Previewing Iowa's primary elections
June 1 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
This will be shorter than my usual recap of “KHOI’s Capitol Week.” Our producer Mike Murphy and I will record another live show at noon on Wednesday to go over the primary election results, and I will send out another post with that audio and written summary.
I will be discussing the primaries and previewing the general election campaigns with Julie Gammack on a Substack live, Wednesday at 8:00 AM. I’ll cover the same ground in person at the June 4 meeting of the Urbandale Area Democrats, and at 8:00 PM the same evening on a Zoom organized by the Grassroots Iowa Network.
On to Monday night’s edition! Spencer Dirks and I spent the whole show on the upcoming primaries.
A wild few days in the GOP race for governor
We went over President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Randy Feenstra, the latest to jump on the Zach Lahn bandwagon, new positive and negative TV ads, and Steve Deace’s betrayal of Adam Steen.
My post from Sunday covered much of the same ground in more detail.
Feenstra’s campaign has been blasting out news of the Trump endorsement through every platform. It’s a very simple closing argument: “On Friday May 29th, I was honored to have earned President Trump’s complete and total endorsement to be the next Governor of Iowa. President Trump knows that I am a proven conservative who will fight for the America First movement and keep the radical, liberal agenda out of our state.”
Closing arguments for Zach Lahn
I attended Lahn’s rally in Ankeny on Sunday, which drew more than 150 people. Apparently more than 200 showed up in West Des Moines on Friday night. He leaned heavily on the idea that he can beat Rob Sand because he is running on issues that are not partisan: young people leaving the state, family farms disappearing, public school quality dropping, and high cancer rate.
Here’s the full video, for anyone curious to see what Lahn’s about:
He’s continued to spend heavily on advertising, having loaned his campaign another $500,000 in May.
I haven’t attended a Feenstra event, because I’m not on his press list and never know where or when they are happening. Judging by photos on his social media, these have been smaller gatherings, some of them at private homes.
Closing arguments for other Republicans running for governor
Despite the cruel twist of fate for self-styled “pro-Trump Christian conservative” Adam Steen, he stuck with his “Full Steen Ahead” tour, reaching some 30 cities in the past two weeks. A non-exhaustive list of his stops this past week: Carroll, Osceola, Clear Lake, Waterloo, Fort Dodge, Sergeant Bluff, Dubuque, Council Bluffs, Tiffin, Bettendorf.
The Family Leader has spent money on digital advertising for Steen, and since Trump endorsed Feenstra, Steen’s campaign has been posting videos on social media from supporters who explain why they are still “all in” for his campaign.
Brad Sherman and Eddie Andrews don’t have as much of a budget, but they have done some events around Iowa as well. In a social media video, Sherman alluded to the competition without naming them. He said he hasn’t hidden from voters, he hasn’t taken credit for things he hasn’t done, and hasn’t been an out-of-state political operative who moved to Iowa just in time to run for governor. He said he’s been to more than 400 events in all 99 counties. He’s the only candidate who declared before Kim Reynolds said she wasn’t running, “proving I’m not afraid to stand up to the political establishment.”
Andrews has done some meet and greets and appeared on some podcasts. His campaign is posting clips from these interviews. One video particularly caught my attention: Andrews said he didn’t receive financial support from Republican leadership in his legislative races, because “I stood my ground.” He refused to change his vote on a few issues, even though that meant House leaders didn’t spend half a million dollars in his district, like they did on behalf of some colleagues.
Final thoughts on the GOP race for governor
If no candidate reaches 35 percent of the vote, the state GOP convention delegates will decide on the nominee on Saturday, June 13. I think a convention scenario is unlikely now. Steen, Andrews, and Sherman would have to combine for more than 30 percent of the vote, which is challenging when they don’t have the resources to get their closing arguments in front of many voters.
We have sometimes seen candidates backed by social conservatives outperform their polling, such as past presidential candidates Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum. Steen would have to outperform by a lot, and Feenstra and Lahn would need to be nearly tied, for both of them to finish below 35 percent.
The challenging part for Feenstra is that if you liked him you probably wouldn’t have been undecided. I don’t rule out Lahn winning this outright if undecideds break for him.
If Feenstra wins, Trump will get the credit for saving the day. The primary electorate is older, so maybe a lot of voters will hear about the president’s endorsement while watching TV.
If it does go to convention, all bets are off. The convention delegates could nominate anyone—they’re not restricted only to candidates whose names appeared on the ballot. It took several ballots to nominate David Young in the third Congressional district in 2014 and Mike Naig for secretary of agriculture in 2018. Both of them received far fewer votes than the top finisher in the primary election.
Last look at the Democratic race for U.S. Senate
We spent a couple of minutes on the Democratic primary for Senate. Josh Turek has been doing some door-knocking along with campaign events around the state. Zach Wahls did a bunch of events in eastern Iowa over the weekend and was in Des Moines on Monday.
VoteVets spending for Turek is now approaching $10 million. It’s way more than what the other two campaigns have spent combined.
Wahls continues to emphasize that Turek is the candidate preferred by Washington insiders. He says he won’t support Chuck Schumer for leader.
I wrote much more about this race today.
