Johnson County remained a bright spot for Iowa Democrats on Tuesday, even as Republicans dominated Election Day statewide. Every Democrat in a statewide race carried the county by a large margin, even as they were defeated by Republicans. The only possible exception to that pattern is the Auditor of State race, which was still too […]
Michael Franken
Posted inElection Coverage
Democrats discuss obstacles ahead of ‘revolutionary’ midterm election
“We’ve been working hard. You’ve been working hard. All the candidates have been working really hard,” Mike Franken told the people gathered at the Iowa City Masonic Building for the Johnson County Democratic Party’s “Get Out the Vote” event on Friday night. “There’s more to do. But in the end, this is going to be […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Advocates, candidates gather to discuss cannabis legalization — ‘This is a winning issue’
Both the setting of the meeting, a hotel conference room in Des Moines on a Saturday morning, and the average age of attendees, over 50, were standard for Iowa politics. The subject matter, however, wasn’t. “This is probably the first public event since at least the 1970s in Iowa for anybody to have a serious […]
Posted inCommunity/News
New Iowa Poll finds Franken almost tied with Grassley, Reynolds still far ahead of DeJear
Over the weekend, the Des Moines Register published the results of a new Iowa Poll on the two big races in the Nov. 8 general election. The reported results show the Republican incumbents still lead their Democratic challengers, but in the case Iowa’s longest-serving senator, that lead continues to get smaller. Mike Franken is now […]
Posted inCommunity/News
This election may be different for Chuck Grassley
Things were different 42 years ago. Chuck Grassley, then a three-term congressman looking to move up to the Senate, declared himself an opponent of negative political ads. Grassley devoted his opening statement in the Iowa Public Television’s Republican primary debate in 1980 to complaining about ads targeting him. Grassley called his primary opponent Tom Stoner […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Have incumbents met their match? An overview of the statewide races on Iowans’ midterm ballots
It’s a truism of American politics that with rare exceptions, incumbents always have a big advantage in an election. And nowhere is that truism truer than Iowa. Chuck Grassley has been in the U.S. Senate longer than all but one of his colleagues — Democratic Patrick Leahy, who is retiring this year — and longer […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Republican leaders line up behind Trump after FBI raid: ‘We’ve got a right 2b skeptical’
Iowa’s leading Republicans once again followed Donald Trump’s lead and used social media on Tuesday to suggest corruption led to FBI agents executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Monday. Not corruption on Trump’s part, of course. Iowa GOP leaders have consistently ignored or avoided acting on evidence of Trump’s corruption, whether personal, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Former Rep. Jim Leach breaks with the Republican Party, endorses Bohannan for House and Franken for Senate
Jim Leach, who represented Johnson County and much of southeastern Iowa in Congress for 30 years as a Republican, changed his party registration to Democrat ahead of the June 7 primary, the Quad City Times reported on Wednesday. “Today, the Republican Party that I spent so many years with has really let the country down,” […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Cresting at the right time’: Franken wins, Reynolds forsakes fellow Republicans, and other takeaways from the primary election
Retired Adm. Mike Franken easily defeated Abby Finkenauer to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in what was the highest profile contested race in the nation on Tuesday. Franken won 55.2 percent of the vote and carried 76 of Iowa’s 99 counties, including Johnson and Linn, according to the unofficial totals published by the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Judge removes Abby Finkenauer from Democratic primary ballot, after Republicans challenge three signatures on nominating petition
Late Sunday night, a Polk County judge ordered Abby Finkenauer’s name “not be included on the primary ballot for the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.” Judge Scott Beattie ruled that three people who signed Finkenauer’s nomination petition had not properly filled in the date when they added their signatures, and the lack of those three […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Sixteen candidates for U.S. House and Senate will be on the June primary ballot, including the ‘Trump tractor guy’
On Tuesday, the Iowa Secretary of State Office released an updated list of candidates for the U.S. House and Senate in the June 7 primary election. To be eligible for the ballot, candidates needed to file their nominating petitions and other paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office by the end of day on Friday. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
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 […]
