November 7 edition of "Capitol Week" is online

Trump's Sioux City rally and pre-election roundup

Happy election eve! I didn’t finish most of the campaign coverage I had planned for Bleeding Heartland over the weekend, because I got sidetracked chasing down a story about Gannett using the Des Moines Register’s plant to print fake newspapers for a conservative network in Illinois. But I will post about Iowa House and Senate races to watch tomorrow, so you might want to check the front page of the website for that.

Also, for those following the battle for control of the U.S. Senate, my occasional guest author Dan Guild went over the state of play, and the sometimes contradictory poll findings on key races.

Back to the matter at hand: Dennis Hart and I were on the air as usual from 7:00 to 7:30 pm on Monday.

We are set to do an hour-long live show starting at 9:00 pm on election night to discuss the early returns in Iowa. In addition, KHOI is giving us an hour on Wednesday, November 9, starting at noon, to recap what happened in Iowa’s federal, statewide, and noteworthy state legislative races.

You can find the audio files for any episode of “Capitol Week” on this page. Here’s the November 7 edition:

What Dennis and I covered in the latest show:

• Donald Trump’s rally for Republicans in Sioux City last Thursday (the focus of his remarks, with thoughts about why the event was held in northwest Iowa);

• Highlights from Selzer & Co’s new Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, which showed Senator Chuck Grassley above the 50 percent mark and enjoying a 12-point lead over Mike Franken;

• The Iowa Poll findings on the governor’s race, where Governor Kim Reynolds’ 17-point lead over Deidre DeJear was unchanged;

• The Iowa Poll results on the attorney general race, suggesting Democratic incumbent Tom Miller leads Brenna Bird by just 2 points (I doubt public opinion has dramatically shifted over the past several weeks);

• Why I don’t put any stock in the generic ballot numbers the Des Moines Register releases for each of Iowa’s four U.S. House districts;

• Fundraising and spending in some of the statewide races; Bird is outspending Miller in the attorney general race, and State Auditor Rob Sand is leaving nothing to chance, still spending heavily against his under-funded challenger Todd Halbur;

• An overview of the races near the top of the ballot, starting with the U.S. Senate and U.S. House races (I mentioned how much candidates and outside groups are spending on each of the Congressional races and what the absentee ballot numbers look like in the House districts);

• What the Polk County results, which tend to come in early, will tell us about the IA-03 race between Democratic incumbent Cindy Axne and GOP challenger Zach Nunn;

• An Iowa political mystery: GOP Representative Randy Feenstra was a no-show at Trump’s rally in his district last week. If you know why he stayed away, please leave a comment or send me a confidential message (laurabelin@substack.com);

• The themes and images in Kim Reynolds’ closing campaign ad; due to KHOI’s non-commercial license, I am unable to editorialize on the air, but I had much more to say about this spot over at Bleeding Heartland;

• Whether Reynolds would have been vulnerable against a better-funded challenger;

• A quick look at the race for secretary of state;

• A quick look at the attorney general campaign;

• What’s going on in the state treasurer’s race, where the loser may have some regrets about missed opportunities. State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald hasn’t raised or spent as much money as I would expect for someone facing a well-funded challenger, and GOP candidate Roby Smith could have benefited from more financial help from Reynolds and the state Republican Party;

• The state auditor’s race, where the GOP establishment is doing absolutely nothing to help their nominee Halbur;

• A quick look at the race for secretary for agriculture;

• Why we’ll be watching some central Iowa state legislative races closely Tuesday night, especially the Dallas County contests in Senate district 14 and House district 28;

• How the absentee ballot numbers look now, compared to this point in the 2018 campaign.

Thanks for listening and reading! A reminder to Iowans: polls are open from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm on Tuesday. That closing time is an hour earlier than what people may remember, because of a law Republicans enacted in 2021.

Don’t forget to bring some form of ID and (if you’ve moved since the last election) some proof of address. This post lists what kinds of paper or electronic documents are allowed for Iowans to verify their identity and address for voting.

If you have an absentee ballot sitting at home, do not mail it! It will arrive too late to be counted. You will need to hand-deliver the envelope to your county auditor’s office before 8:00 pm on Tuesday, or bring it to your polling place on Tuesday, where you can “surrender” the absentee ballot and vote with a regular ballot.

Don’t forget to sign the affidavit envelope before dropping off an absentee ballot.