Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness announced on Monday she will not seek reelection this year. “Representing the people of Johnson County as County Attorney has been an honor and a privilege,” Lyness said in a written statement. “I am proud of the work my office has done and the programs we have developed while I […]
Election 2022
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‘There are barriers that one campaign cannot overcome’: Ras Smith ends his run for governor
Rep. Ras Smith announced on Wednesday morning he had suspended his campaign for Iowa governor. In June, Smith became the first Democrat to launch a campaign for his party’s 2022 nomination. Smith began with an optimistic tone that colored his six-month-long campaign, appealing for unity across social and ideological divisions based on shared experiences as […]
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Rob Sand is running for a second term as state auditor, squashing speculation he’d seek higher office
Almost as soon as Rob Sand was elected Iowa State Auditor in 2018, political writers and the Iowa Republican Party began publicly speculating on what office he would run for in 2022. Would Sand, the only Democrat elected to statewide office that year who wasn’t already a longtime incumbent (Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald has been in […]
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Dave Muhlbauer ends his run for U.S. Senate, following a death in his family
Dave Muhlbauer, who was the first Iowa Democrat to launch a run for the U.S. Senate in the 2022 election, ended his campaign on Tuesday. In a statement published on social media, Muhlbauer said his decision came after “a period of reflection with family and close friends” following the death of his 4-year-old nephew in […]
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Miller-Meeks will move into the new 1st Congressional District to run for reelection
Two weeks after the Iowa Legislature approved the redistricting maps that changed the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks announced she will move out of her hometown of more than two decades in order to run in the newly drawn 1st Congressional District. The 1st District covers much of the same area […]
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Rep. Mary Mascher will not run for reelection in 2022
Rep. Mary Mascher of Iowa City announced on Monday she will not run for reelection next year. Mascher, a leader among progressive Democrats in the Iowa House of Representatives, was first elected to her seat in 1994. “I want to thank the people of Johnson County for their love and support over the last 28 […]
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‘It’s time to rotate the crops’: Sen. Joe Bolkcom says he won’t seek reelection
Joe Bolkcom, who has represented Iowa City in the state Senate since 1999, announced on Thursday morning he will not run for reelection next year. “It’s time to rotate the crops,” he said in a video posted online. That was a phrase used by Tom Vilsack during the 1998 election that sent Bolkcom to the […]
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Retired Admiral Mike Franken becomes the fifth Democrat to launch a campaign for U.S. Senate
Retired Admiral Mike Franken made it official on Thursday: he’s running for the 2022 Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. Franken is the fifth Democratic to enter the race to take on seven-term incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley. Franken made his announcement in an interview with the Des Moines Register that was published at 6 a.m. […]
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Democrat Bob Krause, who served in the Iowa House in the ’70s, is running for U.S. Senate
Bob Krause, who represented Burlington in the Iowa House in the 1970s, announced on Thursday he is running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to challenge seven-term incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley in next year’s election. “Win or lose, I will elevate the battle of ideas,” Krause said, standing near the Mississippi River as […]
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Democrat Liz Bennett kicks off campaign for state Senate, reflecting on the less-divided Iowa of decades past
“I’m running for state senate to make sure that every single Iowan gets a fair shot in Iowa,” Liz Bennett told the people crowded into a room at The Bohemian in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday night for her campaign kick-off event. The Cedar Rapids Democrat is in her fourth term representing Cedar Rapids in the […]
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Chuck Grassley, in elected office since 1959, is running again
Chuck Grassley, who has spent his career presenting himself as a regular Iowa farmer and not a politician, has decided six decades in elected office is not enough. On Friday, one week after his 88th birthday, Iowa’s senior senator announced he is running for an eighth six-year term in the U.S. Senate. “I’m running for […]
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The map whisperer: A conversation with Cory McCartan, winner of the 2021 Iowa redistricting challenge
Every 10 years, the political commentator Dave Wasserman holds an “Iowa redistricting challenge.” The goal of the challenge is to use new census data to draw a congressional map of Iowa distributing the population as equally as possible into districts. This year, the challenge was won by Cory McCartan, a Grinnell College graduate currently pursuing […]