Closing arguments for Republicans running for Senate
U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson is heavily favored to win the GOP nomination for Senate, where she faces former State Senator Jim Carlin. We haven’t seen much polling, but a survey released on Friday morning found Hinson leading by 58 percent to 19 percent, with 23 percent undecided, or 61-22 after pushing undecideds.
I have to agree with Althea Cole of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, who mentioned on the “On Iowa Politics” podcast that Carlin should have run for the fourth Congressional district, which is open because of Feenstra running for governor.
Carlin got around 26.5 percent of the vote against Senator Chuck Grassley in 2022 and I’ll be surprised if he exceeds that today.
Hinson is running a risk-averse campaign. She hasn’t had a public town hall on the official side since last August, shortly before she announced her campaign for Senate. Her team is trying to keep non-Republicans out of her events. Her TV ad, which we discussed on the show a couple of weeks ago, conveys a general election message, not red meat for primary voters.
Carlin is running a couple of negative digital ads. One uses a clip of Hinson from 2020; during a virtual event with the LGBTQ advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools, she said she doesn’t support conversion therapy. The ad accuses Hinson of standing “with the transgender lobby,” unlike Carlin, who “wrote legislation to protect kids in classrooms and bathrooms. Ashley Hinson stands for they/them. Jim Carlin stands with the parents.”
That is ironic because Hinson frequently tries to score points with anti-trans rhetoric.
Carlin has another ad that attacks Hinson for having mostly out-of-state donations, for supporting $127 billion in aid to Ukraine, and said “the biggest backer of the CO2 pipeline” gave her more than $55,800 (to her campaign and PACs). The ad claims Hinson “works for the DC machine.”
Previewing the Republican race in IA-01
Incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks is facing primary challenger David Pautsch in Iowa’s first Congressional district. It’s a rematch from 2024; Miller-Meeks won that election by a surprisingly narrow 56 percent to 44 percent margin.
She is heavily favored to win again. She’s raised and spent many times more than Pautsch. She got Trump’s endorsement late last year and Turning Point Action’s support in mid-May. She’s an Iowa Farm Bureau PAC “friend of agriculture,” and she’s done some joint rallies with Hinson.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about her TV ad, which she described as a “general election TV ad.” It focuses on her Army service, her work as a nurse and then a doctor, and her commitment to fix the “broken” health care system.
I noticed that the Miller-Meeks campaign did put out a negative text against Pautsch, linking to a hit piece on the Iowa Field Report website, which is run by a GOP operative. The piece highlighted Pautsch having to serve 30 days in jail after he fell behind on child support.
Since Miller-Meeks didn’t go negative during the 2024 campaign, I wonder whether they got worried by their internal polling.
Pautsch is running a shoestring operation, relying on social media and text messages. They are mostly about how Miller-Meeks isn’t a real Republican and is just like her Democratic opponent Christina Bohannan.
Pautsch also sent out a text “setting the record straight” about the Miller-Meeks text: “Through her friends at the Iowa Field Report, my opponent, Rep. Miller-Meeks, tried to weaponize this ancient personal low to score cheap political points.” He said he “took full accountability, rebuilt my business, caught up on my obligations, and paid every child support payment until they concluded in 2014. I’m human, I made mistakes, and I fixed them decades ago.”
Democrats Bohannan and Terrell face off in IA-01
On the Democratic side, Christina Bohannan faces Travis Terrell, who is running on a more progressive platform.
Terrell has emphasized that he’s for universal health care (Medicare for All). He has also criticized Bohannan for refusing to debate and for saying she didn’t support impeaching Donald Trump. Terrell told a television interviewer he would support impeachment “on day one,” while Bohannan initially didn’t answer the question, then said “no” when asked if she was for impeaching Trump. He says that trying to be more like Republicans is not a way to win this district.
Bohannan has a lot of endorsements and more than $4.3 million in the bank, as of mid-May. Her argument is that she’s the candidate who can win the general election. She was one of the most overperforming Democratic candidates for U.S. House in the country in 2024, losing by around 0.2 percent in a district that Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump by about 8.5 percent.
Three Democrats running in IA-02
Both parties have competitive primaries in the second district, an open seat because Hinson is running for Senate. There’s a three-way Democratic primary between Lindsay James, Clint Twedt-Ball, and Kathy Dolter. (We discussed their televised debate on a previous show.)
James is favored but Twedt-Ball has spent more than $100,000 on TV ads. He is based in Cedar Rapids, the largest county in the district. James represents part of Dubuque.
As we’ve noted before, these candidates don’t have a big ideological difference. They distinguish themselves through their life experiences. James talks about her work as a chaplain and in the state legislature. Twedt-Ball talks about his work as a non-profit founder and leader, which allowed him to help many needy people. He also grew up in a small town and owns farmland. Dolter recalls how she has been effective in leadership, getting stuff done like starting two nursing programs.
All of the candidates spoke recently to KWWL-TV in Waterloo: you can watch here. (The segment isn’t too long.)
Joe Mitchell favored for GOP nomination in IA-02
In that second district, former State Representative Joe Mitchell is the clear favorite in the Republican primary against State Senator Charlie McClintock.
