Iowa recounts, early Trump picks, Ann Selzer's departure
Nov. 18 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
Although the election happened two weeks ago, some Iowa races have yet to be called, and I’m still working my way through projects that will explain what happened and why. You can find those at Bleeding Heartland, using the “lessons of 2024” tag.
Meanwhile, the incoming presidential administration is generating lots of news daily.
and I will never run out of topics to discuss.Before I get to our November 18 program, a small favor to ask: if you are able, please consider supporting KHOI radio with a membership donation. It’s been nearly four years since the station let Dennis Hart and me launch a weekly show, and I’ve enjoyed the experience. KHOI also broadcasts a diverse range of talk and music programming not available anywhere else in Iowa.
The sound file for my November 18 show with Spencer is at the top of this message. Here’s the rundown of what we covered. You can also subscribe to “KHOI’s Capitol Week” on any podcast platform. The full archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.
Recounts coming in four races
Two Democrats and two Republicans have requested recounts in close races. In the first Congressional district, Christina Bohannan trails Mariannette Miller-Meeks by 801 votes. I posted the breakdown by county here. During the show, I explained why there is no realistic chance of the recount changing the outcome. Zachary Oren Smith’s interview with Professor Derek Muller is worth a listen in this context: find that in the first episode of Iowa Starting Line’s new podcast, Cornhole Champions.
Republican Mark Hanson asked for a recount in Iowa Senate district 14, where he is 24 votes behind State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott. Normally I would not expect a recount to add more than one or two votes to either candidate’s total. There would have to be some major tabulation error in Dallas County for Hanson to come out ahead.
Democratic State Senator Nate Boulton is 44 votes behind Mike Pike in Iowa Senate district 20. This one’s even more of a long-shot, because the total number of ballots cast is smaller, and the race happened in Polk County. I’ve seen several recounts of Polk County legislative elections, and the results never change by any significant amount.
Every two years, some Iowa legislative race no one thought would be competitive ends up being very close. This year, it’s House district 98 in Scott County. Republican Nathan Ramker has little chance of overtaking State Representative Monica Kurth’s 45-vote lead—but the Scott County auditor’s office has had some big problems with counting votes recently, so who knows?
Iowa House and Senate Republicans elect leaders
Republicans are on track to have the largest state legislative majorities of my lifetime, so not surprisingly, they mostly stuck with their current leadership teams. There were a few changes, which I covered in more detail at Bleeding Heartland.
The third-ranking Iowa Senate Republican will now be Ken Rozenboom, since Brad Zaun lost his re-election bid.
Incidentally, Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair is still next in line to be governor, until Governor Kim Reynolds selects a new lieutenant governor. I haven’t been able to find out when that announcement is coming. One name floating around has been Kraig Paulsen, the former Iowa House speaker who is now the state’s budget director.
Iowa angles on Donald Trump’s early cabinet picks
We talked about President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to fill positions through recess appointments, rather than going through regular order in the U.S. Senate. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst haven’t said much publicly about this plan, and as usual, I wasn’t able to listen to the conference call Grassley held with a select group of Iowa reporters. But Grassley has indicated that the Senate Judiciary Committee will go through the normal process of vetting nominees.
Some of the most controversial picks will be considered by the Judiciary Committee, including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Trump’s choice (not yet announced) to lead the FBI.
Spencer and I also talked about how Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for Health and Human Services could affect the agriculture sector, and Ernst’s comments about Pete Hegseth, whom Trump picked to lead the Pentagon.
Iowans miss out on Senate, House leadership roles
Ernst has been part of Senate GOP leadership since shortly after the 2018 election, but her colleagues chose Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas instead of Ernst for the third-ranking leadership position going forward.
On the House side, Representative Ashley Hinson did not put her name in for the GOP conference chair position, which her good friend Elise Stefanik will soon vacate. However, Miller-Meeks was one of three candidates for the sixth-ranking leadership job, GOP conference secretary. I was intrigued by her “Dear colleague” letter, which indicated Miller-Meeks is already worried about the “tough road” facing members from swing districts during the 2026 election cycle.
No uniformity on counting challenged ballots
It’s not yet clear how many Iowans on Secretary of State Paul Pate’s secret list of suspected non-citizens attempted to vote in the general election, and how many of those ballots were counted. We do know there was no consistency in how counties approached this matter. In Polk County, the board charged with reviewing absentee ballots unanimously agreed to count all of the provisional ballots, but in Dallas County, those ballots were counted only if naturalized citizens jumped through additional hoops.
In Warren County, one naturalized citizen was forced to cast a provisional ballot, even though she provided proof of citizenship at her polling place.
A lawsuit challenging Pate’s last-minute directive to county auditors failed to block this policy from being enforced this year, but I expect litigation to continue.
Ann Selzer steps back from election polling
The Des Moines Register announced on Sunday that Ann Selzer will step away from her longtime role conducting the Iowa Poll. Spencer and I talked about some of the possible reasons Selzer’s final poll was so far off the mark.
I avoid editorializing during “Capitol Week,” but at Bleeding Heartland I had much more to say about the coordinated effort to impugn Selzer’s integrity, led by the man who’s been running the Republican Party of Iowa for a decade.
More takes on Iowa’s election results
I wanted to flag for listeners a fascinating piece Matthew Thornburg wrote for Bleeding Heartland about the “muted impact of CO2 pipeline politics” in the fourth Congressional district race. He found Representative Randy Feenstra ran slightly ahead of Trump on average across the district. But in the precincts along the proposed route of Summit Carbon Solutions’ CO2 pipeline, Feenstra received a slightly lower vote share. The difference was more pronounced in O’Brien County, where Feenstra’s GOP primary opponent Kevin Virgil lives.
Spencer and I spent the last several minutes talking about my deep dive on Democratic woes in Iowa’s mid-sized cities. I think this is one of the most important political stories of the past decade. Changing voting patterns in places like Clinton, Fort Dodge, Ottumwa, Burlington, and Newton are a big reason Republicans have expanded their legislative majorities. The “micropolitan” counties also allowed Miller-Meeks to win a third term despite the huge Democratic turnout in Johnson County and Bohannan’s over performance across the first Congressional district.
Thanks for reading or listening! Spencer and I will be back next Monday. Maybe we’ll have a new lieutenant governor by then.
An impressive summary of the political scene in Iowa -- presented as a snapshot. Listening to Laura Belin's fair, balanced and thorough discussion points made me think of a time when so much of the state and country sat with family members to listen to the news together.