who is from Dubuque. What do you m… Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe

With less than three weeks until Election Day and early voting already underway, we dug into a busy debate week.We started with President Trump’s two planned Iowa visits, Sioux City on October 22nd and again on November 1st, and why the 4th District matters for turnout. We also talked about the risks for Ashley Hinson of sharing a stage with him.Then we broke down the second governor’s debate between Rob Sand and Zach Lane, the Hinson and Josh Turek Senate debate, and the 4th District matchup. We covered the fight over Turek’s missed votes, Hinson’s explanation of her family’s stock holdings, and Turek’s immigration tightrope.We closed with a look at the newly scheduled 3rd District debate between Zach Nunn and Sarah Trone Garriott on October 27th on KCCI, and why late debates may be less risky than they seem.Thanks to you all for helping support us whether it’s subscribing, liking, sharing, it all helps us grow! You can become a paid subscriber by clicking the button above, or make a one-time donation of any amount by clicking the button below.Auto-generated transcript below:Kathie: Hello, and thanks for joining us on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Kathie Obradovich, your temporary host again this week while our stalwart leader, Dave Price, is on assignment. Thanks to those of you who reached out after my TB-worthy performance on last week’s show. Rest assured, I’m still alive, if not entirely well, but maybe I can get through this week without hacking up a lung. With me to help are Laura Belin of Bleeding Heartland and longtime political consultant, advisor and man about town, Eric Woolson.Eric: Great to be here.Laura: Good to be here with you.Trump returns to IowaKathie: It’s now less than three weeks before Election Day. We’re recording on Friday afternoon, and Iowans are already voting. One development this week is the announcement that President Trump is coming back to Iowa, not once but twice before the election. The first visit is next week, October 22nd, in Sioux City, and then he’ll be back on November 1st. Eric, Sioux City is in the 4th District, which is already red. Why go there?Eric: Obviously, Chris McGowan, the congressional candidate up there, doesn’t need him, but it really helps with turnout. Remember the governor’s race between Kim Reynolds and Fred Hubbell. Hubbell led much of the night until we got to western Iowa, and that’s where the Republicans began to run up the total. Midterms are as much decided by which voters participate as by moving undecideds. Trump has made the point that he’s not on the ballot and his support tends to fall off, so he needs to motivate those voters to turn out. There are an awful lot of them in the 4th District.Kathie: His approval rating is underwater in Iowa, as in other states. Talk about the risk as well as the reward for Republicans, Laura.Laura: If he’s coming at all, it has to be the 4th District. That’s where he can do the most good. The statewide polls show his approval is underwater, but it’s very likely still positive in that district, so I think it can only help Republicans overall. It could be risky for Ashley Hinson to campaign with him, though. If you’re on a statewide ballot and there are lots of places where Trump isn’t popular, she may not want those visuals. And you never know what he’ll say at one of these rallies. He doesn’t stay on script, and she could be standing right there when he says something that makes national news in a negative way.For Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, it’s easier to have an excuse not to go all the way to Sioux City. They’re busy campaigning in their own districts, and I’d say that’s a wise move. Joe Mitchell, I don’t really know. He has campaigned using the Trump name more than some other Republicans, so he might go even though it’s far from the 2nd District.Kathie: Do you think Hinson will be on stage with Trump next week?Laura: I think she will. She hasn’t broken with the president on the Iran war, and she said this week that she’d welcome Trump coming to campaign, so she’s not pushing him away with both hands. She didn’t go to J.D. Vance’s event in Council Bluffs a few weeks ago, but she doesn’t have a good excuse this time. I also think Zach Lane, the candidate for governor, needs to be there. He needs that sky-high turnout in the 4th District, as Eric said. That’s what saved Kim Reynolds in 2018.Governor’s race: second debateKathie: We have several debates to hash over. First, we want to send our condolences to Rob Sand and his family after the death of his brother-in-law, Walter Lauridsen. That’s a terrible, sad event for any family, and our hearts go out to them.The candidates for governor met in their second debate, this one on KTIV in Sioux City. Laura, did you notice any changes from the first debate, any change in temperature?Laura: Definitely. The moderators helped guide it early by asking a viewer question: are you going to stop with the personal attacks? That got both of them on the record. Eric, what did you see?Eric: I’d like to see every debate start with that question. It was a compelling way to begin and it put the candidates on notice. I’d also extend my condolences to Rob Sand and the family. It underscores something people don’t realize, just how dangerous and demanding campaigning