Two recounts done, Ernst all in with DOGE, feds reject Iowa waivers
Nov. 25 "Capitol Week" is online
A first for me on Monday: two podcasts recorded in two hours! Simpson College invited a group of us from the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative—Dave Busiek, Bob Leonard, Douglas Burns, and me—to join Dr. Kedron Bardwell for a panel about the 2024 elections. We discussed the national and Iowa results, and the students who attended the live taping asked excellent questions. You can listen to the broadcast later this week by subscribing to Iowa Down Ballot.
Initially I didn’t think I could be on this panel, scheduled for 5:30 pm on a Monday. But Dr. Brian Steffen offered to set me up to record from Simpson College’s studio, just across the hall from the “black box” in Kent Campus Center where we held the group discussion. So I was able to join Spencer Dirks and producer Mike Murphy live from Indianola.
It was also a treat on Monday to see Dennis Hart and hear his voice in the middle of our show. Many of you know Dennis as the co-creator and original co-host of “KHOI’s Capitol Week.” He’s volunteered for KHOI for years and is one of the hosts for the “Local Talk” morning program.
If you regularly support public radio and television broadcasting—as I do—I hope you will consider becoming a member of KHOI Community Radio as well. The station provides diverse talk and music programming on a modest budget, with no advertising. And KHOI has given me a weekly platform to cover Iowa politics for nearly four years. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been invited to discuss my reporting on Iowa Public Radio or Iowa PBS.
On to our latest show! The audio file is at the top of this email. Here’s what Spencer and I discussed:
Two recounts down, two to go
It will take a while for all 20 counties to finish the recount in Iowa’s first Congressional district, where Christina Bohannan trails Mariannette Miller-Meeks by about 800 votes (49.98 percent to 49.79 percent). Only two other U.S. House races in the country haven’t been called yet. Both are in California, where some counties are extremely slow to count ballot.
Recounts are complete in two of the three state legislative races. In Senate district 20, covering eastern Polk County, the results didn’t change at all. Democratic State Senator Nate Boulton conceded to Republican Mike Pike on Friday. Boulton lost by only 44 votes out of more than 31,000 ballots cast.
In Senate district 14, covering much of Dallas County, the recount extended Democratic State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott’s lead from 24 votes to 29 votes out of nearly 41,000 ballots.
One other legislative recount is ongoing. I expect Democratic State Representative Monica Kurth to hold on in House district 98, covering part of Davenport. Neither party expected that race to be close, and I see her 45-vote lead over Nathan Ramker as a sign of how Donald Trump has helped Republicans gain ground in longtime Democratic strongholds. Assuming nothing changes, Republicans will hold 67 of the 100 Iowa House seats, up from 64 for the past two years.
More takeaways from the legislative elections
With recounts finalized, the Iowa Senate will have a 35-15 Republican majority in 2025, up from 34-16 for the past two years. Three sitting state senators—Republican Brad Zaun and Democrats Nate Boulton and Eric Giddens—lost their re-election bids. All of those races reflected the consolidation of Trump-era voting patterns: Democrats doing better in the suburbs, Republicans doing better in working-class areas.
Redistricting also played a role in all of the Senate districts that flipped. You can find all of the numbers and maps in this Bleeding Heartland post. Also worth nothing: Republicans came very close to expanding their majority in the chamber to 37-13.
I’ve been immersed in the precinct-level results from Iowa House and Senate races. By my calculations, only five House Democrats won in districts that voted for Trump: Josh Turek in Council Bluffs, JD Scholten in Sioux City, Heather Matson in Ankeny, Rick Olson on the east side of Des Moines, and Monica Kurth in Davenport. Only one Republican was elected in a district that voted for Kamala Harris: Eddie Andrews in the northwest suburbs of Des Moines.
In the Iowa Senate, Trone Garriott appears to be the only senator elected in a district that voted for the other party’s presidential candidate. But Trump barely carried Senate district 14, by less than half a point.
Other Iowa legislative news
House leaders announced committee leadership last week. The big news: Republicans are forming a new House Higher Education Committee. Taylor Collins, an ISU graduate just elected to his second term, will chair the panel, and Jeff Shipley, who went to the University of Iowa, will be vice chair.
I expect further legislation to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion at Iowa’s state universities and community colleges. Collins said he also wants to look at administrative expenses, certain degree programs that may not be practical, and tuition costs. Although the focus will be public institutions, I wouldn’t be surprised if the committee considers ways to restrict DEI at private colleges—for instance, by putting more strings on the state’s tuition tax credit.
