Author: desmoinesdem

Just a quick hit diary to pass along this Politico report by Jonathan Martin:

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has told associates he will announce this week that he won’t seek a third term in 2010, POLITICO has learned. […]

Doyle’s office did not respond to POLITICO’s inquiries, but subsequently issued a one-sentence statement to Wisconsin reporters indicating that the governor would make an announcement Monday about his intentions.

With Doyle retiring, a slew of Wisconsin Democrats are likely to consider the race. That list is topped by Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who has already indicated she would run if Doyle does not and who would be the state’s first female governor.

Martin goes on to speculate that Lawton may be able to run as an incumbent if President Obama brings Doyle into the administration. Doyle endorsed Obama during the primaries.

So, what does everyone think? Is this going to be an easier hold with Doyle out? He wasn’t our most endangered incumbent governor by any means, but there were some worrying signs. Last month Swing State Project downgraded this race to lean Dem.

Less than three months after saying he would not run against Governor Chet Culver next year, former four-term governor Terry Branstad (1983-1999) now tells the Des Moines Register he is “not ruling it out.” Moreover,

Branstad is accepting invitations to meet with party activists. Two weeks ago, he met with about 50 political and business leaders at the Alden home of Bruce Rastetter, an influential Republican fundraiser and ethanol industry executive.

New calls for Branstad’s candidacy, and encouraging words from key donors such as West Des Moines developer Gary Kirke, underscore a growing feeling in his party that Democrat Gov. Chet Culver is vulnerable as he finishes his first term and that the emerging GOP field lacks a contender who can beat him.

A recent poll commissioned by The Iowa Republican blog found Branstad leading Culver 53-37, while Culver leads the other two best-known Republican gubernatorial candidates. Culver brings a lot of strengths to the re-election campaign, and his approval and favorability numbers weren’t bad in that Republican poll, but Branstad appears to be a stronger candidate than the declared contenders.

Branstad isn’t guaranteed a smooth path to the Republican nomination, though.

A Branstad candidacy would force some of the lesser-known Republicans from the race, but the current front-runner Bob Vander Plaats is signaling that he would stay in. He plays to the social conservative constituency that saved Branstad’s bacon in his tough 1994 primary against then-Congressman Fred Grandy.

I think there would be a niche for a third candidate who might emphasize Vander Plaats’ poor general election prospects and Branstad’s record of fiscal mismanagement as governor. When voters are reminded that Branstad kept two sets of books to enable him to run deficits, he will look less appealing as an alternative to Culver, under whom Iowa has a gold star bond rating.

Many Iowa Republicans deeply distrust Doug Gross, the 2002 gubernatorial nominee who was a top aide to Branstad and has been shopping for a candidate to support all year. An opinion poll Gross commissioned on behalf of the Iowa First Foundation in March sparked the Branstad for governor rumors.

Businessmen Bruce Rastetter and Gary Kirke, who are fueling the Branstad recruitment efforts, are big Republican players but not without controversy in Iowa GOP circles either. Rastetter gave a lot of money to Republican candidates in 2008 and may have been involved in a group running ads against Culver. But he also gave Culver’s campaign committee $25,000 in 2007, as did Kirke. Rastetter gave the maximum allowable contribution to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, and we all remember how highly Iowa Republicans thought of Rudy.

I do not think that rank and file Republicans are going to sit back and let these kingmakers choose Branstad as their candidate against Culver. Then again, I still think Branstad is not going to run for governor, so I could be proven wrong.

In other news on the GOP race for governor, Jason Hancock wrote a good piece for Iowa Independent on the pros and cons of a competitive Republican primary. I tend to agree with Republicans who think a tough primary will help the GOP by generating media buzz and starting to close the voter registration gap with Iowa Democrats (now around 114,000). On the other hand, there’s a chance that harsh infighting could damage the eventual nominee. The most disastrous outcome for Republicans is still John Deeth’s dream of Vander Plaats winning the nomination at a state convention. A Branstad candidacy would eliminate that possibility.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Iowans in House district 90 will elect a new state representative in a special election on September 1, and the Republican candidate appears to be planning to make same-sex marriage a major campaign issue.

