We dug into the sudden Republican pivots happening six weeks out from the election. Ashley Hinson, Zach Nunn, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks are all pushing back on the war and rising fuel costs after months of standing firmly with the president, including Nunn, who was on stage with Secretary Hegseth at the Iowa State Fair just a month ago. We talked about whether this is a real break or just safe talk now that the House is out of session until after the election.

We also covered Nunn’s Beef Act co-sponsorship pushing back on the administration’s cheaper beef imports, and debated how much weight these largely symbolic moves should really carry in our reporting.

On the campaign trail: we don’t expect Trump to visit Iowa before November, though nobody’s ruling it out completely. We flagged Wednesday’s Sioux City debate between Chris McGowan and Dave Dawson in the 4th District, and noted debates are still uncertain in the 1st and 3rd.

Finally, we broke down Judge Scott Beattie’s 60-plus-page ruling dismissing Trump’s lawsuit against Ann Selzer. First Amendment protections and a lack of any actual damages both did the case in. We expect an appeal, but we’re skeptical it goes anywhere.

Like, share, and subscribe! A huge thanks to our new paid supporters for helping keep this going. We’re just a little over a month away from election day, and we can’t wait to keep you updated as we get closer and closer. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber, please click the button above. You can make a one-time donation by clicking the button below. See ya next week.

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Welcome back, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price. We have some new polls out — do we have some Republican pivots in position? Is there a strategy, a “strategery” happening in the final six weeks of this campaign with some Republicans in really competitive races? That’s one of the things we’re going to be talking about this week. With us this week is Republican contributor Ed Failor Jr. Hello, Ed.

Ed: Hello.

Dave Price: Proudly — for those of you watching on video — wearing his Iowa Hawkeye merch. I’m pretty sure he’s an influencer for them and getting paid under the table. But for those listening and not watching, you’re really missing out, because Kathie Obradovich will not allow Ed to take over with complete Hawkeye fervor, so she’s brought a prop this week since she neglected to bring one last week — Herky has shown up.

Kathie Obradovich: What? No, no, wrong team, sorry.

Dave Price: Sorry — size?

Kathie Obradovich: That’s a turkey.

Dave Price: Sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh. Sorry — proud alum, I’m sorry. And Laura Belin, playing Switzerland, staying neutral — hello to you as well.

Alright, Ed — well, I’ve offended Kathie because I mixed up my mascot, sorry about that. So I’m curious for you, since we talk about strategery — you’re familiar with the public polls, and some of the campaigns are getting internal polls back. It does seem like we’ve been seeing a shift, with some of our Republican members of Congress on the ballot this November, to push back a bit on some of what’s going on with their party leadership, including the president in D.C. Is that fair?

Ed: Yes, but clearly it’s not on everything — they’re not just pushing away from the president, they’re pushing back on this one topic, right? So they’re obviously seeing information — I’ve seen information too — that the war itself, and the effects of it... or “police action,” whatever we call it now, I don’t know...

Dave Price: Depends on the day — the president’s called it many different things. War, conflict, whatever.

Ed: Right, right. But anyway, they’re obviously seeing that, and quite honestly, in my view, I think they’re making a solid call. Just interesting how it progresses and when it happens — but yeah, they’re clearly seeing polling data saying, “wow, we’ve got to be for ending this thing.” So good for them for taking a stand, I guess, but that’s what they’re clearly seeing.

Dave Price: Kathie, you’ve written a couple hundred thousand gazillion stories in your career — you saw Ashley Hinson’s move this week. She’s voted against the War Powers Resolution seven times in the past — unlike Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who supported it this time before the Senate killed it Thursday. Hinson voted against it the whole time, but early this week said the war’s got to be over, Iowans shouldn’t be paying higher prices because of it. So how do you pick your words as you’re looking at your reporters’ stories on things like this? You don’t want to overplay it — it’s not like Hinson’s bailing on Trump — but is it nuanced, is it a pivot? How do you choose how to describe what’s happening?

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, speaking out against the war is a lot easier than voting against it. Zach Nunn and Miller-Meeks took a pretty obvious step away from the president by actually taking that vote. Hinson — it’s safe talk, since the House is now gone until after the election. There won’t be any more votes, so she can say what she wants without having to put a vote down on it. But still, for her — someone who’s been four-square behind Trump — to say “no, this is wrong, it’s gone on too long,” that shouldn’t be discounted. I think it’s a sign that candidates facing competitive elections are seeing how unpopular this war is getting. We’ve got diesel prices at record highs just as harvest is starting, so it shouldn’t be underplayed how much this hurts farmers right now. I think she had to say something, but I’d have respected it more if she’d actually voted for the War Powers Act.

Dave Price: Laura, what do you think? How have you followed what they’ve all been saying and doing this past week?

Laura Belin: I think it’s very performative. The Senate just had a vote yesterday that went 50–49 — literally, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were each the decisive vote. I didn’t hear Ashley Hinson, Zach Nunn, or Mariannette Miller-Meeks say they think Iowa’s senators should hold out and not vote to continue this war unless we get concessions. Chuck Grassley is out there posting on X that we should have a diesel export embargo to help farmers, but if he was talking to the White House about getting something in exchange for his vote against the war powers resolution, I didn’t hear anything about it.

Dave Price: And I should mention, Nunn also co-sponsored, with a member of Congress from New Mexico, the Beef Act — going back to the president’s decision to bring in lower-quality, cheaper beef filler from Argentina and Brazil to get more cheap meat into the market. Early reporting says this will have minimal impact on price, but it does provide another option for consumers. Ed, are they just selectively picking their spots here — is this more performative, in that none of it’s really going to matter?

Ed: Well, Laura’s right, and Kathie’s right — until you’re laying down votes and we see a bill on the president’s desk... part of politics and the legislative process is performative as you go through it. Until there are votes on the board and bills moving, it can’t really be described as much else, I suppose. But I believe, clearly, that Miller-Meeks and Nunn at least took a vote.

Laura Belin: I’m not a believer in doing stories about so-and-so introducing a bill that has very little chance of going anywhere — especially this one, when the House isn’t even back in session until after the election. My editorial policy is I will very rarely, if ever, write a story about someone announcing they co-sponsored a bill unless it’s actually going somewhere.

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I think with this one, though, it was reinforcing that Nunn is trying to distance himself from the president at a time when he’s facing a rough election. This is directly calling out Trump’s order on beef imports — going directly against a Trump order. Even though the bill has no chance of passing, certainly not before the election, it does make a statement about where Nunn is trying to position himself ahead of this election. I generally agree that it’s useful to know what bills lawmakers are introducing, because they’re making a statement even if the bills have no chance of passing — but the context matters, and people should know the House is gone, so this bill is going to fall into a hole, at least until after the election.

Dave Price: What’s interesting to me with Nunn is that in August we covered his event at the Iowa State Fair featuring the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth — a very unusual situation, having a defense secretary do a campaign event, after postponing it earlier in the year supposedly because we were at war (and we’re still at war). Hegseth said at the start of that event he was there as Pete Hegseth, not as the secretary. But the difference between Nunn standing with him in August and then, a month later, pushing back on both the beef imports and the fuel costs and the war powers vote — that’s perhaps the biggest shift of the bunch, right?

Kathie Obradovich: I’d say yeah — less than a month after standing next to the Secretary of Defense, as we still call him, not Secretary of War. The photo my D.C. bureau used with that story about the flipped vote was Hegseth and Nunn standing there in matching aviator sunglasses, acting like they were practically brothers. So it is a bigger shift. Both Nunn and Miller-Meeks are military veterans, and they made kind of nuanced arguments about why now and not earlier — which was interesting. I don’t know that it reads as anything but “this is an unpopular war and they’re facing a tough re-election.” Miller-Meeks talked about not being able to get behind a forever war without an end game in sight — though I don’t know how that’s different from the last six votes. But the Hegseth appearance really raised my eyebrows when I saw Nunn flip on it right after Hegseth was here.

Dave Price: Ed, do you expect any of our delegation on the ballot in November will appear with the president in Iowa before the election?

Ed: Wow, this is a Sophie’s choice for me. No, I would guess not — but possibly. With these sort of turns, it makes you really wonder. If I had to bet, I’d bet not, but it could certainly happen — particularly if they’re seeing numbers where a specific place would be particularly good for them. Northwest Iowa’s a great place to go do it. It wouldn’t shock me, given these turns, if they took that position.

Dave Price: A friend and I were speculating yesterday, just for fun, about where the president might go. I’d wondered — do you play it safe and go to northwest Iowa? You wouldn’t expect Chris McGowan, the 4th District candidate, to need a lot of help there, barring some really unforeseen situation, but that’d be a safe place to go if you’re just trying to juice turnout statewide.

Ed: It’s always the case in a statewide race — you’ve got to get the low-hanging fruit of the 4th District for Republicans, get turnout there, because on election night as a Republican in a statewide race you’re thinking, “okay, we’ve got Davenport, we’ve got everything — did we survive Polk County?” You know your turnout matrix — if they turn out like we think, we’ll be good. That would make the most sense, because you fish where there’s the most fish in the pond.

Kathie Obradovich: The president is currently headed to Oklahoma and Alabama, so he’s not really looking for high-risk locations right now. I thought it made perfect sense that J.D. Vance appeared in Council Bluffs — you’ve got a bi-state audience there, Iowa Republicans from southwest Iowa plus a big audience just across the river from Omaha. If Vance hadn’t just been there, that would’ve been an obvious place for Trump to go. But I don’t think he’s looking for high-risk environments right now if he wants a happy, adoring crowd.

Dave Price: If I may, a program note — selfishly. On Wednesday night, my affiliate in Sioux City, KTIV, will host the 4th District candidate debate between Chris McGowan (Republican) and Dave Dawson (Democrat). I believe that’ll be the only debate these two have this cycle. Randy Feenstra, the current congressman there who ran for governor in the primary and lost and isn’t running for anything, wasn’t a big fan of debates — I did one with him years ago, against J.D. Scholten.

Laura Belin: 2020.

Dave Price: I love how you don’t even have to think — it’s like a live Google over there.

Laura Belin: I looked it up a few months ago for a piece I wrote about Feenstra, that’s how.

Dave Price: I just remember being in the TV studio, watching Feenstra walk in, then Scholten — like you’re the Chicago Bulls announcer calling out the players, because both those guys are just tall. Though now my son is that height too, so he could hang with them. It was a standing debate, so I felt like the small point guard in the room at barely 6’1”. Anyway — that’s Wednesday night, if I may make that push. It’ll be televised in the Sioux City area and Omaha, and streamed online for anyone who wants to check it out.

