Iowa Poll findings, Haley co-chair for Harris, an Iowan's jersey at Cooperstown

Sept. 23 "Capitol Week" is online

From left: Dawn Roberts, Lynette Skow Rasmussen, Nikki Haley (photo provided by Dawn Roberts)

Greetings from Okoboji, where I am soaking in the amazing

Julie Gammack

production that is the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. After attending four sessions Monday with amazing writers, I was able to watch the premiere of Nik Heftman’s new documentary about spoken word poet Caleb Rainey. You can watch the trailer at Nik’s Substack home,

The Seven Times

. Immediately after that surprisingly emotional experience, I headed to my car to record “KHOI’s Capitol Week.”

During the Monday evening hours when I would normally write up my radio show recap, I was enjoying a concert featuring many of the songwriters Julie wrangled to come to the retreat. You may be familiar with

Dartanyan L. Brown

and

Jason Walsmith

from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. I took this picture during the second set. From left: Justin Roberts (I’m a huge fan), Kathryn Severing Fox, Chad Elliott, and Jason Walsmith.

The show ended with a group singalong of “You Are My Sunshine,” capping a day filled with so much positive energy.

We were treated to a bonus three-song set from Justin first thing Tuesday morning, (around 7:30 am! Julie’s no night owl). So this recap is coming to you later than usual as I’ve been working on it in bits and pieces, when there’s a break between sessions.

Douglas Burns

has moderated panels on reporting techniques, featuring

Phoebe Wall Howard

among others.

Randy Evans

, John Dinges, and I have shared some advice on finding information for investigative reporting.

The audio file for the latest “KHOI’s Capitol Week” is at the top of this message, or you can find it on podcast platforms and smart speakers. The full radio show archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.

Topics

Spencer Dirks

and I covered on the September 23 program:

• We began with some newsworthy findings from the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. No surprises here: the state’s near-total abortion ban is very unpopular. The percentage of Iowans who think abortion should be mostly or always legal is at its highest level since Selzer began asking the question in 2008;

• The Selzer poll asked Iowans about five immigration policies (some of the results seemed contradictory to me);

• The poll asked about perceptions of the personal qualities of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and measured favorable/unfavorable numbers for JD Vance and Tim Walz;

• Matching anecdotal reports from around the state, Selzer found a surge in optimism and enthusiasm among Democratic respondents, compared to the June poll. For Republicans, those numbers are roughly the same. I explained why it matters whether voters are excited;

• I don’t think the Register should publish district-level results on the Congressional races, since the sample sizes are so small and the candidates are not named. That said, it is interesting that Republicans have a 8-point statewide lead on the generic Congressional ballot—similar to the margin Trump won by in 2020;

• Dawn Roberts, a lifelong Republican who was among the co-chairs of Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign before the caucuses, recently became the first prominent Iowa Republican to endorse Harris publicly. I didn’t mention this on the show, but the musician Justin Roberts is her son;

• We followed up on last week’s Associated Press scoop about shadowy efforts to recruit pro-Trump candidates in Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts. A GOP group filed a Federal Election Commission complaint over the matter. I haven’t been able to get a comment from the Iowa Attorney General’s office on whether they are investigating any angle on this;

• I summarized the latest tv ads in the third Congressional district race. A GOP group has a negative spot up against Lanon Baccam, and Baccam’s campaign is tying the incumbent Zach Nunn to school vouchers, abortion bans, and Project 2025;

• The House Majority PAC, one of the big-spending

• The Iowa Secretary of State’s office was among more than a dozen state election administrators around the country that had a suspicious package delivered last Monday;

• The leader of the Iowa State Association of County Auditors, Adams County Auditor Becky Bissell, has expressed concern about how slow mail delivery could interfere with Iowans’ votes getting counted;

• Some auditors have asked the legislature to allow them to mail absentee ballots more than 20 days before election day. I am skeptical that Republican lawmakers would go along with this;

• Moving to news from Congress, it appears that a deal is in the works to prevent a federal government shutdown after September 30. I explained why House Speaker Mike Johnson came around to a “clean” continuing spending resolution that would run until December 20;

• U.S. Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley prevented the chamber from debating a bill that would guarantee nationwide access to fertility treatments including IVF;

• We briefly discussed my exclusive reporting about how state entities are stonewalling me on records related to State Treasurer Roby Smith’s work. You can read more about the story here. To be clear: I am not against working from home. I am against the state withholding public records related to where the treasurer has been working;

• Last Monday, State Auditor Rob Sand released a report showing that nursing home inspections in Iowa are not in compliance with federal requirements. Democratic legislators have introduced a package of bills to address some of the problems in nursing homes, but none have gotten a hearing;

• Finally, we followed up on a fun story from earlier in the summer. Democratic State Representative J.D. Scholten unexpectedly returned to professional baseball in July. He is the fifth-oldest pitcher to record a win at the professional level. The National Baseball Hall of Fame had requested the cap he wore at his first game back, but that was damaged in a bus fire, so the hall of fame asked for his jersey instead.

The Iowa House Democrats released this picture of Scholten delivering his jersey to Cooperstown, after the baseball season had ended. (Scholten was already planning to be in the area for the Farm Aid conference and benefit concert.) What an incredible experience.

Thanks for reading or listening! Spencer and I will be back next Monday.

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I’m proud to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Click here to subscribe to our free Sunday roundup of columns from the week, and here to find our new political podcast, Iowa Down Ballot. We plan to record new podcasts weekly through the November election. Ed Tibbetts moderated the latest episode. This week’s show will be a day or two later than usual, since many of us are in Okoboji for the retreat.