can be. You’re on the road late at night and early in the morning, you’re tired from campaign events, and you’re often out late in areas that aren’t well traveled. Frankly, it’s surprising at times that we don’t see this happen more.Kathie: Do you think the debate moved the needle for Zach Lane?Eric: It’s so hard to tell with debates. You have a small audience. Some air statewide, some don’t, and even when they do, I don’t think the audience is tremendously large. A lot of people tune in just so they can say, my guy won, or my woman won. So I don’t think it moves the needle much. But it’s important for Lane because more voters got to see him beyond the campaign commercials. It’s really an introduction. The same is true for Sand. If you asked people on the street who the state auditor is, I’m not sure what the numbers would be. So this was a debate the voters won, but it was probably a wash in terms of which candidate can claim victory.Laura: Both sides got social media clips they could pull, but there were no game-changing moments and no big gaffes. Lane is the one most in need of something that changes the dynamic, because he’s still trailing in the polls. He didn’t make any mistakes, but I don’t know if he did enough, and Sand didn’t make a mistake that would help him in any significant way. I thought it was a substantive discussion on the state budget: how do you fund your priorities, given that the revenue estimating conference met this morning to talk about where the state budget is headed? There was also a good exchange on how to fund education, given decisions already made about the size of incoming revenues. These debates typically live online afterward, too. This one aired at 9 p.m., which is after my bedtime.Eric: I’m a night owl. I’m just getting started at night.Kathie: It also aired at the same time as another debate, the 4th District one or the Senate one, I lose track. Two debates were broadcast simultaneously this week, so I had to split my time. On education, Rob Sand is proposing a 5% increase in state aid, while Zach Lane is proposing to eliminate property taxes on primary residences. Both will need to explain how they’d pay for those proposals, and perhaps we’ll hear more in the next two weeks.Laura: Interestingly, Sand said he could only promise the 5% increase in the first year, and after that it depends on the state budget. He’s talked about legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise money, but he can’t do that on his own. He’s also talked about restructuring special education, which could be really expensive.Senate race: Hinson vs. TurekKathie: The second debate I want to talk about is Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek, al… Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe

In the governor’s debate, Rob Sand and Zach Lahn shared a stage for the first time. With no time limits, we felt the moderators lost control early, and Lahn ended up talking roughly seven minutes longer. Republicans loved his aggressive style, while Democrats thought the interrupting came across badly. We don’t see a clear winner, and three more debates are still ahead.In the U.S. Senate race, Josh Turek held his own against the more TV-seasoned Ashley Hinson. She kept hitting him on missed votes, and we explained why a missed vote doesn’t always mean a missed day at work. Turek got her on the record about Iran and Medicaid cuts, and her comments about millennials and savings drew plenty of social media reaction.In the 2nd District, Joe Mitchell and Lindsay James had a more orderly second debate. We also talked through the steel plant incentives and whether tariffs are really behind the project.On the horse race, Cook moved the 1st and 3rd Districts from toss-up to lean Democrat, and the 2nd District from lean Republican to toss-up.The polls disagree. Suffolk had Sand up 55 to 43 and Turek up 48 to 44, while Emerson had Sand up just 49 to 45 and Hinson ahead 47 to 45. We caution against trusting any single poll, since each makes different assumptions about who will turn out in a midterm.Dave Price is quite busy with his day jobs. We hope to have him back at some point, but we are committed to continuing informing our listeners, viewers, and readers. Kathie and Laura are two of the best political reporters in the state (if not the country). If you would like to support our work financially please become a paid subscriber by clicking the button above. To make a one-time donation of any size please click the button below.Thanks for listening, and if you can, please like and share.Auto-generated transcript below:Kathie: Hello and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. It’s debate season and we have a lot to talk about, with candidates for governor, U.S. Senate, Congress, and more sharing the stage, some for the first time. There’s also new polling in the top races and some shifts in the political forecast for Iowa’s races. I’m Kathie Obradovich, and with me today is Laura Belin. Hi, Laura.Laura: Good to see you, Kathie.Kathie: We’re a smaller crew today. Dave is working on other projects and our conservative friends were otherwise engaged, but we can carry it, right?Laura: Yeah, absolutely.Kathie: I still sort of have the crud. If you heard me last week, you’ll know I’m a lot better, but I’ll apologize right now for any Marco Rubio-esque water swigging or cough drop crunching as