The seat opened up when State Representative John Whitaker, a Democrat, accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Republicans didn’t even run a candidate against Whitaker in 2008, but Iowa House district 90 has been competitive in the recent past. The southeastern Iowa district contains all of Van Buren County and parts of Wapello and Jefferson counties, including the Fairfield area (home to Maharishi University and the so-called “Silicorn Valley”).

The Democratic candidate for the special election is Curt Hanson, a retired driver’s education teacher who has won various teaching awards. Hanson plans to campaign on bread-and-butter issues: jobs, health care, education, and balancing the budget.

The Republican candidate is Jefferson County supervisor Steve Burgmeier. His name rang a bell for me because the Jefferson County supervisors made a show of posturing against same-sex marriage on April 27, the day the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling went into effect. Burgmeier and his colleagues passed a resolution calling on Iowa legislators to take a stand against same-sex marriage. Since the Iowa Legislature had just adjourned for the year on April 26, the resolution served no purpose other than to put Burgmeier and on record loudly opposing marriage equality. He was probably planning to run for the legislature even before Whitaker’s seat opened up; a Republican Bleeding Heartland commenter had been recruiting Burgmeier to run next year in Iowa Senate district 45 (one of the GOP’s better pickup opportunities in the upper chamber).

Burgmeier’s press release announcing his candidacy for Iowa House district 90 highlighted two issues: cutting government spending and giving Iowans “a right to vote on the definition of marriage.” This is the new politically-correct Republican messaging. Instead of acknowledging that they want to write discrimination into the Iowa Constitution, Republicans say, “Iowans deserve the right to vote” on a marriage amendment, as if we were in the habit of subjecting minority rights to a majority vote in this country.

Republicans would like to win this special election for many reasons, not least to fire up their base about the potential to demagogue against committed same-sex Iowa couples next year. Democrats hold a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House. House Speaker Pat Murphy strongly supported the Varnum v Brien ruling and has made clear he will block efforts to bring a marriage amendment to the House floor.

You can donate to Curt Hanson’s campaign by clicking here. A strong volunteer effort will be crucial in this low-turnout special election, so if you live within striking distance of southeast Iowa, please consider volunteering for Hanson’s campaign before September 1.

Survey USA released a new batch of approval ratings for governors based on polls taken June 16. Iowa’s Chet Culver was at 42 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval. The previous SUSA poll in Iowa, taken in late April, found similar numbers for Culver: 42 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval.

CORRECTION: I did not realize that SUSA also conducted a poll in late May, which showed somewhat better numbers for Culver: 48 approve, 47 disapprove.

Probably this is just statistical noise, and Culver’s support is somewhere in the 40s. Alternatively, if you have some hypothesis that would explain why the governor’s support rose in May but dropped by mid-June, please post a comment.

Click here to see all of SUSA’s approval numbers for Culver since he became governor.

It would be nice if some other polling firm released a new Iowa survey soon.

Having noticed that Culver’s SUSA numbers bounced up last May and June after being in net negative territory from February through April 2008, I wondered whether a “legislative session effect” might have dragged him down from February through April of this year. Either that was not the case, or the weaker economy this year has prevented the governor from getting a post-session bounce.

Approval ratings in the low 40s are outside the comfort zone for an incumbent, but I wouldn’t hit the panic button yet. SUSA has tended to measure Culver’s support at lower levels than some other pollsters, and most governors have seen their approval ratings slip during the past year, presumably because of the economy and the fiscal problems affecting almost every state.

I couldn’t find any breakdown of Culver’s support among Democrats, Republicans and independents either at this site or on Survey USA’s site. If anyone has those numbers, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com). I still think a large number of Democrats and independents who may not “approve” of Culver would choose him in a heartbeat over Chris Rants or Bob Vander Plaats, who are most committed to running for governor.

We’ll have a better idea of the governor’s re-election prospects when we see polling of head-to-head matchups with potential Republican challengers. Some of the Republicans considering this race would be stronger than others in terms of personal appeal or fundraising (though Culver will probably be able to outspend even the best GOP fundraisers).

Finally, keep in mind that despite ups and downs in the economy, Iowa hasn’t voted an incumbent governor out of office since 1962.

Share any thoughts about Culver’s chances or the GOP gubernatorial primary in this thread. Who has the potential to overcome Vander Plaats’ head start on campaigning? Can Rants reinvent himself as a likable politician? Who would benefit from a more crowded Republican field? Will the GOP primary be negative enough to do lasting damage to the eventual nominee?

Final note: Swing State Project currently considers the Iowa governor’s race to be safe D. I would rate it as likely D, and the Culver-skeptic contingent at Bleeding Heartland would probably argue for a lean D rating.

Former Iowa GOP chairman Mike Mahaffey told CQ Politics that he is thinking about running against Representative Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third Congressional district next year. (Hat tip to WHO-TV’s Dave Price.) Boswell barely defeated Mahaffey in his first bid for Congress in 1996.

CQ Politics highlights a big obstacle for Mahaffey if he runs:

A Boswell-Mahaffey rematch after a 14-year hiatus would also take place on quite different turf from their first race. The 3rd District in 1996 was located mainly in southern Iowa and was heavily rural; Boswell was aided in that race by the fact that he had spent his life outside of politics in farming. But redistricting, performed in a non-partisan procedure in Iowa, move the district’s boundaries north and east to take in the state capital of Des Moines, to which Boswell relocated from his rural hometown.

It will take a lot to convince me that Mahaffey, a small-town lawyer and part-time Poweshiek County attorney, poses a serious threat to Boswell in a district dominated by Polk County. So far IA-03 doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s list of competitive U.S. House districts, even though the DCCC still has Boswell in the Frontline program.

Note: Iowa Democrats will almost certainly be able to block any constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if they retain control of either the Iowa House or Senate in 2010.

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson argued earlier this month that “Iowa Republicans Have Plenty of Opportunity in the State Senate” in 2010. The GOP has almost nowhere to go but up. Republicans currently hold 18 of the 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, fewer than at any previous time in this state’s history. After making gains in the last four general elections, Democrats now hold 19 of the 25 Iowa Senate seats that will be on the ballot in 2010. Also, several Democratic incumbents are in their first term, having won their seats during the wave election of 2006.

To win back the upper chamber, Republicans would need a net gain of seven seats in 2010, and Robinson lists the seven districts where he sees the best chances for the GOP.

I generally agree with John Deeth’s view that only a few Senate districts are strong pickup opportunities for Republicans next year. Winning back the upper chamber will take the GOP at least two cycles, with redistricting likely to create who knows how many open or winnable seats in 2012.

After the jump I’ll examine the seven Iowa Senate districts Robinson views as worthwhile targets as well as one Republican-held district that Democrats should be able to pick up. Here is a map (pdf file) of the current Iowa Senate districts.

I’ll address these districts in the same order Robinson presents them, starting with the longest of the long-shots.

7. Like Robinson (but for different reasons), I would love to see wingnut Bill Salier challenge Senator Amanda Ragan in district 7 (Cerro Gordo County). Democrats have a big voter registration edge, and Ragan won re-election in 2006 with more than 70 percent of the vote. Crushing Salier would be particularly sweet, because it would show that Iowans are not interested in electing someone who’s done little lately besides speak out against same-sex marriage. I doubt Salier would take on this challenge. He seems more interested in threatening to support primary challengers against mainstream Republicans he views as insufficiently committed to overturning the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Varnum v Brien.

6. Robinson thinks Steve Warnstadt is vulnerable in Senate District 1 (Woodbury County) because the Democrats representing the two Iowa House districts in this Senate district only won by narrow margins in 2008. He thinks either of the Republican candidates who almost won House races in 2008 would be strong challengers to Warnstadt. Don’t get your hopes up, Republicans. In 2008 the Obama campaign’s GOTV was extremely weak in western Iowa, leading to poor Democratic turnout in Woodbury County and elsewhere in the fifth Congressional district. Don’t count on the Iowa Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign repeating this mistake in 2010.

5. Robinson would like to see Mariannette Miller-Meeks take on Senator Keith Kreiman in district 47 (Wapello, Wayne, Appanoose, Davis Counties). I actually agree with him that Miller-Meeks has a better chance of getting elected to the statehouse someday than of beating Dave Loebsack in the Democratic-leaning second Congressional district. However, I don’t see her beating Kreiman, who won his district in 2006 by almost a 2-1 margin. Miller-Meeks would do better to run for an open Iowa House or Senate seat. Anyway, after seeing her speak at an Iowa Politics forum in Des Moines late last year, I got the impression that she plans to run for Congress again.

4. Robinson thinks Staci Appel is vulnerable in district 37 (Warren and Madison Counties) because she won by only 772 votes in 2006 despite “raising massive amounts of money […] She is also the wife of Iowa Supreme Court Justice Brent Appel, adding a unique twist to her re-election campaign.” State Representative Kent Sorenson would be the perfect candidate against Appel, having upset Mark Davitt in House district 74 in 2008: “An Appel/Sorenson race would be ground zero for the debate on gay marriage in Iowa.” To which I say, bring it on. Let the Republicans run Sorenson, who has endorsed Bob Vander Plaats for governor and whose clerk erroneously told the Warren County recorder that she did not need to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. Then let Appel talk about her many achievements during her first term in the Senate.

Another reason I would welcome this challenge is that it would open up House district 74. House Democrats were caught napping in 2008; they didn’t hire a campaign manager to focus on Davitt’s re-election, and he wasn’t the hardest-working incumbent in terms of voter contacts. We should be able to win back the district with a Democrat willing to pound the pavement and knock on doors–especially if Sorenson vacates the seat to challenge Appel.

3. Now we’re getting to the more realistic pickup opportunities for Iowa Republicans. Democratic Senator Rich Olive won district 5 (Wright, Hamilton, Story Counties) by only 62 votes in 2006. Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in the district. Even though Olive is not particularly liberal, Iowa Democrats will need to work hard to hold this district.

2. If Republicans can convince former State Senator Sandy Greiner to run against Becky Schmitz in district 45 (Washington, Wapello, Jefferson, Van Buren Counties), I agree with Robinson that this would be a very competitive race. Schmitz won narrowly in 2006 and is in her first term.

1. I don’t share Robinson’s opinion that former State Representative Bill Dix would be a particularly strong challenger to Bill Heckroth in district 9 (Butler, Bremer, Black Hawk, Fayette Counties). That said, Heckroth is a freshman and Republicans have a registration edge, so defending this seat will be high on the Iowa Democrats’ agenda.

Generally speaking, recruiting strong Senate candidates won’t be easy for Republicans, because the party is perceived to have a much better chance of retaking the Iowa House. Life in the minority isn’t much fun.

With only six Republican-held Iowa Senate seats up for grabs in 2010, there’s not much room for Iowa Democrats to make further gains in the upper chamber. It goes without saying that we should leave no Republican unchallenged, but most of the Republican incumbents will cruise. Deeth thinks Republicans may need to play defense in Senate district 35. I am less optimistic. Democrats had a strong and well-known candidate in 2006, former Ankeny Mayor Merle Johnson. The party spent a lot of money in the district, but Johnson lost to Larry Noble by more than 1,200 votes.

Instead, I would encourage the Iowa Democratic Party to make a major play for Senate district 41 (Scott County), held by David Hartsuch of Bettendorf. Here’s why:

1. Hartsuch is a first-term incumbent who won by only 436 votes in 2006.

2. Since then, Democratic voter registration has grown significantly in Scott County.  

3. A lot of moderate Republicans dislike Hartsuch because he defeated the well-regarded incumbent Maggie Tinsman in the 2006 GOP primary.

4. He is a polarizing figure. It’s fine to be a Steve King sound-alike if you represent a heavily Republican district, but Hartsuch doesn’t.

5. Deeth says of Hartsuch, “His failed Congressional bid [in 2008] may have helped his name ID, but not necessarily in a good way.” That’s putting it mildly.

Compare the results from the 2006 and 2008 elections in Iowa’s first Congressional district.  You can find them, along with the results of the state legislative elections from that year, on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. Both years the Republicans nominated a candidate from Scott County. Bruce Braley won the district with about 55.1 percent of the vote against businessman Mike Whalen in 2006.

Now look at how Hartsuch underperformed in 2008. IA-01 has a partisan voter index of D+4, meaning that in a typical year we would expect it to vote about 4 percent more Democratic than the country as a whole. In 2008 Democratic candidates averaged 56 percent of the vote in U.S. House races, so we would expect Braley to win about 60 percent of the vote given the lean of the district. In fact, he won 64.6 percent against Hartsuch. Granted, Democratic turnout tends to be higher in a presidential year, and Braley turned out to be remarkably effective for a first-term Congressman. Still, Hartsuch’s performance was underwhelming.

Hartsuch didn’t look particularly strong in his home base of Scott County either. Whalen kept it close in Scott County in 2006, winning about 25,142 votes in the county to 29,465 for Braley. In 2008 it was a blowout, with Braley beating Hartsuch by 49,732 to 32,766 votes in this county. I did not look up the precinct-level results for the Congressional voting; presumably Hartsuch did somewhat better in the precincts that are in Iowa Senate district 41. Still, he doesn’t look like a hometown favorite to me.

I have no idea who would be the ideal Democratic candidate against Hartsuch in 2010. Hartsuch’s opponent in 2006 was Phyllis Thede, who went on to defeat Republican incumbent Jamie Van Fossen in Iowa House district 81 in 2008. As much as I like Thede, I would prefer not to leave any of our Democratic-held House seats open next year. There must be another good Democrat in Scott County who could beat Hartsuch.

UPDATE: On May 21 Republican attorney and former State Senator Chuck Larson of Cedar Rapids said he’s not running for governor either.

Iowa Governor Chet Culver’s approval numbers have declined since the start of the year, but Republicans aren’t exactly beating down the doors to run against him. Earlier this month former Republican Governor Terry Branstad and Vermeer Corporation chief executive Mary Andringa both quashed speculation that they might challenge Culver next year.

Today State Auditor David Vaudt announced that he won’t run for governor either. It’s bad news for Republicans who were hoping to recruit a candidate known for expertise on fiscal matters.

More details and analysis are after the jump.

At a press conference, Vaudt cited Iowa’s budget problems as his reason for not running:

“I know that if I were to run for governor, there would be some that would try to discredit important financial information that I’m providing to Iowans. They would do that by simply questioning the motives, since I would be running for governor.”

The last thing he wants to do, Vaudt said, is diminish his ability to keep Iowans informed about what’s happening with state finances.

Other factors might also have influenced Vaudt’s decision. He’s virtually guaranteed re-election if he stays in his current position, whereas he might have trouble in a Republican gubernatorial primary. Or, perhaps he doesn’t think Culver is particularly vulnerable. Even though Culver is below 50 percent in some polls, he still has time to bounce back. It’s worth remembering that Iowans haven’t turned an incumbent governor out of office since 1962.

I doubt Vaudt would have won the Republican nomination for reasons I described here, but he would have been a stronger general-election candidate than Bob Vander Plaats, the only Republican who seems certain to run. Vander Plaats is a Sioux City businessman who was Jim Nussle’s running mate in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Since then, Vander Plaats has served as Iowa chair for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign and has argued that Republicans are losing elections in Iowa because they’re not conservative enough.

Vaudt’s decision is a blow to Republicans who are hoping the 2010 race will revolve around economic and fiscal issues. It also removes from the mix one of the most seasoned office-holders from a party that’s had a bad run in Iowa for the last decade.

Hill Research sent me partial results from the poll they took in March about the Iowa governor’s race. They redacted some of the most interesting findings, such as how appealing respondents found various types of candidates (including an “auditor who has kept track of how state money is spent”). Still, I found this result intriguing:

   Do you want an experienced and effective elected official, or an outsider with a fresh perspective and new ideas?

   Strongly want an experienced elected official: 34%

   Want an experienced elected official: 19%

   Fresh perspective: 14%

   Strongly want a fresh perspective: 27%

Vaudt is by far the most experienced statewide official who was considering running for governor. (Former Governor Terry Branstad has no desire to get back in the game.)

Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, the only other Republican currently holding a statewide elected position, is leaning toward running for re-election rather than governor. It makes sense. He would be heavily favored against Francis Thicke, the most likely Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture. In contrast, I believe Northey would be a long-shot for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, having gone on record supporting a gas tax increase. Besides, the same-sex marriage controversy will probably give an edge to religious conservatives in next year’s primary. Even if Northey won the GOP nomination, I think that with no base of support in eastern Iowa population centers, he would be an underdog against Culver in the general.

One or two Iowa House Republicans seem likely to challenge Culver. Former Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants has been thinking about running for governor for a long time. Earlier this month he sent an e-mail to potential supporters saying that since the 2009 legislative session ended,

I’ve put 2,300 miles on my car driving around the state talking to donors and activists about running for Governor.

I’m not making any official announcements or anything like that just yet. I’m taking stock first to see if I can find the support, and if I do, then I’ll let the press know. I have my eyes wide open. Its at least an $8M – $10M endeavor – or $110,000 a week as I like to say… I want to put some money in the bank, and be sure of financial backing before I take a stab at that.

So far it’s been encouraging. I have a series of fundraisers set up, and people who have agreed to help organize and set things up for me. I’ll be on the road this coming week again – back to the east coast of the state.

If he runs, Rants will compete with Vander Plaats for the conservative vote. Rants tried several times last month to bring legislation banning same-sex marriage to a vote on the Iowa House floor.

State Representative Rod Roberts told the Daily Times-Herald of Carroll he is “very seriously considering” a gubernatorial bid. He’s an ordained pastor, but some fellow Republicans claim he can communicate a broader message than abortion and gay marriage. Whether a state legislator from western Iowa can raise enough money and gain enough name recognition to seriously challenge Culver is another question.

Craig Robinson of the Iowa Republican blog thinks there is room for another Republican candidate besides Rants and Vander Plaats, but

A candidate from the business community or a candidate that hadn’t previously weighed in on the marriage debate may find the primary more difficult to navigate than it would have been if the [Iowa Supreme] Court’s decision had been different. This may be the reason why, out of nowhere, we have seen some long-time GOP powerbrokers like Dave Roederer and Doug Gross warning Iowa Republicans that the focus cannot be on the issue of gay marriage if we want to win elections. […]

Gross has not been shy about his belief that the fiscal issues create an agenda which will unite the Republican Party. Many, if not most, Republicans probably agree with that. The only problem is that the issue of gay marriage has been thrust to the forefront in Iowa by the Court’s decision. Ignoring the issue or trying to diminish its importance is simply not an option.

With only 397 days until the primary, it is likely that the gubernatorial primary will be between Vander Plaats, Rants, and maybe one other candidate. While it is true that there is plenty of time for candidates to emerge, the clock is ticking. It takes time to organize people and raise the huge amounts of money needed to run statewide campaigns.

Robinson asserts that Roederer and Gross “are probably having difficulty recruiting a candidate of their liking.” Vermeer Corporation chief executive Mary Andringa has already said she’s not running for governor next year.

In theory, today’s announcement from Vaudt could leave an opening for a Republican moderate hoping conservatives will split the primary vote. On the other hand, there aren’t many moderates left in Republican political ranks, and Culver doesn’t look endangered enough to make this race attractive for someone from the business community, in my opinion.

Pleas share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Yesterday Taniel at the Campaign Diaries blog posted about 68 Democratic-held U.S. House seats that could potentially be competitive in 2010. Iowa’s third Congressional district is not on that list.

IA-03 did not make Stuart Rothenberg’s list of competitive House seats for 2010 either.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a list of 51 targeted Democratic-held House districts in January. Lo and behold, IA-03 is not on that list either.  

I realize that Boswell only won the district with 56.3 percent of the vote in 2008, but I don’t hear any chatter from Iowa Republicans about recruiting a candidate to run against him. The focus is on the governor’s race and the Iowa House.

I bring this up because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has kept Boswell on its list of “Frontline Democrats” for 2010. John Deeth recently noticed that Boswell is “by far the senior member” of the 41 Frontline candidates. Almost all of them were first elected to Congress in 2006 or 2008. The others with more terms under their belt represent districts significantly more conservative than IA-03 with its partisan voter index of D+1.

For Deeth, this is yet another sign that IA-03 deserves better than Boswell. I view it as a sign that the DCCC is wrong. Boswell definitely needed to be in the Frontline program the first five times he ran for re-election, but he was a safe six-term incumbent in 2008, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t be a safe seven-term incumbent in 2010.

According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, Iowa’s third district had about 433,000 registered voters as of May 1, 2009. Of those, about 399,000 were “active voters.” More than 156,000 of the active voters in IA-03 are registered Democrats. Only about 118,000 are registered Republicans, and about 124,000 are registered no-party voters.

Why should you care if the DCCC erroneously classifies Boswell as vulnerable? Frontline Democrats are exempt from paying DCCC dues, which are used to support Democrats in competitive races across the country.

Look, I would still prefer to elect a new Democrat to IA-03 in order to avoid a potential matchup of Boswell and Tom Latham in 2012. But since Boswell has no plans to retire, let him pay his DCCC dues just like every other House incumbent whose seat is not threatened next year.  

On a related note, Deeth recently cited Progressive Punch lifetime ratings as an argument for replacing Boswell. It’s worth noting that Boswell’s voting record in the current Congress is much better than his lifetime Progressive Punch score suggests. (For instance, he was not among the Blue Dogs who voted against President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint.) Yes, IA-03 should be represented by a more progressive Democrat than Boswell, but I’m cutting him slack as long as he’s not casting egregious votes in the current Congress.  

I see no reason to keep him in the Frontline program, though. We will genuinely be playing defense in dozens of House districts next year. Until there is some sign that Republicans are making a serious play for IA-03, Boswell should pay his DCCC dues.

Meant to cross-post this from Bleeding Heartland a few days ago, but better late than never.

I’ve argued this year that Iowa Governor Chet Culver is in decent shape going into the 2010 re-election campaign for various reasons. Iowans love to re-elect incumbents, and Culver’s poll numbers, while not spectacular, have mostly been above the danger zone for sitting governors.

Survey USA recently released new polling numbers for Iowa, and it wasn’t good news for Culver. Senator Chuck Grassley’s approval was at a multi-year low in the same poll.

Links, numbers and some analysis are after the jump.

SUSA found Culver’s approval rating at 42 percent, with 50 percent disapproving. In February and March, SUSA found that 46 percent of Iowans approved of Culver’s performance as governor.

Culver’s approval number isn’t too bad compared to that of some other governors, but if you look at the graph of SUSA’s numbers for Culver since he took office, you’ll see that 42 percent is the lowest approval number SUSA has ever recorded for him.

Since Culver took office in January 2007, his approval has been in the 50s most of the time. He dipped into “net negative territory” (with disapproval exceeding approval) from February through April 2008, then bounced back above 50 percent for the rest of last year. When I first saw the graph, I thought maybe Culver got a bump during last summer’s floods, but his approval rating was already noticeably higher in May 2008.