Laura Belin: Well, I’ll do that dangerous thing of committing to publishing something this weekend — the piece I’ve been working on is called “Why Iowa’s 4th District Matters More Than You Think.” I would’ve finished it already, except the judge came out with the ruling in the Trump v. Selzer suit, so I had to pivot to that first.

Dave Price: Brilliant, brilliant, unplanned transition to our next subject — the lawsuit the judge dismissed this week. Since you’re our resident legal nerd who reads through all these briefings verbatim — Kathie probably does too — when this was filed there was a lot of cynicism and skepticism that it would survive all the court challenges. I suppose technically it’s not done-done, the Trump team could keep pursuing it, but can you give us the cliff notes on the judge’s ruling this week against Ann Selzer?

Laura Belin: Judge Scott Beattie wrote a really comprehensive ruling. The hearing was about two and a half months ago, so the longer it stretched out, I figured this was going to be a lengthy, substantive ruling — and it was, more than 60 pages. He went on two tracks: the first half explained the constitutional issues, saying the First Amendment bars these claims — the poll, and any reporting on the poll, is classic protected political speech. You can’t make a pollster or a newspaper liable for reporting on a poll; it’s not commercial speech. The second half walked through — even setting the First Amendment aside — how this fails as a matter of state law. They brought the suit under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Statute, and he went through, very granularly, all the elements of that statute that weren’t met here: there’s no consumer transaction (a newspaper article about a poll isn’t a consumer transaction), and there was no evidence that Trump or the other plaintiffs — Miller-Meeks and Brad Sherman — relied on the poll to make any decisions, or spent any money because of it. In fact, it was the opposite — Trump immediately called it fake and said everyone knew it couldn’t be true. The Trump legal team has told other media they plan to appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, but I’d be surprised if they have any luck there — the judge laid out two very strong cases for dismissal.

Dave Price: Kathie, you worked with Ann when you were at the Des Moines Register — you know her longer than I do. As a reporter, this always seemed hard from the beginning, because you almost had to entertain the idea that Ann had some kind of malicious intent to run a false poll — which was hard to picture, based on those of us who know Ann. It also seemed like a crazy thing for a professional pollster to do, someone who makes most of her business from corporate clients — if she torpedoed one on purpose, she’d torpedo her whole business. How did you process this — the idea it could be an intentional act to sabotage the president?

Kathie Obradovich: I wasn’t personally writing these stories, so I didn’t have to straddle that bar the way reporters writing it did, giving appropriate weight to each side. But I emailed Ann when the suit was filed, and again after the ruling came down, and basically said I never believed this was going anywhere, but I felt bad she had to go through the ordeal. She’s one of the most principled people I know — anyone who’s worked with her on polling would never believe she’d falsify results for any reason. She never cared who was winning a poll; what she cared about was making it as accurate as possible. The tide of polling being harder to do accurately, especially political polling, caught up with her at exactly the wrong time — I think it was circumstance more than anything. The fact that we have a president willing to go to court over something like this — nobody could have predicted that, even knowing Trump, before Trump. I think it was interesting this ruling came down the same week a judge enjoined the White House from kicking out CNN, Politico, and MSNOW — a couple of favorable rulings for freedom of the press to cover the presidency. I fully expect that’s being appealed too, if it hasn’t been already. So there’s still fight to go. Iowa has an anti-SLAPP law, which basically means you can’t file a frivolous lawsuit over First Amendment speech just to punish the speaker or news organization — but that law came into play a little too late here, and because it was filed under the Consumer Protection Act, there was some question about whether it would even apply.

Dave Price: Ed, that poll right before the election had Kamala Harris up by a lot, and we know Trump won by a lot. What was your take on how this all went down?

Ed: When I first saw it come out, I thought, okay, she’s one of the consistently best pollsters, but for whatever reason the doors came off this one. I mean, that happens — I’ve seen thousands of polls, and some that look good on the face but seem a little skewed once you break them down, like a disproportionate share of conservatives or liberals in the sample. Those things just happen. From the get-go I looked at it and kind of dismissed it — it never struck me as deliberate, just that one of the very best got one wrong. And — I think it was Laura who said it — the nature of how polling happens, the bad timing, people have changed drastically the last couple of years in how they’re reached and how they respond. It’s not a perfect science — it’s a snapshot in time. That was my thought when it came out, and I was surprised to see a lawsuit.

Laura Belin: I realize, Dave, I should explain — this judge wasn’t deciding whether the poll was fabricated or whether there was any merit to what Trump said about it. At this stage, a motion to dismiss, the judge has to look at all the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. So even under the assumption — as he wrote it — that they didn’t follow the stated methodology, that they made up the numbers, that the newspaper deliberately published something they knew to be false — even under that scenario, it still doesn’t qualify as consumer fraud, and it’s still precluded under the First Amendment.

Kathie Obradovich: It’s worth pointing out they didn’t offer a shred of evidence that there was any effort to fabricate anything with the poll — they weren’t required to at this stage, and that would’ve come later if the case continued. But it’d be very hard for them to prove anything like that. And from the beginning, I thought — how is Trump going to show any damages? He won, he won handily, by 13 points in Iowa. How did this poll damage him? There was zero evidence of that.

Laura Belin: Right, that’s another part of it — even if the poll had been fabricated, there were no damages to any of the plaintiffs. During the July hearing, the judge asked Ellen Ostergaard, the attorney representing Trump, what they wanted to uncover in discovery if the case proceeded. She said they wanted to know whether a poll was even conducted at all — whether the numbers were just made up. So they basically admitted they had no evidence — that was the evidence they’d be fishing for if they got into discovery and the internal communications of Gannett, the Des Moines Register, Selzer, and her employees. The chilling effect on the media would’ve been huge.

Dave Price: Alright, as we wrap up — any other random things? Final thoughts — Laura’s already on record about what she’ll post this weekend, so we’ll play that back next week if she doesn’t come through. I’m prepping for my debate Wednesday, looking forward to seeing McGowan and Dawson. As one of you mentioned before we started recording, there are so many debates in October — four for governor, two for Senate. At this point I don’t know how many congressional debates there are — just the one in the 4th that I know of. As we record Friday morning, I don’t believe Sarah Corkery has agreed to debate Zach Nunn in the 3rd yet. Has Christina Bohannan agreed to any debates in the 1st?

Laura Belin: There is one — not the Iowa Press debate — I think it’s KWQC. There is going to be one, I just can’t remember which day.

Dave Price: My station. And I think there’s one in the 2nd too — I believe KCRG is doing that one. I’ll just point out my Gray TV stations are kicking butt getting these debates — though we don’t have one in Des Moines, otherwise we’d probably have one there too. Just saying. But holy cow, there will be so many debates this month, it could be overwhelming.

Laura Belin: If Sarah Corkery doesn’t agree to debate, I think that’s a strong indication their polling shows her ahead — and we could infer the same from Zach Nunn flipping his position on the war. I’d always advise candidates to agree to a debate, but usually the candidate who thinks they’re ahead is the one more reluctant to debate.

Kathie Obradovich: Except Chris McGowan, maybe.

Dave Price: Yeah — we’ll see how many cycles he agrees to if he ends up winning. But props to them in the 4th for agreeing to do this. All right, everybody—

Ed: Whoa, whoa, whoa — I didn’t get my parting thing!

Dave Price: Oh, I’m sorry?

Ed: Michigan 15, Iowa 10 — it’s gonna be a safety.

Dave Price: Really?

Kathie Obradovich: Okay.

Dave Price: That’s fair. Kathie, response?

Kathie Obradovich: Hey, just go Cyclones.

Ed: Well, we’re not playing Iowa State — no problem there.

Kathie Obradovich: I’m going to the homecoming game, so I won’t be there this weekend — I’m going to the homecoming game.

Dave Price: Nice. Alright, everybody, have a great weekend. Thanks for your thoughts, thank you all for joining us this week — we appreciate your support. Please like, share, subscribe, forward — all the things you can do to help this grow. We appreciate you doing that week after week. Thanks to those of you who’ve become new paid subscribers to help pay the bills — we appreciate you too. Have a great week, we’ll talk to you next week in October.

Chuck Grassley turns 93, soon becoming the second longest-serving senator in U.S. history — though Eric argues the milestone doesn’t sidestep the harder question of age and capacity. Laura notes he still won’t rule out running again in 2028, when he’d be 95.

The panel also digs into November’s ballot amendment requiring a supermajority to raise income and corporate taxes. Kathie lays out the opposition’s case: it won’t stop tax hikes, just push lawmakers toward more regressive options like a sales tax hike. Laura shares her repeated, unsuccessful attempts to pin down Rob Sand’s position, despite his own warnings about a looming state budget shortfall.

Candidate visibility comes up too — Rob Sand’s near-daily public events versus Zach Lahn’s more private appearances, and Ashley Hinson skipping JD Vance’s Council Bluffs stop this week. Iowa’s 2nd District also gets a look back, as Laura’s early call that it would be a genuine toss-up, given the district’s dramatic Obama-to-Trump swing, has now been borne out.

The episode wraps with congratulations to Iowa Capital Dispatch’s Clark Kauffman, whose reporting on nursing home abuse and neglect earned the outlet its first-ever Media Impact Award from the Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council.

This weekly podcast continues to grow. In downloads, views, followers, subscriptions, you name it. As we get closer to the November election we’ll have news and info that you won’t find anywhere else (like normal.) If you’d like to become a paid subscriber to help cover costs of production please click the button above. You can also make a one-time donation using the button below. Thanks to all of you that have already contributed. This isn’t possible without you!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I am Dave Price. This week, grab your you-know-what — Chuck Grassley celebrates another birthday. The crystal ball makes another move, and it involves another Iowa congressional district. Plus, we’re going to talk about that constitutional amendment, which could make it more difficult to raise taxes in the future. With us this week, Kathie Obradovich — I was there when she received yet another award, we’ll talk about that this week — and Laura Belin.

Laura Belin: Good morning.

Dave Price: And back by popular demand, longtime Republican strategist, former journalist, former Democratic strategist, Eric Woolson. Hello, sir.

Eric Woolson: Great to be back.

Dave Price: Back from his world travels as well. He will have a Netflix documentary on his world travels coming up — if it’s not, it should be. For those of you watching on video, Eric, can you tell us what’s in the visual behind you?

Eric Woolson: I didn’t like the blurred background last week, so that’s an aerial of my farm down in Wayne County.

Dave Price: And on that farm you grow?

Eric Woolson: Catnip.

Dave Price: Catnip, of course you do.

Eric Woolson: My tenant’s a traditional farmer, so he grows corn and soybeans — we’re not that far off.

Dave Price: Alright, now how’d you get into catnip?

Eric Woolson: My son and I wanted a cat, and my wife wouldn’t let us have one, so we said, well, we’re going to be growing catnip on the farm, and we need an official spokescat. In 20 years, I don’t think that cat has ever sold any catnip, but —

Dave Price: That ploy worked.

Eric Woolson: He really is the most interesting man alive, is he not?

Kathie Obradovich: He is, and my cat approves, by the way.

Eric Woolson: Excellent — we’ll be looking for those campaign ads!

Kathie Obradovich: Outstanding.

Dave Price: Alright, so grab your you-know-what, as Chuck Grassley — the Dairy Queen aficionado — would say. Eric, you wrote a book about the senator back in the day. He is 93 years old. I’m guessing you’re not surprised he’s lived to see 93?

Eric Woolson: That’s what clean living does for you. I was looking up some numbers last night — sixth longest-serving senator, but third oldest. Obviously Strom Thurmond, at 99, has the record, but Theodore Green, a Rhode Island Democrat, was 93 when he retired, so Grassley will become the second longest-serving senator on December 20th. I think you can hold two truths about Grassley at once — his longevity and public service are extraordinary, but at the same time, we’re entitled to a serious conversation about age and capacity and the transfer of political power. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s not really “is 93 too old, or 90, or 85, or 80” — it’s whether this individual is demonstrably capable of performing every important task of the job. That’s the conversation that should always be there.

Dave Price: Laura, didn’t you ask Rob Sand at a news conference about his idea for age limits?

Laura Belin: I don’t know if I asked him specifically about that. He’s talked about age limits but hasn’t said exactly what age is too old — he says he’d be open to different ideas. It’s interesting — you may have seen a reporter ask Senator Grassley recently, similar to what he was asked about a year or so ago. He’s not ruling out running for another term in 2028, when he’d be 95. I think he will retire in 2028, but it’s interesting that he won’t just say that. To me it seems pretty clear that at 95, you shouldn’t be running for another six-year term.

Dave Price: Kathie, you were like 11 when you started covering Chuck Grassley, right?

Kathie Obradovich: Yes, let’s go with that. A couple things — one, I hope Senator Grassley has a freezer in his office, because judging from social media, the amount of Dairy Queen treats coming his way on his birthday... if he had to actually sit down and eat all of that, even with help from staff — and I hope he hasn’t become lactose intolerant in his old age, because even one Dairy Queen blizzard would cause havoc for me, I can tell you.

Laura Belin: My neighborhood Dairy Queen, in Windsor Heights, is actually the one that inspired the viral tweet.

Kathie Obradovich: I do love a blizzard. Second thing — the Board of Regents this week gave UNI official permission to open essentially the Chuck and Barbara Grassley Center, where the senator’s papers will be donated. They approved it on his birthday, which was nice. Interestingly, they’re withholding the naming of the center until he leaves office. I don’t know if any of you remember, but that became an issue with the Regents when Tom Harkin was originally going to put his center at Iowa State — some Regents voted against naming it after a sitting senator, since he could be raising money for the center while still in office, and they thought that was an ethics issue. So it’s interesting they’re withholding the Grassley Center’s naming until he retires. Harkin did eventually pull out of Iowa State, but that was over an ag-research dispute, unrelated to the naming — just a bit of history I thought was interesting.

Dave Price: On the totally non-political side, I was also thinking — how cool is it that Barbara is also with us. She’s slightly younger, I think, right, Eric?

Eric Woolson: I think so — actually, I think she might be even slightly older. She had a previous marriage and a son from it when she met Grassley. But they’ve been together since the early ‘50s — going on over 70 years now.

Dave Price: And I believe they still go to the same restaurant they went to when they were dating.

Eric Woolson: Creatures of habit.

Dave Price: Which is cool in its own right, that the place still exists.

Let’s talk about an event we’ve teed up a few times on the show and never quite gotten to. This past week, the Republican Party of Iowa held an event — billed largely as another “Josh Turek is too liberal” event — but they also talked about the constitutional amendment going before voters in November, which would make it harder for the legislature to raise taxes. It reminds me of the old “when you have the majority, be bold, kick down the door” mentality. Republicans are pushing this through even amid some uncertainty about where they’ll stand with voters after November — getting it locked in now, just in case.

Laura Belin: Only income and corporate taxes, though, Dave — not all taxes.

Dave Price: Good point.

Eric Woolson: Exactly.

Dave Price: There hasn’t been a ton of coverage of this, so I have a feeling it’ll sneak up on some voters when they see it on the ballot.

Eric Woolson: Yeah, a lot of people forget to turn the ballot over — I suspect it’s on the back. It hasn’t gotten much coverage, and speaking as an average voter, I don’t know that much about it myself. One thing I found interesting: the House vote to put the amendment up was 57 Republicans, no Democrats — it didn’t reach the two-thirds threshold you’d actually need to raise taxes under the new rule. That’s one of the hurdles right there. I can see the appeal — “we need a supermajority to raise taxes” sounds great on its face — but from a policy standpoint, having worked for the governor, I’d say there are just too many flaws in this one.

Kathie Obradovich: It does tie your hands. And as Laura mentioned, this only constrains votes on personal and corporate income taxes. There’s now organized opposition, and there’s also a campaign by Iowans for Tax Relief in favor — so we have organized campaigns on both sides now, which should raise awareness, especially with more media coverage of events like this week’s. Opponents argue this won’t actually stop tax increases — it’ll just push lawmakers toward other revenue sources, most likely the sales tax. And our tax system has already become more regressive: the legislature flattened income tax rates to 3.8% flat, so everyone pays the same rate regardless of income — a less progressive system than before. Iowans for Tax Relief will significantly outspend the opposition, though opponents are raising enough to run at least a digital campaign and maybe some yard signs. There was also a Suffolk University poll last month showing the electorate is very close on this — only a 3-4 point gap between support and opposition — but also a very large share of undecided or unaware voters.

Laura Belin: I’ve tried repeatedly to get an answer from Rob Sand on this, since he’s been talking about the “fiscal time bomb” coming — the budget surplus they’ve used to pad spending is likely to run out by 2028, maybe 2029 or 2030 at the latest. I’ve told him: if this amendment passes, you’re basically locking in regressive tax increases, like a sales tax hike. The first time I asked him, before a town hall, he said he hadn’t read it. Weeks later I brought a printed copy to another town hall, and he said he wasn’t going to make a snap decision five minutes before an event. I find it striking that he won’t take a public position, because if this passes, it could really cripple his administration when the budget crunch hits.

Dave Price: Laura, what’s your sense of how vocal other Democratic candidates will be on this?

Laura Belin: I think people don’t want to alienate Republican-leaning voters — the standard GOP line is that Democrats always want to raise your taxes, so Democrats don’t want to walk into that by opposing a measure that “makes it harder to raise taxes.” It’s also a little complicated to explain: this only limits taxes that would make wealthier people pay their fair share, not the taxes that hit working people harder. There’s a way it could be framed, but I understand the reluctance. Sand in particular has been emphasizing his Republican support, so he’s probably especially reluctant to take a strong position — but I think it would be very damaging to the next governor if this passes.

Kathie Obradovich: It’s also pragmatic on Sand’s part — he knows he’ll likely have a Republican legislature if he wins, at least for two years, maybe longer, so he won’t be able to raise taxes anyway. In a way this ties his hands further, but his hands are already tied by the legislative majority.

Dave Price: Related but unrelated — we’re recording Friday morning, about six-plus weeks out from the election. Does it matter that Rob Sand seems to have at least one public event a day, with advance media notice, while Zach Lahn has been doing far fewer for several weeks — more private appearances, like the Clay County Fair or shooting at Brownells, with social videos but not traditional campaign-style events? Am I overthinking that?

Eric Woolson: No, I think it does matter. If you let the Creston radio station or the Spencer radio station know you’re going to be somewhere, maybe people don’t turn out, but at least they know you’re working hard and campaigning, and local media covers you. I think back to a 1988 congressional race I covered in Waterloo, where a candidate would call me every night and say, “I was in Decorah today, but you can’t write about it — I don’t want my opponent to know my strategy.” And I’d say — guess what, no one else will know your strategy either. Granted, traditional media carried more weight back then. But the bottom line is you’ve got to tell people what you’re doing and get out there. I know private events have become more common because there always seem to be protesters looking to disrupt things, but you still have to be in public. If I were running that campaign, I’d be saying, “here’s where we’ll be today, and we want everybody to show up.” That strategy has clearly worked for Sand — I know a number of Republicans around the state who’ve shown up at his events, and you don’t win someone over if you’re not talking to them.

Dave Price: Speaking of events — Lahn will be at the JD Vance event in Council Bluffs on Friday. Ashley Hinson, according to other reporting, already has events planned and won’t be attending. I’m curious whether we’ll see her appear alongside the president or VP over the next six weeks, or whether any of them come specifically to help her.

Eric Woolson: We’ve seen a number of stories around the country of Republicans saying “I’m running my own campaign” — which is always code for “stay away.”

Dave Price: It’d be especially interesting in a state where Trump has dominated three straight general elections. If he’s not visible here, that would be notable.

Eric Woolson: You look at her old district — Trump won Iowa by 10, but she won her district by 14 that same year. Maybe her philosophy is, “I can do this on my own, because I already have.”

Dave Price: Speaking of her old district — Laura, how far back were you first flagging Iowa’s 2nd District as one to watch?

Laura Belin: I’ve been saying it all year — as soon as Shannon Lundgren dropped out and it was clear Joe Mitchell would be the nominee. I think I first said it around last December, after a Tennessee special election showed a massive shift even though the Democrat didn’t win. I said if we saw anything like a 10-15 point shift, keep an eye on the 2nd — it’s an open seat with some of the largest Obama-to-Trump swings in the entire country in northeast Iowa, and the GOP nominee isn’t deeply rooted in the district. I’ve been saying it’s very much in play, and now several ratings outlets have moved it from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.”

Dave Price: Eric, does that shift matter? There’s no incumbent running, since Hinson’s running for Senate instead of reelection.

Eric Woolson: Adding to what Laura said — Trump was plus-10 statewide, and Hinson won in 2024 by 15, but she was a well-known former TV anchor. The district itself is only plus-4 Republican, closer than people think. Mitchell moved into the district, to its edge in Clear Lake, and isn’t well known to voters. Fundraising and polling have both been close. I’d call it a toss-up, and if I were managing that campaign with a plus-4 environment, I wouldn’t be sleeping well over these next seven weeks.