we go. And I know you’ve been a little under the weather too, Laura.Laura: I’m feeling a lot better.Kathie: Just the walking wounded here.The governor’s debate: Rob Sand vs. Zach LahnKathie: Let’s start with the governor’s debate, which was all the way back on Monday. We’re recording this on Friday. It was in Davenport, hosted by KWQC-TV on the campus of St. Ambrose University. It was the first time on the debate stage for Rob Sand and Zach Lahn. What do you think?Laura: They didn’t have time limits, and honestly I feel like that debate was a case for having them. I didn’t total up the minutes myself, but I saw some analysis that Zach Lahn ended up speaking about seven minutes longer than Rob Sand. That seems pretty out of balance. I felt the moderators lost control of the debate early and never really got it back.Kathie: I’ve done both kinds of debates, timed and super formal, and the untimed kind that’s supposed to be more of a conversation. I agree with you, they probably should have timed the answers for this one. If you’re not going to time the answers, the moderators need to step in really early and make it very clear that they won’t let one candidate talk over another, and that they’ll cut in if you abuse the time. They really didn’t start trying to do that until way too late.It was interesting how Rob Sand responded. You could tell he was kind of annoyed, but he did not reciprocate. You didn’t see him heat up to match Zach Lahn and start talking over him, which not all candidates would do. And I think there was a risk for Lahn in talking over Sand like that.Laura: The Republican comments I saw online said Lahn absolutely dominated the discussion and got in a lot of zingers. On the Democratic side, people felt it came across very badly, all the interrupting and going on for a long time.It was interesting to me that near the end, when the moderator was trying to get things back on track, Zach Lahn said something like, “I can go if it’s four on one, I can take on...” He was almost implying the moderators were on Rob Sand’s side, when I felt they had been kind of lenient toward the Republicans.We’ll see. They have three more debates coming up, and that may be partly why Rob Sand was able to just hang back and wait. I’m curious to see whether the moderators are a little more active in next week’s clash.Kathie: A couple of things about the content. This is the first time we’ve seen these candidates together, so we saw some rehash of the attack ads we’re seeing incessantly on TV. One that stood out for me was Zach Lahn claiming that Sand’s campaign rhetoric about his time in Kansas was an attack on his kids. That’s the claim that he didn’t move to Iowa until two years before he ran for governor, and that he frequently returns to Kansas. Lahn portrayed it as an attack on his kids because he’s going to Kansas to visit his kids in a blended family. I think it’s a stretch to call it an attack on his kids, but I’m not sure where else he was going to go in trying to defend that.Laura: Rob Sand said the reason you’re in Kansas doesn’t matter, what matters is that you’re not in Iowa all the time. Lahn’s campaign has never really explained how this is going to work. He said that’s private, they have a blended family, and they’ll work it out like blended families do. But if his kids are being raised and going to school primarily in another state, it does seem like something he’ll need to contend with.Kathie: Lahn also pressed attacks on Rob Sand’s family wealth. He has repeatedly called Sand a billionaire in his ads. I didn’t think Sand engaged with that very much or tried to rebut it. He talked about family and mansions in other states and spending time there, but I didn’t think he rebutted much.Laura: The main thing he pushed back on was the nitrate fertilizer claim. He said his wife’s third-generation family company doesn’t produce nitrate fertilizer, that they produce other things from byproducts.Kathie: Maybe that was the most important thing, considering water quality is a big concern to voters. At the bottom line, unless there are giant gaps or big things that turn into campaign commercials and rhetoric through the rest of the campaign, I usually don’t see debates moving the needle much. They reinforce what people already think about the candidates. But did you think there was a winner here?Laura: I don’t think so. It depends on whether you care a lot about demeanor. But I think it fired up Zach Lahn’s supporters. In that sense he can feel it was successful, because he showed he was being very aggressive. I don’t know who was watching, or whether swing voters are watching these debates. And it’s different since this is the first of four rather than the only debate they’re having, so I want to reserve judgment until after they’re all over. But the Republicans seemed extremely pleased with the performance.Kathie: It’s a good point about who’s watching. A lot of times the effect of a debate isn’t the night of, it’s the media, and especially the social media, that rolls out afterward. We see that over and over. With this debate I didn’t see anything like that, but time will tell.Laura: What I saw from Rob Sand and other Democratic accounts was that they were sharing clips of things Sand said. They weren’t sharing anything Lahn said as a gaffe, but more like Sand’s line that you’re… Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe