Iowa Governor- Race of the Day

 78 Days Until Election Day

Iowa Governor

 

Status: Republican Open

2024 Presidential Result: Red State (Midwest)

 

Outlook: Tossup (D)

 

Iowa happens to be the home of the Chicago Cubs Triple-A affiliate. Not so long ago, a man named Pete Crow-Armstrong was playing for the Iowa Cubs and anticipating his inevitable Major League Baseball debut. Now, PCA might add the initials MVP to his name and he has been thrilling Cubs fans this summer, including what happened tonight, causing me to get caught up in the excitement and making me delay my coverage of the Iowa Gubernatorial race. However, I am here to get that job done.

Speaking of the Hawkeye State, a place that has gone from a political battleground to pretty solidly red over the past several cycles, there seems to be major opportunities for Democrats to break through in this midterm election. This is somewhat ironic, considering the DNC wants no part of Iowa holding its traditional "First in the Nation" caucus, instead rewarding the early contests to other states, including Michigan in the Midwest, all in places where Democrats might not have anywhere near as positive headlines as what might come out of Iowa.

 

Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was eligible to seek a third full term and most believed she would. However, the first female Governor in Iowa history announced last April that she would not run and would be leaving office after nearly a full decade as Governor. Reynolds had established herself as a political force in her state, but she endorsed Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Presidential nomination and campaigned with him. The Republican voters in the state thoroughly rejected the suggestion and supported Donald Trump that year, and he had some negative things to say about Reynolds. Perhaps that was enough to get her thinking about a future life in the private sector. Iowa's first female Senator, also a Republican is similarly not seeking reelection this year.

 

With both the Governorship and the Senate seat open in this Republican friendly state, a lot of party members had a lot of options. All of the other statewide Republican officials declined to run for either of those two spots though. Instead, the Gubernatorial frontrunner became Congressman Randy Feenstra. The State Senator was elected to the House in 2020 from the most conservative district in the state. When Trump endorsed his candidacy, he seemed to be well on his way to a general election.

 

However, this would not happen, as Trump suffered a relatively rare Republican primary endorsement defeat. In a five-way June primary, Feenstra was edged out 38-37 by an outsider candidate who presented himself as further to the right. In his first run for office, Lahn, an investment executive and farmer about 40 years old came out of political obscurity to win support among conservative activists as well as people in the non-traditionally conservative MAHA movement. For whatever reason, Feenstra's record on Capitol Hill and in elective office worked against him and he might have taken victory for granted during the campaign. Adam Steen, a former state agency director finished third with 14 percent. While Feenstra had been the establishment choice, even with Trump's backing, conservative activists were just not sold on him and divided their support among several candidates, and Lahn was in position to benefit. After the primary, Donald Trump claimed he had been misled in endorsing Feenstra and noted that the winner Lahn was probably more MAGA. Clearly, this was a case of Trump unwilling to accept responsibility or association with any loss.

 

While Iowa's elected statewide officials on the Republican side did not run for Governor, the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Iowa did and he would be nominated without a challenge. Rob Sand, who just turned 44, holds the job of State Auditor. In 2018, the attorney defeated a Republican incumbent  In 2022, he wisely passed on an opportunity to run for Governor, and instead won reelection as Auditor by a very narrow margin. Any sort of statewide win for a Democrat in Iowa these days has to be considered impressive and Sand deserved to be looked at as a rising political star in his state as he prepared to run for Governor. Democrats in the other 49 states perhaps wished he would have run for Senate instead, as the most electable member of his party in the Iowa.

 

With the general election set, both candidates had to select their Lt. Governor running-mates. Sand selected Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer, a fifth generation farmer. These days, there are not many Democrat tickets in many states that consist of two white males. The 2022 Democrat nominee who lost by a lot was a black woman, which of course was also the case for Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024. Lahn selected State Representative Derek Wulf, also a fellow farmer. I find the ticket name of Lahn-Wulf to be sort of funny.

 

One would expect an Iowa Republican to be in a good position to win a fifth straight general election. In fact going back to the early 1980s, Democrats have won very few of those particular elections. It seems though that this would be a close race regardless of which Republican won the nomination. While Sand has a history of being involved in liberal politics as a very young man (which was once not a political killer in Iowa), he has clearly demonstrated the ability to get crossover votes for his lower office and has appeal as a non-ideological populist, which is a pretty rare feat for a Democrat today. Clearly, Republicans will try to tie Sand to radical candidates and policies in other states.

 

Some suggest that since this is looking to be a bad midterm year for Donald Trump, that Lahn might be in a stronger position because Trump did not originally back him. That might make some sense if Lahn was the kind of Republican who pointed out differences he had with Trump. Instead, in the primary, he seemed to indicate he was more faithful to the MAGA movement and now, Trump has seemingly agreed.

I do not know all the dynamics of this race, but the Republican Lahn just seems to come across as a bit weird. It is a big political jump to go from 38 percent in the primary to enough votes to win a general election. If this race winds up being truly tight, the presence of the Libertarian nominee might play a role, and seemingly he would take more votes from Lahn.

This is still a race in Iowa after all and no Democrat is going to look like a solid favorite, regardless of national trends. The polls thus far have tended to show the Democrat Sand leading the Republican Lahn by a few points. Political junkies though cannot forget the final weekend of the 2024 race when the supposed "gold standard" of Iowa polling showed that Harris might have a chance to beat Trump in the state, which would have clearly meant she was on her way to a big national win. That was not the case. Trump won by 13 points.

 

My sense is that this race is a Tossup for now, and that Lahn might have a hard time uniting all factions of the Republican Party in a general election. In a different political career, the Republican label might be enough to pull through regardless but with all the issues of tariffs affecting Iowa agriculture and all the political drags that seem to be affecting Trump's numbers and that of all Republicans, Iowa is ripe for an upset, at least in the Gubernatorial race. This will be a very interesting political state to watch over the next few months on a range of fronts. If Rob Sand pulls off a win, he will become someone to be studied and what Democrats across America could learn from him. If not, people will say, "well, it was Iowa after all."

 

Gubernatorial races predicted thus far: 

8 D (2 Safe, 3 Likely, 1 Leans, 2Tossup), 5 R (2 Safe, I Likely, 2 Tossup)

 

Totals predicted thus far:

14 D (6 holdover, 2 Safe, 3 Likely, 1 Leans, 2 Tossup), 13 R (8 holdover, 2 Safe, 1 Likely, 2 Tossup)