Laura Belin: Joe Mitchell himself said in July, at the Family Leadership Summit, that the problem is Ashley Hinson made people think this wasn’t a competitive district when it actually is. When she first ran for Senate, ratings outlets called it “safe” or “likely Republican” — it took a while for them to even recognize it as “lean Republican.”

Kathie Obradovich: I’m not seeing much from the Mitchell campaign either — not a lot of releases about public appearances, though maybe they’re just not sending them to us. I do see him at multi-candidate events — Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ tailgate, the state fair soapbox — but I’ve been wondering what his day-to-day campaign looks like, since we’re not getting notices about him traveling the district, and I’m not seeing much news coverage of it either.

Dave Price: Same with the 1st District — we hear more from Lindsey James, but not much from Christina Bohannon’s campaign in terms of advance media notices, even though this is her third run.

Laura Belin: I asked her campaign a while back to let me know about events in my corner of the district, and then saw last weekend she’d done meet-and-greets in Norwalk and Newton — I only found out afterward, from photos on social media.

Dave Price: Makes me wonder if some campaigns have moved past traditional media entirely, toward more direct organizing. It seems like going through media would amplify your message to more people, but Eric, am I outdated in that thinking?

Eric Woolson: I’m a dinosaur too, honestly — that’s part of why I got out of the business. I still value traditional media and always left the social media side to people decades younger than me. I understand its value, but there are still a lot of voters like me who aren’t heavily dependent on social media and rely on traditional media day in, day out.

Dave Price: I don’t even know what category we’re in anymore — is this podcast traditional or new media?

Laura Belin: Podcasts are new media.

Dave Price: So we do both. Way to go. And I’d like to thank Eric for reminding us how incredibly popular TV anchors are, which is apparently why Ashley’s done so well in the 2nd District.

Eric Woolson: It’s not just Ashley — male anchors are just as popular as female anchors.

Dave Price: Only in their own minds.

Eric Woolson: You probably can’t go to the grocery store for milk without signing autographs.

Dave Price: That is definitely the case. I’ll leave everyone with that thought — may not be accurate, but it is indeed a thought. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Kathie. Thank you, Laura. Have a great weekend.

Laura Belin: You too.

Dave Price: Wait — we can’t let Kathie go. I was standing a foot away from her watching her pull in another award for her organization, and I have to ask about it. That was pretty cool and emotional, right?

Kathie Obradovich: It was a cool event — the Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council gave Iowa Capital Dispatch their first-ever Media Impact Award. The award was really based on reporting by Clark Kaufman — detailed coverage, since our launch, of abuse and neglect in long-term care facilities and nursing homes. They said, essentially, we wouldn’t know about this without Iowa Capital Dispatch’s reporting, so all credit goes to Clark. I was there because Clark was on a well-deserved vacation, wandering Yellowstone and Grand Teton and apparently dodging bears, judging from his Facebook feed — every time he leaves on vacation I tell him not to get eaten by a bear. Congratulations to Clark — that honor is really on the basis of his reporting. It was also a great event — Dave moderated a really interesting panel on a legislative initiative the council spearheaded last year, and I liked the approach behind how that campaign succeeded. I may write about it at some point. It was a fun group to be around.

Laura Belin: Well-deserved — there are stories we simply wouldn’t know about without Clark.

Dave Price: For Clark, for sure. I’ve been part of that Make Your Mark event for about 10 years now, and that legislative panel was so cool. The advocates were primarily people with visual impairments, and they walked through what it took from the start to identify a problem — like getting help reading prescriptions at pharmacies, since they can’t read a traditional pill bottle — and then the whole process of organizing, building a message, and getting up to the Capitol to personally meet with legislators. Brett Barker from Nevada led it on the House side, handing off to Carol Warby from Ames on the Senate side — the two already knew each other. It was a great setup: advocates explaining what it took, legislators explaining how to actually get their attention amid being bombarded with requests, and it helped that both legislators had grandparents who’d dealt with sight challenges, so there was a personal connection on top of their prior relationship. The event is always incredibly inspiring — people overcoming real hardship, and it gets emotional every year I’ve been there, myself included. It’s such an inspiring day to be part of.

Kathie Obradovich: It was very cool.

Dave Price: Alright, I’ve got to wrap this up before I start bawling — ten years of meeting people like that puts everything in perspective, especially on the days you’re tempted to complain about something small. Thank you all, great to see you this week, thanks for your contributions as always.

And thanks to everyone tuning in — thanks to those who like, share, and subscribe, which is how we keep growing week after week, and to those who’ve become new or continuing financial supporters covering our production costs. If you’ve been thinking about supporting the show, that’s how you keep us coming back week after week. Have a great week ahead, and we’ll talk to you next week.

This week, we paused to remember September 11th, 25 years later. Kathie, Laura, and Ed each shared where they were that day. Kathie watched the towers fall live on TV, Laura was in London and saw the shock ripple through Britain (which lost 67 citizens that day), and Ed watched fighter jets and Air Force One crisscross an eerily empty sky over Iowa. It’s a reminder of how much the world shifted that morning, and how differently a new generation experiences that history.

On the political side, we dug into the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas and Trump’s surprise pitch to send every American adult $5,000. Ed broke down why he sees it as inflationary deficit spending rather than a “revenue hit,” and Laura pointed out this is just the latest in a string of promised dividends (DOGE checks, tariff dividends) that haven’t materialized. Ashley Hinson, for her part, stayed carefully noncommittal when asked about it back home in Iowa.

We also talked Cy-Hawk weekend politics. Tailgate stops are now basically mandatory campaign stops, from Zach Wahls to Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ star-studded tailgate. We closed with Martin O’Malley’s visit to stump for Social Security solvency alongside Josh Turek, plus the news that Iowa’s caucuses are now officially locked in as first-in-the-nation for 2028.

Thanks for listening as always. If you would like to become a paid subscriber to help cover the costs of production please click the ‘Subscribe now’ button above. If you’d could spare a few dollars for a one-time donation please click the button below. We appreciate you!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. If you’re watching the video version of this, you can tell it’s a Cy-Hawk weekend — one of our contributors this week wants you to know what he’s proudly wearing. We’ll get to him in a moment.

We also have a somber remembrance this week: 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We’ll talk about that a little. A former presidential candidate came to Iowa — that seems to happen every week now — in this case it was Martin O’Malley, talking about Social Security. We’ll talk about whether we agree that Social Security will be a big issue for voters this November. Plus, President Trump wants to give you $5,000 — but there’s a big catch. We’ll cover that and more.

Let’s bring on our panelists. Mr. Iowa Hawkeye, demonstrating his pride — Ed Failor Jr., longtime Republican advisor and staffer. Hello, sir.

Ed Failor: Hello, how are you today?

Dave Price: We’re good. Laura Belin, our regular. Kathie Obradovich, our regular — not that you’re “regular,” you know what I mean.

Kathie Obradovich: Well, I have to say, I wasn’t prepared for the rivalry.

Dave Price: Oh.

Kathie Obradovich: Because I am, I think, the only Cyclone on the panel here. But Ed, hat tip to you.

Laura Belin: I’m neutral — I’m Switzerland on the Iowa/Iowa State game, because I’m a Michigan fan.

Dave Price: We pledge civility on this show, but Cy-Hawk may bring some other emotion out this week. We’ll see how Ed and Kathie coexist.

Ed Failor: I’m an elephant.

Kathie Obradovich: Cyclone.

Ed Failor: I’m always nice to the younger sibling who just can’t get by.

Dave Price: And for those watching the video version — Ed’s on the mend here. You good? You’ve got a big bandage on your forehead.

Ed Failor: Yeah, just a little skin issue — sun damage and all that. Had a small thing taken care of yesterday, and I’ve got to leave this on for a day and a half or two days. So yeah, I’m golden.

Dave Price: All good, good to hear.

Remembering September 11th

Dave Price: I thought this week we should address — we’re recording on September 11th. I know this drops on the weekend, but there were a lot of moments throughout Friday looking back 25 years. It’s one of those things where you realize your age a bit — neither of my kids was alive when the 9/11 attacks happened. I have a coworker in television who’s only 24, and when we were talking about story ideas for 9/11, I figured she wouldn’t know much about it firsthand. Kathie, do you remember what was happening in your life on September 11, 2001?

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I was still working for the Lee Enterprises papers. I remember the day vividly — I was getting ready for work with the TV on, half-watching while I got dressed, and when I turned it on, the first tower had already been hit. So then I’m glued to the TV, assuming at that point it was a terrible accident. I was still watching when the second plane hit the tower.

Honestly, it makes me tear up right now — I literally burst into tears when I saw it. The weeks afterward were just a blur. We were wondering whether the state capitol would be a target — Tom Vilsack was governor at the time — and there was a lot of discussion about Homeland Security and what could be at risk in Iowa: the water supply, the food supply. There was a lot of talk about securing Iowa’s food supply because of the sudden insecurity everyone felt. But yeah, I’ll never forget that morning, watching that plane hit the second tower.

Dave Price: I had a similar experience. I slept in that day and missed the first one — a friend called me, I flipped on the TV, and then saw the second one. Laura, what do you remember of that day?

Laura Belin: I was in graduate school, living in London, so my morning was completely normal. I watched the BBC noontime news and nothing was happening yet — the first plane hit a little before 2 p.m. in Britain. Somebody called me, and I turned on the TV a little after 2.

A lot of people don’t realize the 9/11 attacks were the deadliest terror attack in British history — at least 67 UK citizens were killed, mostly in the World Trade Center: some on the observation deck, some working at Cantor Fitzgerald, some passengers on the planes. No IRA attack in the UK ever killed nearly as many people. It was a massive story — for weeks afterward, if people heard my American accent, they’d say, “We’re so sorry for what happened to your country.” British media coverage focused a lot on the British victims too, but it was an unbelievable, devastating experience — people in Europe really felt the scale of the calamity.

Dave Price: Ed, where were you back then?

Ed Failor: I was at Iowans for Tax Relief in Muscatine when it happened. What stands out to me — the actual events were awful, obviously — but I remember going out into the yard just to catch my breath and look around. There was no air traffic. It was eerie. Then I saw jets, probably F-16s, come screaming west to east. I’m an Air Force veteran, I worked in ops, so I thought, “The president’s probably in the air right now.” Then they came screaming back. And then, at a much slower pace, another big plane came through — that had to be Air Force One, making its way from Omaha back to DC.

I remember thinking: the only things in the sky right now are our president and some fighter jets. That felt almost as profound, in some ways, as the tragedy itself — like, wow, the world’s changed forever. Nothing’s going to be the same. That’s what I remember feeling, watching those planes go back and forth.

Dave Price: I remember our television newsroom — everybody scrambling, rushing in without even being called, but not really knowing what to do. Like Kathie said — is the state capitol safe? The airport had shut down, so we had crews out there talking to grounded, confused passengers walking off planes. As a reporter, you’re processing what’s happening as an American, while also trying to figure out what the story should even be.

The technology was so different back then — today it’d all be social media and digital, but this was the early days of that. We interviewed all kinds of people and shot stories that never aired, because the networks were on 24/7 for days and there wasn’t room. Local TV was kind of stuck, still transitioned to the old world, rushing from place to place trying to figure out what to do — but feeling kind of useless.

Laura Belin: The BBC also preempted all other coverage — wall to wall, that day and the next.

Dave Price: Yeah, it was...

Kathie Obradovich: There were 13 people with Iowa ties killed that day, either at the towers or on United Flight 93, which people remember crash-landed in Pennsylvania after passengers realized they were being hijacked and brought the plane down. And here’s how small a world it is — two of the people who passed away that day had siblings still in Iowa whom I personally know. I grew up with one family in Ames, the Haviland family — one of the younger brothers of the man who passed away was a classmate of mine. It tells you what a small community Iowa really is.

Laura Belin: It really changed a lot of people’s lives. I remember soapbox speeches — Lindsey James said she decided to become a chaplain after 9/11 because she knew someone on Flight 93. And Nicholas Gluba, the Libertarian who ran for governor, decided to join the Marines after 9/11. A lot of people made huge, life-changing decisions because of what happened.

Kathie Obradovich: One of our current statehouse newsroom editors, Tim Lambert — he’s now editor of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star — Flight 93 actually crash-landed on family land of his in Pennsylvania. It sounded like the crash field spread over a multiple-mile area. We picked up an interesting story from Stateline where he talked about that experience. It’s still, I think, reverberating today in how it touched people all over.

Dave Price: For sure.

RNC Midterm Convention & the $5,000 Idea

Dave Price: Far different subject — this week in Dallas, the Republican National Committee held a midterm convention. We’re used to seeing these every four years in presidential cycles, but this was a mid-cycle one. We’ve had a lot of unusual things happen this midterm cycle — redistricting, and now a midterm convention, and only on one side; Democrats didn’t do their own version.

Ed, when you heard this was happening — with your strategist brain — what was your first thought? Was this a Trump-the-showman move, or what?

Ed Failor: My first thought was: I hope it’s not tying up too much candidate time, because they need to be raising money and talking to constituents — that was my very first thought. On the other hand, as a group cheerleading exercise to get people fired up and get attention, I can understand it. But honestly, my first reaction was hoping everybody was still out there raising money and doing their thing. A week in Dallas is cool, and if it gets attention, good for them — but that was my honest first thought.

Dave Price: And that’s because of how many years you’ve spent as a campaign staffer, right? You know how important that time is.

Ed Failor: Well before 9/11, yeah.

Dave Price: Laura, is it a problem that Democrats didn’t do one too? Do Republicans get all the attention, or is this overhyped?

Laura Belin: Sort of. My initial reaction was: wow, Republicans are really worried about GOP base turnout. I can’t think of another reason to do an event like this other than being worried about firing up loyal Republicans. Historically, as long as I’ve been following things, Republicans have had higher turnout than Democrats in Iowa midterms — but it does seem like this concern about an enthusiasm gap is real.

I don’t know how many Iowa candidates went down there. I know Zach Mitchell went, and Ashley Hinson did too, though not for the whole week. There are pros and cons to Republicans tying themselves more closely to Trump — with his approval underwater, that might not help broadly, but it should help with base turnout.

Dave Price: Kathie, you had a staffer talk to Ashley Hinson when she got back — she was only in Dallas on Wednesday, then flew back for events on Thursday, including one at a childcare facility in Carlisle (I think the same place Governor Reynolds visited a couple years ago). Your writer asked her about Dallas, and specifically about Trump’s idea during his speech of giving every American adult $5,000 — contingent on Republicans holding the House and Senate, with a requirement to spend it in the U.S.

Kathie Obradovich: Right, no going to Canada to spend it.

Dave Price: Hopefully not. Good point. But you had a story about how Hinson responded — pretty noncommittal, really.

Kathie Obradovich: I’d say very committed to being noncommittal. She said she doesn’t support anything without taking a good look at it, but didn’t rule it out either. She rolled it into being willing to look at anything that helps affordability for middle-class, hardworking families — her reason for being at the childcare center was to talk about childcare costs. She classified Trump’s idea as something worth considering if it helps families feeling the pinch, and left it there. She was also fairly noncommittal about whether Trump should come campaign for her — said sure, she’d welcome it, but had no plans for anything imminent.

Dave Price: Ed, you led Iowans for Tax Relief back in the day. Hearing the president’s comments, and later analysis suggesting this could be a $1.2–$1.3 trillion hit to the Treasury — as someone who I assume still believes in fiscal conservatism, is this fiscally responsible?

Ed Failor: I’ll start with this — it was just words. I haven’t seen a bill written. So who knows. But putting on my economics degree hat: it’s not really a “revenue hit,” it’s an expenditure of money we don’t have. We’re $40 trillion in debt, and this would add $1.2–$1.4 trillion. Either they’re putting it on the credit card, or they’re giving people their own money back — those are really the two ways to look at it.

My concerns: first, the redistribution-of-wealth aspect — never a fan of that. But the bigger concern is how inflationary it would be, pumping $1.2–$1.4 trillion into the economy. That should be a real concern. And it compounds the $40 trillion debt — we’ve gotten to a point where we don’t even comprehend what these numbers mean anymore. It should worry people both that the money’s coming at all, and how inflationary it could be.

Dave Price: It was interesting — in some Republican reaction, if Biden’s spending caused inflation, this seems similar: pumping out a ton of money all at once, in theory, if this is even real. There’d have to be implications.

Ed Failor: Yeah, there’d certainly be implications — the inflationary nature is the worst part. It’s not pumping out money we have, it’s creating new money and adding it into an environment where inflation’s already an issue. We don’t want to make that worse. Show me a way to do it that’s not incredibly inflationary, and I’m on board.

Kathie Obradovich: It’s kind of funny that we’re taking this seriously — he’s made similar suggestions before that never materialized. I, for one, am not sitting by my mailbox waiting for a $5,000 check even if Republicans keep control of Congress.

Dave Price: It was $5,000 from DOGE that he talked about giving everybody. There was also a $2,000 thing.

Laura Belin: Right — I don’t think Ed needs to worry, because the chance of this happening is zero. Catherine Rampell, who writes about the economy, totaled these up: the $5,000 DOGE dividend, the $2,000 tariff dividend, the $1,000 in “savings” from ending ACA premium subsidies, and now this new $5,000 dividend if Republicans win the midterms. None of it is happening, whether Republicans win or not.

Dave Price: I was also paying attention to see whether our members of Congress would respond on their own — since Iowa’s delegation is single-party, that sometimes makes it easier to track. Kathie had a reporter talk to Hinson, but social media seemed pretty empty of responses from our delegation on this. If it were something they were excited about, you’d expect them tweeting, Truth Social-ing, Facebooking, sending news releases — I might have missed something, but I didn’t see a single response.

Ed Failor: I think Laura’s right — the odds of it happening are about the same as Iowa State’s chances of winning this weekend.

Dave Price: There it is, folks!

Politics and Tailgates

Dave Price: Since you brought that up, I’m moving this up my list. Remember Michele Bachmann’s split Cyclone/Hawkeye jersey?

Laura Belin: 2012.

Dave Price: Right, thank you. She got ripped for it, and for a while there was this idea that you shouldn’t mix politics and game day. But now it feels like every prominent politician is going to the game. I saw a release from Rob Sand, Josh Turek will be there, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks has a tailgate that basically every Republican in the state seems to be attending — she’s bringing in Markwayne Mullin, and I think Rick Scott too, if I remember right.

Ed, is it fine to do these things, or do people not want politics at their tailgate?

Ed Failor: They’ve been happening forever, in my experience. When I lived in eastern Iowa, I went to every game, and around election season these were always a thing. I don’t see the harm — you’re out there talking to constituents, showing you care about normal things. No downside that I can see.

Dave Price: You shotgun a beer, right?

Kathie Obradovich: I heard —

Dave Price: Turek said at an event this week that he hadn’t done that in maybe 20 years, so I’m not expecting him to shotgun one in Iowa City Saturday.

Ed Failor: Who knows, though, if he does?

Kathie Obradovich: For candidates to visibly take sides — like the split jersey — I think that’s more of a political risk. But actually being out there among tailgaters, some people are going to boo you. You’ve got a lot of potentially drunk people in a parking lot with lowered inhibitions, so a comment caught on camera is pretty likely. That’s a bit of a risk. Some events, like Miller-Meeks’, will probably be more controlled. But wandering through a parking lot — there have been some interesting photos over the years of presidential candidates interacting with tailgaters in various states of dress, holding up various things.

Dave Price: You can guarantee the drinks have been flowing for hours for some folks.

Laura Belin: It’s on my list to check in with the Iowa Democrats’ coordinated campaign — they call it Iowa Forward — since they have more than two dozen field offices. It used to be a rule not to send canvassers out knocking doors during Iowa or Iowa State football games, so you don’t disturb people. But I know they’re sending people out statewide every weekend, and I’m curious how they’re handling that now that football season’s underway.

Martin O’Malley and Social Security

Dave Price: I mentioned Turek — Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor and former presidential candidate, was in Iowa this week. Like with Michele Bachmann, I had to rely on Laura’s memory for the year he ran — 2016. Some of these campaigns are starting to blend together for me. O’Malley also headed the Social Security Administration under Biden for a while, and he was back in Iowa for a Social Security event with Turek, along with Shauna’s John Bauer — sorry, John Bowser Bauman — who’s come to Iowa on behalf of Social Security advocates so many times over the years. He did his flag-waving thing — I think originally from the ‘70s.

O’Malley’s point was that because of staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration under the Trump administration, Social Security will become more of an issue. Plus, the solvency date is now moving in the wrong direction — 2032 is looking like the year the fund would only have enough to pay out about 80% of benefits. You all talk to a lot of voters — is this like the national debt, where people say it’s a problem but it doesn’t really motivate them to vote, or is it a real factor?

Kathie Obradovich: I don’t hear people talking about Social Security much, except when the solvency date comes up in the news and sparks brief attention. The solutions haven’t changed — raise the retirement age, raise taxes, or uncap the payroll tax on income. Not much else. Josh Turek, unsurprisingly, favors lifting the cap so higher earners pay in on their full income instead of just the first roughly $180,000 or so.

So no, I don’t hear people talking about it much — I’d put it under the broader affordability conversation. I also think it’s interesting that people are conflating cuts to Social Security Administration staffing with cuts to Social Security itself. People’s checks haven’t changed, though they may be having more trouble getting through on the phone or resolving issues. But it’s a stretch to say benefits are being cut when what’s being cut is the agency that administers them — I wish people would be more precise about that.

Dave Price: Ed, back during George W. Bush’s presidency, some Republicans pushed investing a portion of Social Security funds in the markets to grow it faster and extend solvency. That idea faded — Democrats built public opposition, and Republicans dropped it. If you were advising candidates today, how would you approach this? Something’s got to give eventually, right?

Ed Failor: There’s a difference between advising a candidate and advising a sitting legislator who actually has to deal with the problem. I think Kathie’s right that it’s such a theoretical, non-concrete issue for most people that campaign-wise, I wouldn’t spend much time on it, because I don’t think many people are talking about it. If people start talking about it, then sure. As a sitting legislator, that’s a completely different question of how you actually tackle it. As a candidate, you address the issues that are actually moving people, and from the polling I’ve seen, Social Security isn’t in the top three to five issues.

Dave Price: Laura, final thought?

Laura Belin: I don’t think it’s a big voting issue for most people, but it fits well for Josh Turek — this was a stance Tom Harkin held back in the day, and Turek is running for Harkin’s old Senate seat with Harkin’s support. It’s also just an easy message for Democrats: millionaires and billionaires aren’t paying their fair share. It fits into that broader constellation of issues.

Dave Price: Alright, let’s bring it to a close. This weekend — Iowa State — Ed and Kathie largely kept it civil, so thanks for preserving the integrity of the show.

Kathie Obradovich: We’ll do our best. Now I’m annoyed I wasn’t prepared — I could’ve held up some kind of sign, and Ed’s way ahead of me.

Dave Price: Spencer can somehow edit this into the final product before it drops.

Kathie Obradovich: Hey, before we go — one quick thing. The Republican midterm convention also ratified Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status for the 2028 caucuses, so we should acknowledge that before we go. We knew this was coming — their committee had already recommended it — but it’s now official that the Iowa caucuses will be first in the nation in 2028.

Dave Price: Thank you for mentioning that. Alright, that’s a wrap for this week. Thanks to all of you for joining us. We appreciate you subscribing — please like, share, and subscribe to help us grow, and if you’re able to financially contribute to the show, that helps too. Have a great week ahead.

This week we dug into two big stories. First, the Des Moines Register’s new reporting on Derek Wulf’s farm finances: an active criminal investigation, a court-appointed receiver, and creditors who settled for less than they were owed. We talked about what real campaign due diligence looks like, and why this story hasn’t gotten the attention it probably deserves.

We also broke down a new Emerson College poll. Rob Sand leads Zach Lahn by 3 points in the governor’s race, with independents breaking hard his way. In the Senate race, Ashley Hinson leads Josh Turek 50-45, and we tried to make sense of Turek’s ad touting cooperation with Trump on immigration.

Plus, we’re pleased to welcome first-time guest Eric Woolson who has an extensive background in journalism and campaigns, closed things out with the Chuck Grassley vacuum cleaner bobblehead saga, and pondered whether Grassley might run again in 2028 at age 95.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers’ & Songwriters’ Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They’ll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. We have another new statewide poll, and it shows that, at least for some people, split-ticket voting is still a thing. We’ll talk about that. Plus, there’s new reporting on Republican lieutenant governor candidate Derek Wulf and his farm operations, legal situation, and finances. The Des Moines Register had a story out Friday that we want to discuss.

I’m Dave Price. This week we’re joined by Iowa Down Ballot regulars Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin. Hello, ladies.

Kathie Obradovich: Hello! Good to be here.

Laura Belin: Good to be here.

Dave Price: And making his debut on the podcast, I was going to say “best known snake charmer” — that’s not really why he’s here, but he might be the most interesting man in the room if you really know his background. Eric Woolson, way back in the day, was a newspaper reporter. He may be the only person I know who’s worked for both a Democratic and a Republican presidential candidate. Is that true?

Eric Woolson: Well, that’s where the snake charming comes in handy, I suppose. I used to say I was one of the few people who’d worked for seven presidential campaigns. But I’m absolutely positive I’m the only person who’s been a spokesperson for both Joe Biden and Michele Bachmann.

Laura Belin: Narrow that down.

Eric Woolson: I’ll throw that down.

Dave Price: Well done — we strive for uniqueness on this show. Welcome, Eric, thanks for joining us.

Derek Wulf’s Financial and Legal Troubles

Dave Price: Let’s talk about this Des Moines Register story. Tyler Jett posted it Friday — and we’re recording this on Friday, so we may be talking about it as the news is still unfolding. This won’t drop until the weekend, so there could be twists and turns. Laura, I believe you were the first to report on Derek Wulf’s agricultural operations and financial challenges. Tyler Jett has picked up from there, and it shows there are still serious financial challenges for Representative Wulf, along with some strong allegations from people who’ve worked with him. What do you make of it?

Laura Belin: It was a really good piece by Tyler Jett — he clarified some things I wasn’t able to nail down back in June and July. First, WCF Financial, his bank, filed a foreclosure petition in May. As of this summer they were negotiating some kind of refinancing. Derek Wulf said at the Westside Conservative Club in July that they’d been able to refinance, but that clearly wasn’t complete, because last week the bank filed a motion to have a receiver appointed, which the court approved two days ago.

The bank’s filing said Wulf never presented a commitment letter — essentially proof that financing or additional collateral was lined up to support the refinancing. So we know negotiations broke down somewhere along the way.

Also important: Tyler Jett confirmed with the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office that there is still an active criminal investigation into Wulf’s operations. That was hinted at in the May foreclosure filing, and seems related to livestock collateral belonging to the bank that may have been sold to third parties. There were also fraud allegations in an earlier filing from a separate case brought by Heartland Co-op, but I was never able to confirm an actual criminal investigation — Tyler Jett did. The Lahn campaign’s spokesperson denied any fraud occurred, but also apparently confirmed to the Register that Zach Lahn didn’t know about the criminal investigation when he picked Wulf as his running mate.

Dave Price: Eric, you’re the only one of us who’s worked on campaigns — what’s traditional due diligence like when choosing a running mate?

Eric Woolson: Going back to my reporting days in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, my first thought was: how did this happen? Clearly a due diligence question — somebody didn’t do their homework. Normally that process runs a couple of weeks: you dig into personal background, financial background, talk to people they’ve done business with, talk to the neighbors. A lot of times you’ve got a professional firm doing opposition research — including on your own candidate, so you know what the other side will say about you. Clearly none of that happened here.

The landscape’s changed too. Laura’s done terrific work, the Register has a news story, but for the most part it feels like a tree falling in the forest that nobody hears. There’s not as much media in this state as there used to be, reporters are shorthanded, there’s only so many hours in the day. Regardless of party, this isn’t as big a story as it should be — and that goes back to the central question of where the due diligence was. Obviously there wasn’t any.

Kathie Obradovich: To give the Lahn campaign a little grace — it’s possible that when Wulf first addressed these questions with Laura, he genuinely believed refinancing was in progress, and that kind of deal can fall apart at any point. That does happen. But this raises real questions: if this is how the Lahn campaign does due diligence on someone as important as a running mate, how can Iowa voters trust he’ll pick the right people if he becomes governor? The governor doesn’t do everything alone — you have to pick the right people for the job.

Even if this is damaging to Wulf, it doesn’t mean he can’t do a good job as lieutenant governor. It’s possible the campaign knew all this and decided his financial experience actually makes him a stronger advocate for farmers. Some of this comes down to how much voters really care about who the running mate is.

Laura Belin: Tyler Jett interviewed some of the creditors who sued Wulf — I’d reached out but never heard back. One of them, Chad Zoske, described something that goes well beyond normal farmer financial distress. The Lahn campaign had said all creditors were being repaid in full, but according to the Register story, Zoske ended up settling for less than he was owed because he figured something was better than nothing.

Eric Woolson: Part of this may be that Lahn really came out of nowhere as a surprise candidate, so he may have lacked connections within the party infrastructure. In years past you’d have five or six names floated — someone from eastern Iowa, someone from northwest Iowa, maybe a business person — generating buzz. This pick came out of left field. The question is how much internal discussion there really was among Senate, House, and party leadership before landing on him. Normally you’d have several names floated, and I don’t recall any being out there. Lahn was surprised to be the nominee, and so was everyone else.

Dave Price: He and Governor Kim Reynolds had never even met before the primary, so there wasn’t much happening behind the scenes there either. I should also note — I double-checked with the Secretary of State’s office — it’s too late to get Derek Wulf’s name off the ballot even if this became a bigger controversy.

I’m curious, Eric: how does a campaign decide how much to talk about something like this? Zach Lahn already has a complicated personal story — the Kansas connection, an ex-wife, his wife’s ex-husband, kids who live there, the farmhouse in Belle Plaine — and Rob Sanders has tried to capitalize on the “Kansas guy, not an Iowa guy” angle. Now there’s Wulf’s farm finances too. How does a campaign decide whether to get out in front of something like this — a press conference, addressing it directly — versus staying quiet or responding only in writing?

Eric Woolson: That’s always an internal calculation, and campaigns typically have people on both sides of it. Talk about it more and you risk drawing more attention; don’t talk about it and you risk looking like you’re hiding something. It depends on the circumstances — and as Laura’s and Tyler Jett’s reporting shows, this is out of the ordinary. You can talk about farmers facing financial difficulty in general, but this has been going on a long time and hasn’t been handled well. My guess is the campaign sticks with something like “this shows he understands what farmers are going through.” I’d have pushed hard for getting out in front of it. But first and foremost: don’t have the issue in the first place, and you won’t have to explain it.

Dave Price: We’ll see how the campaign handles this over the weekend and into next week.

New Statewide Poll — Governor’s Race

Dave Price: We have a new statewide poll from Emerson College. Starting with governor: Democrat Rob Sand is up three points over Zach Lahn , 49 to 46, with 6% undecided. Among independents, Sand leads 51 to 39. Kathie, this tracks with what we’ve been seeing, right?

Kathie Obradovich: I think so. Bottom line, it’s a close race — three points is within the margin of error. It’s good news for Sand that independents are breaking his way; there simply aren’t enough Democrats in Iowa to win statewide without a substantial number of independents, and probably some Republicans too. That explains Sand’s approach of framing this as a campaign about bipartisan problem-solving rather than partisanship — and right now that message seems to be resonating with a majority of independents.

Dave Price: Laura, I’ve talked to some Republicans who point out Sand’s been campaigning nonstop for eight years, touring every county, while people still don’t know Zach Lahn — and Lahn has a huge registered-voter advantage to lean on. What do you make of that?

Laura Belin: That’s a fair reading. I’d note that Sabato’s Crystal Ball just moved the governor’s race from toss-up to lean Democrat, following the Cook Political Report. Forecasters sometimes see internal polling beyond what’s public. Two things stand out to me: we haven’t seen a single poll showing Lahn ahead, and this particular sample actually leans more Republican than Democrat — it recalls a Trump plus-10 electorate from 2024. So if Sand is ahead in a sample that red, that says something.

On the other hand, some Republicans complained the sample skewed too young or too college-educated. It’s genuinely hard to know what the electorate will look like — this is why Ann Selzer historically avoided heavy weighting. We have some evidence college-educated voters turn out more in off-year elections than presidential years. I wouldn’t tell Democrats to get overconfident, but it’s fair to say the race leans toward Sand right now.

Dave Price: Eric, your take on the top lines?

Eric Woolson: It reminds me of Vilsack versus Jim Ross Lightfoot in 1998. It really comes down to how well voters already know a candidate. Lightfoot had just run against Harkin, so almost everyone knew him. Vilsack was on his fourth campaign manager — I remember running into John Kachator at the State House and asking why he’d take the job that late. He said everyone already knows Lightfoot, but nobody knows Vilsack yet — once people get to know him, they’ll like him. Vilsack ended up a two-term governor.

Could that happen with Lahn ? I’m not so sure — with the flood of ads from every direction these days, it’s harder to cut through. How well do voters already know Rob Sand, like him, dislike him — and how much time does Lahn have left to become known? Will he be the next Vilsack, or just a footnote? We don’t know yet.

Dave Price: We asked months ago whether Lahn had enough time in the primary — it felt like he had momentum even before the polling existed. He proved he did, helped along by Randy Feenstra’s presence in the race too. Now: which matters more heading into November — Republicans’ voter registration advantage, or the fact that Sand has been everywhere for years while Lahn hasn’t?

Eric Woolson: Sand’s been to all 99 counties, presenting himself as a small-town guy from Decorah who hunts, fishes, and puts his toes in the river mud. That’s made real connections — I’ve heard from Republicans for whom the fact that he’s a deer hunter is enough: a Democrat who understands guns. The question is whether Lahn has time to catch up. You can’t meet all 3.3 million Iowans, so it comes down to whether you win via TV ads or via organization. Right now Sand has the organizational edge, which puts pressure on county GOP organizations to make up ground — and on Lahn to energize the grassroots.

Kathie Obradovich: Part of Lahn’s challenge is that he’s not operating in a vacuum. His TV ads are all him talking straight to camera — unlike a lot of candidates who use surrogates. That’s probably meant to build basic recognition: what he looks like, sounds like, what he actually says. Not a bad strategy at this stage. But he’s also being defined by the other side as a “carpetbagger from Kansas.” It cuts both ways — Sand is being cast as an out-of-touch rich guy (not billionaire, that hasn’t been supported, but rich and out-of-touch). Lahn starts from a deficit of name recognition and has to fight that framing at the same time.

Senate Race — Hinson vs. Turek

Dave Price: The poll also covered the U.S. Senate race, and there’s a split-ticket wrinkle: 6% would back Republican Ashley Hinson for Senate while also backing Rob Sand for governor. Hinson leads Josh Turek 50 to 45, with Libertarian Thomas Laehn at 1% and 5% undecided. Independents split much tighter here — Turek up 46 to 44. That gap of five points is outside the margin of error, but it tracks with what I’ve been hearing anecdotally.

Kathie Obradovich: I think Thomas Laehn will end up with more than 1% — he polled around 3 to 4% before, though comparing polls is always risky. He probably pulls a bit more from Republicans than Democrats. As for the 6% ticket-splitting — that feels low to me. I still remember the Grassley/Harkin era, when plenty of Iowans voted for both at different points, and some may remember that fondly.

Oh, and before we go — there’s now a bobblehead of Chuck Grassley and his beloved, retired vacuum cleaner, Beth. I may need one for my shelf.

Dave Price: Kathie, that was supposed to be the end of the show!

Kathie Obradovich: Oh, sorry!

Dave Price: Eric wrote a book about Grassley — that would’ve been the perfect way to close it out. Laura, your read on the Senate race?

Laura Belin: We’ve seen this pattern in other red states — voters more willing to back a Democrat for governor than for Senate, and vice versa for Republicans in blue states like Maryland and Massachusetts. So it’s not surprising Hinson runs ahead of where Lahn is. Turek is less well-known than Hinson, which is the optimistic read for his side — he still has time to build recognition. Looking back at Hinson’s record, she was the only Iowa House Republican to win in 2018 in a district that also went for Hillary Clinton and Fred Hubbell, so she’s shown she can pull some crossover support. Encouraging poll for her — though again, this sample leans more Republican than Democrat, so Turek’s campaign needs the ground game to shift those numbers.

Dave Price: Eric, what do you make of Turek’s ad where he says he’d work with President Trump on immigration and the border? I’ve been trying to figure out who that’s aimed at.

Eric Woolson: Nothing to add on the polling — Laura covered that well. On the immigration ad: if anyone figures out the strategy, let me know. I’d have picked the economy, agriculture, almost anything else. Saying he’ll work with Trump on immigration specifically isn’t going to move Trump voters, and it’s not going to win over Democrats either — they’re likely sticking with him regardless, maybe with a little crossover. I genuinely don’t know the rationale, and I wouldn’t have chosen that issue.

Laura Belin: I share the puzzlement. I’ve heard from grassroots Democrats who didn’t like the ad. Recent polling shows Trump’s approval underwater, so it’s not obviously an asset to tout working with him. I understand the goal — countering Republican messaging that paints Turek as a radical liberal, the same playbook used against a lot of Democrats — but I’m not sure how effective it’ll be.

Closing — The Grassley Bobblehead

Dave Price: Did you hear there’s a bobblehead of Chuck Grassley and Beth, his 49-year-old, now-retired Hoover vacuum? Eric, is he really getting a replacement vacuum from a friend in northwest Iowa?

Eric Woolson: Only 17 years old, the replacement.

Dave Price: Why not just buy a new one?

Eric Woolson: Exactly. I wrote a book with him back in 1995 — 31 years ago — and I actually saw him vacuuming without realizing how attached he was to Beth. This is the same guy who, to save time mowing his lawn, rigged three mowers together on one riding mower so he could run them all at once. He’s got an affinity for machinery that just keeps running — long live Beth. But apparently it’s time for a new one, and I hope Kathie gets a bobblehead, because it’s going to be popular.

Kathie Obradovich: Even vacuum cleaners have term limits, apparently.

Laura Belin: The replacement’s pretty old too — it came from Representative Jack Bosman and it’s around 17 or 18 years old itself. Grassley said he had it lying around because his wife got a new vacuum. So this is Beth 2.0.

Eric Woolson: Keep in mind Grassley was first elected in 1958, the year I was born — Beth was pretty young at 49 by comparison. Term limits don’t always apply, I guess.

Kathie Obradovich: I’m expecting an announcement any day that Beth is running for office.

Laura Belin: There was actually a flurry of stories about this — I wrote about it last year after Steve Woodhouse asked Grassley if he’d run again in 2028, and he didn’t rule it out. Someone asked him again recently, and he said to ask him later — right now he’s focused on getting Ashley Hinson and others elected. So officially, he hasn’t ruled out running again at age 95.

Dave Price: That seems like a good question to close on, Eric.

Eric Woolson: Strom Thurmond was 99 when he passed away in the Senate, and Grassley served with him a long time — maybe he’s chasing that record.

Dave Price: And we just saw Ed Markey win his primary at what, 80?

Eric Woolson: Yeah, choice of young voters everywhere.

Dave Price: Right — Seth Moulton found that out the hard way. Thank you all, this was fun. Eric, thanks for joining us — hope to have you back on the show often. And Kathie, all prayers for your air conditioner.

Kathie Obradovich: Yes, please.

Dave Price: Thank you all for joining us on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. Please like, subscribe, and share — send it to a gazillion of your closest friends and family. We appreciate watching the numbers grow week after week, and thanks to everyone who’s become a new paid subscriber to help pay the bills. Have a great week.

We welcomed Ed Failor Jr. to the show for the first time — longtime Iowa Republican operative, former head of Iowans for Tax Relief — and put him through the paces alongside Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin.

We dug into the new Suffolk poll. Ashley Hinson is up 45-41 on Josh Turek, Rob Sand is up 48-44 on Zach Lahn.

The Libertarians lost in court again. A judge ruled they can’t replace their disqualified candidates, so their LG and 3rd District picks are off the ballot pending a possible appeal.

We talked beef! The president’s move to allow cheaper foreign beef imports has ranchers fuming, with timing that couldn’t be worse for Iowa’s cattle counties.

And we closed on whether Hinson’s time in Congress is a liability in a statewide race. Ed says no. It’s the candidate, not the office.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers’ & Songwriters’ Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They’ll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Welcome back, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price. This week, we are going to talk about a new statewide poll that shows, yet again — in case you didn’t know this — that we have some really competitive races in this state. We’re also going to talk about beef. The president has made a move that has ticked off some cattle ranchers, and we’re going to dig into that a little bit. And we have a tradition, it seems, on this weekly podcast: we must cover the latest twists and turns of the Libertarian candidates, so we’ll do that too.

With us this week are regulars Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin. Hello, ladies.

Kathie Obradovich: Oh!

Laura Belin: Good to see ya!

Dave Price: But this week we’ve added a fourth. This is something we’ve been talking about for quite a while, and it is now a thing: Ed Failor Jr. joins us this week. He’s a longtime Republican who has had a bunch of different jobs — he’s worked at the Statehouse, he’s worked on campaigns, he led an organization, Iowans for Tax Relief, and he’s done other stuff too. We’ll maybe get into some of that. Regardless, welcome, Ed. Thanks for doing this.

Ed Failor: Well, happy to be here. I just — people talking is a good thing.

Dave Price: It is a good thing. You and I, over the years, have had many lengthy conversations, and now we can do it here. And as you promised, you’ll work in at least one dad joke — in case any of your kids are listening to this podcast. True?

Ed Failor: I’m going to ignore the ageism of that and go with it. Yeah.

Dave Price: I’m apparently with you, because I’m accused of that all the time. I wear it as a badge of honor. All right, all right — trio.