Mitchell basically drove State Representative Shannon Lundgren out of the race with his strong fundraising and endorsements from key U.S. House Republicans like Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan. In January Mitchell picked up Trump’s endorsement.
McClintock is not spending any significant amount of money. His main message is that he wants to fix the mess in Congress and “believe in a better Congress.”
Mitchell’s campaign is sitting on $877,000 cash on hand, even after repaying half of a $100,000 loan he made to his campaign last September.
He is 28 years old and has talked about bringing in a new generation. Also, as we’ve mentioned before, he is campaigning on not accepting corporate PAC money, says he is for term limits and ending the revolving door from Congress to being a lobbyist. He’s a developer and is touting that work as evidence that he knows how to build affordable housing and bring down regulations.
Both Republican candidates recently spoke to KWWL-TV; you can watch those interviews here.
Iowa Senate Republican strikes back against Mitchell
A couple of weeks ago we reported that Joe Mitchell picked a fight with senior Iowa Senate Republicans, whom he called “tax-happy.” One of those Republicans struck back with his own guest column in the Des Moines Register.
State Senator Dan Dawson, who as Ways and Means Committee chair has been the point man for property tax reform, depicted Mitchell as self-interested. I could see some of these quotes ending up in a TV ad this fall.
Self-serving concern motivates attack on property tax law | Opinion
A guest author seems to lack any real policy goals other than ensuring multi-residential properties keep the same tax rate as a family home.
Dawson wrote, “Many of my Senate colleagues and I find Joe Mitchell’s comments to be misleading, glossing over some key historical context and other relevant facts, all while displaying his own self-interest and lack of vision for real reform.”
And another: “Mitchell seems to lack any real policy goals other than ensuring multi-residential properties keep the same tax rate as a family home while still raising rents on Iowans, eroding the local town tax base, and further incentivizing the depopulation of rural Iowa. Add in housing tax credits and tax increment financing, and the Iowa taxpayer’s loss has been Mitchell’s gain.”
Not much happening in IA-03
There’s not much to say about the campaigns in the third Congressional district, where Zach Nunn is the only name on the Republican primary ballot, and Sarah Trone Garriott is the only name on the Democratic ballot.
Democrat Xavier Carrigan has been running a write-in campaign, but that rarely generates any substantial support.
A surprising election landscape in IA-04
In the fourth Congressional district, Chris McGowan is the only Republican running, but there’s a three-way Democratic primary between Ashley WolfTornabane, Stephanie Steiner, and Dave Dawson.
A year ago, I would have expected a crowded Republican field and trouble recruiting even one Democratic candidate. But McGowan raised a lot of money and got high-level endorsements, culminating in Trump. No one else even filed for the primary ballot.
On the Democratic side, JD Scholten ran in Iowa’s reddest district in 2018 and 2020, and Ryan Melton ran against Feenstra in 2022 and 2024. Melton has endorsed WolfTornabane.
Last Wednesday, AFSCME Council 61 (one of the largest public sector unions) endorsed Dawson, noting that he “has been a member of AFSCME for more than 20 years through his work as a child abuse prosecutor in the Woodbury County Attorney’s Office.”
I have no idea what will happen in the Democratic primary.
GOP race for state auditor turns negative
There aren’t many competitive races for other statewide offices. Only one Democrat and one Republican are running for attorney general, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture, and state treasurer. There is a contested GOP primary for state auditor, though, with Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer facing Iowa County Supervisor Abigail Maas. The winner will face Democrat Taylor Wettach.
Cournoyer is favored as the establishment pick. She has also raised more money and is spending around $125,000 on advertising down the home stretch. That’s something the GOP insiders’ choice for this office (Mary Ann Hanusa) did not do in 2022—and she unexpectedly lost the primary election to Todd Halbur.
Here’s one of the Cournoyer ads.
I saw an ad that talked up Cournoyer’s support for Trump’s policies, but I haven’t found it online. It made me laugh because before the 2024 caucuses, she endorsed and campaigned with Nikki Haley.
From what I hear, Maas has been all over this state at GOP gatherings. She claims to have attended hundreds of events “in nearly every county in the state.” In a May 30 Facebook post, Maas wrote, “Iowans- don’t let someone buy this election after literally doing NOTHING to meet the people. I have put in the work, answered the hard questions, and have earned many votes. The last thing we need is basement Biden politics like my Republican opponent!”
Steve Deace and some other well-known conservatives are backing Maas.
Maas’s campaign has been sending text messages and seems to have a fair amount of digital advertising. One positive ad says she will “Make auditing great again”—because as a farmer, business owner, and county supervisor, she has balanced budgets.
Maas also made a 15-second negative ad attacking Cournoyer as “liberal”--there’s a picture of Cournoyer wearing a mask, and a clip from a virtual event she did with Iowa Safe Schools in 2020. They asked her to name her favorite drag queen and she said Sharon Needles.
It’s sad to see how stirring up fear and loathing of LGBTQ people is the go-to play for so many Republicans, even for an office like state auditor, which should have nothing to do with culture wars.
That’s all for now! Mike Murphy and I will be back on the air Wednesday at noon.