A few other notable changes in the committee chairs: Carter Nordman will chair the Health and Human Services Committee, even though he hasn’t served on that panel before. Newly-elected lawmaker Samatha Fett, best known as a Moms for Liberty activist, will be vice chair of the House Education Committee. Also, Speaker Pat Grassley removed Tom Jeneary as head of the Natural Resources Committee, for some reason.
House and Senate Republicans made few changes in their caucus leadership earlier this month, but Senate Democrats elected Janice Weiner as their new leader last week. At Bleeding Heartland I profiled Weiner, a first-term senator from Iowa City, and included a few video clips from her speeches during Senate floor debate.
News about the Iowans in Congress
Senator Joni Ernst hopes to be a leading Congressional partner of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. As I explained in more detail here, I’m very skeptical she can come up with trillions of dollars in realistic savings for the federal government. I also consider this a risky play for Ernst, because she could be aligned with some very unpopular proposals coming out of DOGE.
On the other hand, there’s a lot of political upside for Ernst: namely, taking off the table the risk of a GOP primary challenger backed by Trump and/or funded by Musk.
Trump has not picked any Iowans for cabinet positions, but he did appoint one Iowan to a prominent role. Here are my thoughts on Matt Whitaker, who has no foreign policy or diplomacy background, becoming the U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Matt Gaetz withdrew as Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general. Senator Chuck Grassley reacted positively to the news that former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is the new pick to lead the Justice Department.
Grassley is ready to spend “a lot of time educating” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about agriculture. Good luck with that.
Ernst and Representative Ashley Hinson are downplaying prospects for mass deportations affecting immigrants who have not committed felonies. Ernst doesn’t think the mass deportations will affect Storm Lake, and Hinson suggested on “Iowa Press” that the deportations will focus on some 40,000 to 50,000 “dangerous people” among the 10 million undocumented immigrants estimated to live in the U.S. I don’t know where they are coming from on that.
Speaking of mass deportations, Iowa’s four Catholic bishops released an open letter to migrants last week “to express our solidarity with you during this stressful time.” The bishops wrote, “As your bishops, we will advocate for your just treatment and dignity within the framework of the law. The Church will accompany and serve you at this time as much as we are able.” I haven’t been able to learn many concrete details about the help that may be available. Legal services are available to immigrants in some dioceses already.
Feds reject two waiver requests from Iowa
The Cedar Rapids Gazette was first to report last week that in July, the USDA denied Iowa’s request to prohibit people from using food assistance benefits to purchase meat or egg substitutes. This concept came from a last-minute House amendment to a food labeling bill. You can read the USDA’s letter here.
In October, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service denied Iowa’s request to use federal funding for a demonstration project to provide food boxes to low-income families during the summer, rather than participating in the Summer EBT program, which provides $120 per child who qualifies for free or reduced-price school lunches. The feds noted that Summer EBT is “a proven strategy” with “demonstrated capacity” to reach eligible children. In contrast, “Summer feeding strategies which rely upon site-based distribution, while extremely valuable sources of support to those who can access them, have historically had low levels of participation by eligible children.” Governor Reynolds plans to submit the same request to the Trump administration’s USDA.
Abortions drop after Iowa’s ban goes into effect
According to the Gutmacher Institute, an estimated 250 abortions were performed in Iowa in August, the first month the state’s near-total abortion ban was in effect. Over the first six months of 2024, the state was averaging about 400 abortions a month. Planned Parenthood North Central States has seen a sharp increase in patients traveling to other states (mainly Nebraska or Minnesota) for abortion care.
It’s not clear how many Iowans have self-administered abortions after obtaining medication from online providers.
Planned Parenthood North Central States also announced last week that the organization has seen a 150 percent increase “in long-acting reversible contraception appointments scheduled since the presidential election.” Long-acting reversible contraception methods such as IUDs can be expensive and are not always covered by insurance, but they are more reliable for preventing pregnancy than hormonal birth control or barrier methods like condoms or diaphragms.
Thanks for reading or listening! I’ll be keeping my eye out for a pre-holiday weekend news dump on Wednesday afternoon. Best wishes for your Thanksgiving celebration—here are some of my favorite ways to use leftovers.
Look for Ernst and Hinson to utter a variation on the modern version of Niemöller's poem -
"We didn't think President Trump (bless his holy name!) would deport ALL of these immigrants!", cried Ernst and Hinson after they urged Iowans to vote for the Proud to Ignorantly Deport Millions President.
It looks like Ernst will spend another six unproductive years representing the people of Iowa. It seems like she will, from her interviews and statements, be Trumps and Musks lap dog.