The trendlines for Culver got me wondering whether the governor’s difficult working relationship with the Democrats who run the Iowa House and Senate is at the heart of his poor numbers in February through April of 2008 and 2009. The Iowa legislature usually meets only from early January through some time in April. The most recent SUSA poll was in the field on April 24 through 26, which coincided with the final marathon days of the 2009 legislative session.

If a “legislature effect” is dragging Culver’s numbers down, add that to the list of reasons the governor and statehouse leaders need to figure out a way to cooperate more effectively during the 2010 session.

Of course, we’re also in the middle of an economic recession, which has been the focus of massive media coverage since the start of the year. In the coming months, Culver’s I-JOBS program will lead to lots of new spending on infrastructure projects. It will be interesting to see whether his approval goes up.

It’s also possible that Culver’s approval slipped a little in April because of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Varnum v. Brien. The Republican Party of Iowa trumpeted this poll as a sign the public disagrees with Culver on labor unions, taxes, spending and gay marriage.

It’s worth noting that SUSA’s numbers on Culver run a bit low compared to other pollsters. For instance, in late March SUSA had Culver at 46 percent approval while Selzer and Associates put that figure at 55 percent, and the Republican firm Hill Research measured his approval at 52 percent. Nevertheless, the SUSA numbers and trendlines bear watching. If other polls also put Culver’s approval in the low 40s, I would tend to agree with Bleeding Heartland user American007 that he looks vulnerable,with the caveat that the GOP would have to nominate someone other than Congressman Steve “10 Worst” King or Bob Vander Plaats, a religious conservative businessman who was Mike Huckabee’s Iowa chairman during the presidential campaign.

Grassley’s latest approval number, according to SUSA, is 59 percent, with 32 percent disapproving. That’s well out of the danger zone for an incumbent, but low for Grassley, who was at 71, 71 and 68 in SUSA’s polls for January through March. In fact, SUSA has only found Grassley’s approval below 60 once in the past four years of polling.

My hunch is that Grassley’s support among Republicans has dropped because he hasn’t been pounding the table about overturning the Iowa Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. It’s also possible that his approval rating fell for some other reason, or that this poll is an outlier.

Whatever the reason, it’s interesting that both Grassley and Culver hit multi-year lows in the same SUSA poll. Senator Tom Harkin’s approval in the poll was 51 percent, with 38 percent disapproving. That’s only slightly down from SUSA’s March poll that put Harkin’s approval rating at 53 percent.

Incidentally, SUSA’s April survey found that 59 percent of Iowans approve of the job Barack Obama is doing, down about ten points since the beginning of the year. There was no statistically significant gender gap; Obama’s approval was 59 percent among men and 60 percent among women. The numbers for Culver showed a clear gender gap, with 47 percent approval among women and only 37 percent approval among men.

Offer your own theories about any of these poll numbers in this thread.

I’ve never thought Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa was likely to retire, especially after Tom Vilsack’s appointment as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture took the A-list challenger out of contention. (Only an unexpectedly tough re-election campaign, in my opinion, might have pushed Grassley toward retirement.)

The Hill reported today that Grassley has reached an agreement with his colleague Jeff Sessions of Alabama:

Under terms of the deal, Sessions will serve as ranking member [of the Senate Judiciary Committee] until the 112th Congress, when he will take over the ranking member post on the Senate Budget Committee. Current Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is retiring at the end of the 111th Congress.

Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, will then become ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

It’s a good deal for Grassley. Even though the Judiciary Committee will consider at least one Supreme Court nominee before 2011, the Senate Finance Committee will help write important health care and tax legislation this year.

Grassley has long wanted to be the ranking member at Judiciary, a position that opened up last week when Senator Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party. His deal with Sessions removes any doubt about whether Grassley intends to stick around for one more term.

I’m sorry to say that I see little prospect of any Democrat beating Grassley in 2010.

For a long time my money’s been on Grassley retiring in 2016, when his grandson, Iowa House Representative Pat Grassley, will be old enough to run for the U.S. Senate.