An Absurdly Early Look at the 2012 House Races in Iowa

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

The U.S. Census Bureau confirmed this week that Iowa will lose a Congressional district following the 2010 census unless we experience unprecedented (for Iowa) population growth in the next two years:

During the past eight years, Iowa has gained as many people – about 76,000 – as states like South Carolina and Virginia gained between 2007 and 2008 alone.

To retain the congressional seat, the state would have to gain nearly twice that number by 2010, according to projections by Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that analyzes the impact of demographics on politics.

So, Iowa will be left with four Congressional districts. No one knows what the new map will look like, but it’s likely that the 2012 race in the new third district will determine whether Iowa Democrats (who now hold a 3-2 edge in U.S. House seats) gain a 3-1 advantage or have to settle for a 2-2 split.  

Note: A non-partisan commission draws up the new Congressional map after each census in Iowa, so Democratic gerrymanders will not take place, even if Governor Chet Culver wins re-election in 2010 and Democrats hold their majorities in the state House and Senate.

However, if the Democrats maintain control of the legislature, they have the option of rejecting the first and/or second map produced by the non-partisan commission. Republicans in the Iowa legislature rejected the first map proposed after the last census.

Most of what’s now the fifth district, represented by Republican incumbent Steve “10 Worst” King, is likely to become the new fourth district. It makes no difference whether the new counties added to IA-04 come from the current third or fourth districts–that is going to be a safe Republican seat.

Given the voting trends in eastern Iowa, I assume the new first and second Congressional districts will still be relatively safe for Democrats. (Remember, fewer than 10 Republicans in the whole country represent districts with any kind of Democratic partisan lean.) Either Bruce Braley or Dave Loebsack may need to move if the new map throws Waterloo (Black Hawk County) in the same district as Mount Vernon (Linn County), but that should not present much of a problem.

The big question mark is what happens to IA-03. Polk County will remain the largest county in the district, but it won’t be as dominant in the new district as it is now. A majority of the votes in the current third district come from the county containing Des Moines and most of its suburbs.

In which direction will IA-03 expand? If the counties added to it come mostly from the southwest, Republicans will have a better chance of winning the district. One reason Greg Ganske beat longtime incumbent Neal Smith in the 1994 landslide was that Smith’s fourth district had lost Story and Jasper counties, and gained a lot of southwestern Iowa counties, following the 1990 census.

If IA-03 includes more counties from the southeast, Democrats would be better positioned to hold the seat, although it’s worth remembering that Ottumwa resident Mariannette Miller-Meeks carried seven southern counties in her unsuccessful challenge to Loebsack in IA-02 this year.

Speaking at an Iowa Politics forum in Des Moines last month, Miller-Meeks said she was leaving her ophthalmology practice at the end of 2008. She strongly suggested that she will run for office again. Whether that means another bid for Congress or a run for the state legislature was unclear.

Miller-Meeks has little chance of winning a district as strongly Democratic as IA-02, but I could easily see her taking on Leonard Boswell if Wapello County ends up in IA-03 after the next census. The Des Moines Register has endorsed Boswell’s challengers before and would back any credible Republican opponent against him.

The Republicans’ best chance in a third district stretching to the south, though, would be to run someone with strong Polk County connections to keep down the Democratic margins there. I don’t have any idea which Republicans have their eye on this race.

If IA-03 expands to the north, it’s good news and bad news for Democrats. Story County and Marshall County are reasonably strong territory for the party. On the down side, current fourth district incumbent Tom Latham lives in Story County. Latham is a mediocre Republican back-bencher; what else can you say about a seven-term incumbent whose big achievement on health care, according to his own campaign, was co-sponsoring a bill that never made it out of committee?

However, Latham has obviously used his position on the Appropriations Committee to build up a lot of goodwill in the district. He just won re-election by 21 points in a district Barack Obama carried by 8 percent, and he even carried Story County.

I don’t care to run Boswell or a non-incumbent Democrat (in the event of Boswell’s retirement) against Latham in a redrawn IA-03. I’m not saying Democrats couldn’t hold the seat in those circumstances, but I feel it would be a tough hold.

We would be better off electing a new, ambitious Democrat to Iowa’s third district in 2010, so we can run a rising star in the majority party against Latham, if it comes to that. Actually, we’d have been better off if Boswell had retired in 2008, allowing someone new to compete for this seat as a two-term Democratic incumbent in 2012. But what’s done is done.

Anyone think there’s a chance Boswell will reconsider his promise to run for re-election in 2010?

If Democrats still control the state legislature after 2010, should they reject the first new Congressional map suggested by the non-partisan commission if that map puts Story County in IA-03?

What kind of map would give Democrats the best chance of holding the third district?

I look forward to reading your absurdly early speculation about the 2012 races in the comments.

For those who are interested in the national implications of the post-census reapportionment, DavidNYC created a chart showing which states are likely to gain or lose Congressional districts.

Chris Bowers has already created a 2012 electoral college map, and even with one fewer electoral vote, Iowa will remain important to Obama’s re-election chances. You should click over and read the whole post yourself, but the good news is that Obama has a clear path to 270 electoral votes in 2012 even if he loses Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.

UPDATE: Iowa blogger John Deeth looked ahead to the 2012 Iowa races in this post last week. He concluded that in order to win three out of the four Congressional districts, Iowa Democrats will need to 1) beat Latham in 2010, and 2) get Boswell to retire in 2012. Click over to read how he reached that conclusion.  

27 thoughts on “An Absurdly Early Look at the 2012 House Races in Iowa”

  1. Good to hear that the democratic legislature might have some input in the process by being able to reject a map or two.  That should help.

    Do you think Boswell is even likely to run by 2012?  He’s a bit old and not in the best health.  I could see him just retiring if the new 3rd district isn’t very favorable to him.

  2. Means Iowa’s loss. Damn. Hopefully, it’ll at least be an “even trade” in losing IA-03 to gain a likely NV-04 that perhaps stretches from Washoe County (Reno) & Carson City down to Nye County (Pahrump) & outer Clark County (Vegas exurbs).

    But anyways, back to Iowa. I’m really hoping we can find a way to pick up that NV-04 seat in 2012 while also holding onto a newly configured IA-03. Is Boswell not open to rethinking retirement in 2010? And do we have a good bench in the area?

  3. 1.  Jeff Lamberti (2006 candidate), Robert Brownell (Polk County Supervisor), Michael Mahaffey (1996 candidate for old 3rd district), would be good 2010 Repub candidates.  I am not sure about Miller-Meeks ever getting anywhere near Congress, I think she is way overrated by the Iowa blogosphere.

    2.  I agree Boswell should retire, doesn’t look like he will anytime soon, though.   There is not an obvious successor, although I know a lot of people who would like to try.  Former Lt. Gov. Peterson or John Norris would probably get my vote.

    3.  Good comment about rejecting the map.  Many don’t know Repulicans rejected the first 2002 map, which would have put Boswell’s farm in a safe D district containing Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, and would have created a competitive district with Des Moines, Ames, and surrounding suburbs.  The map subsequently adopted slashed the Des Moines metro area into pieces, but worked very well for R incumbents (at least until 2006).

  4. Currently, an Iowa with four House seats will have districts with an average of 747,012 people.  Working offf of District 1 (Braley) and 2 (Loebsack) as anchors here would be one scenario of how it might play out (roughly).

    Braley’s counties have a population of 586,879.  Loebsack’s counties have a population of 608,267.

    For Braley:

    Add Allomakee, Wyneshiak, Chickasaw, Howard, Mitchell, Floyd and Grundy, Monroe, Benton, Iowa, Keokuk for a population of 746,010.  Adjust depending on population growth from 2007 to 2010.

    For Loebsack:

    Add Lucas, Marion, Poweshiak, Jasper, Maheska, Clarke, and Union.  This district is a little large at 750,719.  

    What’s left for the 3/4 battle is one county from Boswell that will still provide the majority of the district’s population: Polk (418,339).  The remaining 320,000 will come from Latham’s district.

    King’s will have to grow substantially to make it’s quota.  Add at least 160,000 and probably more.  It will probably be more moderate but contain enough Republicans to re-elect the guy with his vote down to the high 50% range (57-59%).

  5. The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states.  Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia).  Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground” states..  Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.  Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.  Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.

    Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.

    In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.

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