The Suffolk University Poll

Dave Price: Let’s set things up with this new Suffolk University poll. Two of the big races we’ve talked about all year: the governor’s race and the U.S. Senate race. Quick numbers — in the Senate race, Republican Ashley Hinson leads 45–41 over Democrat Josh Turek, with Libertarian Thomas Lane at 4%. The governor’s race is flipped: Democrat Rob Sand is at 48%, Republican Zach Lahn at 44%, no Libertarian in that race. That’s our tease — we’ll get to the Libertarians, but not yet.

Kathie, we’ve said again and again that it’s a competitive race — when you see these numbers, what’s the “why” of it?

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I think one thing I liked about this poll is they asked a lot of issue questions that help explain where people are coming from, and it won’t surprise anyone — it’s the economy, it’s gas prices, it’s household expenses, grocery prices. Poll respondents were asked what they’re spending more money on, and gas and groceries topped the list. President Trump’s approval rating is down, as we’ve seen in other polls and nationally.

There’s also still a healthy number of undecided voters. I was glad to see Thomas Lane included in this poll — we hadn’t seen a poll name the Libertarian candidate before, for reasons we’ll get into. But he’s on the ballot, and he pulled about 3 points that look like they came from Republicans and 1 point from Democrats. So if we speculate about who the Libertarian hurts more in this race, it’s probably Ashley Hinson.

Dave Price: Laura, what’s your takeaway?

Laura Belin: I like to look at the composition of the electorate. I could look at this poll and say it’s encouraging for Republicans — Zach Lahn isn’t that far behind, he’s much less well-known than Rob Sand, and he has room to grow, while Hinson still has a lead. But I looked at the sample: 38% Republican, 33% Independent, 28% Democrat. That’s a decent reflection of Iowa’s registered voters as a whole, but a poor reflection of who’s likely to vote in a midterm — there’s no way independents will outnumber Democrats at the ballot box in November. Democratic turnout will be higher than independent turnout, even accounting for a stronger-than-usual independent showing.

So if I’m a Democrat, I’m looking at this poll and thinking Rob Sand’s lead could actually be understated. Also worth noting: the recalled 2024 presidential vote in this sample was Trump +11, close to Trump’s actual 13-point win in the state — but there’s no guarantee the November electorate mirrors 2024. We’ve talked about this before: if you’d polled in 2014 assuming the electorate would look like 2012’s, you’d have been way off. So — I have no idea. I do feel Hinson is slightly favored in the Senate race, but this poll doesn’t look like what the November electorate is likely to be.

Dave Price: Ed, you’ve watched how the sausage is made for years — what did you think of the headline numbers, and of the internals?

Ed Failor: Laura stole one of my two points, so it must have been a good one — the composition of who they polled isn’t what the electorate is actually going to look like. That was my biggest takeaway, and Laura’s right.

The other thing: the numbers are all within the margin of error, so who really knows. Polls are a snapshot of a group of people at a given time. They brought in a good sample from Muscatine County, which is a real bellwether — that was smart. But the thing that struck me most was why people said they’re voting. Forty percent of likely voters said it’s their civic duty — for people willing to answer a poll in August, that doesn’t surprise me; I’d almost have expected that number to be higher. But 30% said they’re voting because of the political climate, and that’s interesting. Without the crosstabs, you can’t see the “why” behind that — as a Republican, I’m not happy with the climate either, and I know plenty of Democrats who aren’t public about their views, so that number cuts both ways.

Without an incumbent on the ballot, Sand and Hinson are each the closest thing to one, and having them up by a bit this early is normal — the late deciders will make the difference. I’d be concerned, as a Republican, that those numbers aren’t better given the state we’re in.

The Cabinet Visits

Dave Price: Ed, can you zoom out and look at the last couple of weeks? About the only people who haven’t visited Iowa lately are Donald Trump and J.D. Vance — I exaggerate only slightly. They sent a plane full of administration officials who did various things; a bunch went to the State Fair. Is this a protective move, making sure they don’t take chances because so much is at stake — or are they seeing the numbers, feeling the environment, and thinking “we need to reinforce en masse”?

Ed Failor: Probably a little of both, but more the latter. It’s real early for them to be doing this, so I’d assume — mathematically, as a Republican, I’m not thrilled — that the latter is more likely. It’s a way for them to plug in and help, and putting people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Pete Hegseth in front of voters gives some gravitas without it being the president himself, which is a double-edged sword at best.

Dave Price: Sure. Laura, what do you have?

Laura Belin: I’d like Ed’s take on something. I’ve watched all the soapbox speeches, and at this stage of a campaign you often see candidates pivot toward the middle — Zach Nunn and Ashley Hinson both talked about their bipartisan work. But I was struck that Nunn brought in Pete Hegseth, and Hinson is bringing back Ted Cruz, who just campaigned with her. I’d have thought those were fairly polarizing figures they might not want to elevate. What does Ed make of that?

Ed Failor: I think Hegseth’s appearance is interesting, and probably less polarizing than we’d assume — most voters don’t have strong feelings about him one way or the other, even though people like us in the political world do. I think the mistake people in our world and in the press make is assuming the average Iowan is paying close attention yet. So bringing in Hegseth is partly about just getting people to pay attention.

Ted Cruz, I find more interesting — is that about shoring up the “I’m a real conservative” credential? If you went to church this weekend and asked people whether they know who Pete Hegseth is, you’d mostly get “I’ve heard the name” — but he’s from the administration, and that adds some weight. Years ago, when Tom Vilsack was governor, there was a name-ID poll — something like 70% of Iowans knew who Vilsack was, but when the same group was asked who the governor of Iowa was, the number dropped well below two-thirds. People often want to sound informed more than they want to give the honest answer.

Dave Price: Well, our seniors will be better educated now — they have that new civics requirement kicking in for the first graduating class this year, right?

Ed Failor: Oh, I thought you meant senior citizens — that was a jab.

Dave Price: No, no — no ageism on this show, it hits too close to home.

The Libertarian Update

Dave Price: Ed, I know this is your first time on, but we have a running joke: almost every week we have to update the latest twist with the Libertarian candidates — virtually every week for the last month and a half, save maybe one when I was on vacation. Laura, run us through the newest twist.

Laura Belin: Last time we covered this, the Libertarians were trying to use the legal process to replace candidates after some got disqualified — nominating new candidates for lieutenant governor and in the 3rd Congressional District. That went through Polk County District Court on an accelerated timetable, with briefs but no hearing. Judge Joseph Seidlin ruled yesterday that the Libertarians hadn’t followed the correct process under Iowa law: they could have used this replacement process, but it required filing paperwork with the Secretary of State by June 2 listing their central committee members and their vacancy-filling procedure — and they hadn’t done that. Because they’d skipped that earlier step, their state central committee couldn’t nominate replacements in August. I checked with the Libertarian Party chair yesterday, and she said they aren’t sure yet whether they’ll appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Kathie Obradovich: So we may not be done with this — we might get at least one more show out of it. The joke isn’t really that we’re talking about the Libertarians, it’s that we’re probably covering them more consistently than any other political podcast in the country, given this long-running battle to get on the ballot. Credit to Thomas Lane for actually getting on — he’s shown up in a poll now, so people evidently think he’s staying on the ballot. In the 3rd District, the Nunn campaign is probably relieved not to be facing a Libertarian, though Marco Battaglia could have pulled votes from both sides. Their intended replacement candidate was Jacob Heard. So there was real potential for the Libertarians to matter in that race, but they keep struggling to actually get on the ballot — partly because of the scrutiny they’re under.

Dave Price: There’s no cushion for them the way there is for someone like Lane — you collect signatures, fill out the paperwork right, and you build in a buffer because you know people are going to scrutinize everything.

Kathie Obradovich: And apparently you have to use your real name.

Dave Price: We now know that. And Rick Stewart stays on as the Libertarian candidate in the 2nd Congressional District — that one’s set. There are a couple more I want to ask Ed about, but first —

Beef and Tariffs

Dave Price: — a development I find fascinating, especially after doing more ag-focused work these last few years: the president’s decision to allow more foreign beef, likely ground beef, into the country, with a suggestion that it be priced 25% below market value. There’s a lot we don’t know, like which countries it’ll come from.

Ed Failor: It’s not mandatory that it be sold 25% below market — it’s suggested, not required, at least from everything I’ve read so far.

Dave Price: Right, so a lot of open questions about how this plays out. But if you’re a U.S. cattle rancher, you’re ticked off — the national herd is the smallest it’s been in about 75 years, and beef prices are at or near record highs; ground beef is around $7 a pound, the highest ever. Ed, you were at the State Fair talking to ag folks — how are they feeling about this? They understand beef is expensive, but they don’t see how this counts as “America First,” and it’s supposed to be temporary — 90 days. A couple months ago the president was mocking Democrats for using the word “affordability,” and now this looks aimed at finding cheaper meat for people struggling with grocery bills. What’s going on?

Ed Failor: I think the intention is good, hopefully — but in practice I don’t see how it works well. This is roughly 660 million pounds of ground beef trimmings. Just in grocery stores, U.S. ground beef sales run about 720 million pounds a year — and that doesn’t even count restaurants, which account for a huge share of beef consumption. So it’s a real adjustment, even over just three months. Here’s a concern I heard from a rancher friend: this is right about when spring calves go to market. That timing issue is one of the bigger impacts I haven’t seen written about much — if I were an Iowa rancher, that would concern me. I think the intention was good, but I’m not sure it plays out well for ranchers, and in the end it may not play out that well for consumers either, since it affects the growth of herds already here.

Dave Price: And total U.S. beef production is something like 20-something billion pounds a year, so relative to that, 660 million pounds is a small slice — big in dollar terms, but probably a minimal impact on price overall.

Ed Failor: Well, except ground beef is the largest single category of beef sold in the U.S. — about 30% of all beef sold. So on the big picture it’s small, but that number you cited includes restaurant volume too. It’s still a big enough impact that, if I’m a rancher bringing cattle to market this fall while this is happening, I’m not thrilled about it.

Dave Price: Your future dinner, basically.

Ed Failor: My future dinner, and I love beef. So those are the things I see as potential missteps or unintended consequences here.

Laura Belin: Ed, we’re even now, because you stole my point — that this 90-day window is clearly timed to get through the election with lower prices, but it lands exactly when a lot of cattle ranchers are bringing beef to market, so the timing is bad for them. Separately, Natalie Furtig, who writes a state-focused newsletter, published something based on the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture: Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District ranks 14th nationally for beef cattle sales, and the 1st and 3rd Districts are both in the top 30 — 27th and 29th. So three of Iowa’s four congressional districts are in the national top 30 for beef cattle sales. That’s going to be felt in the competitive congressional races.

Kathie Obradovich: It’ll be interesting to see how many voters actually connect what they see at the supermarket to tariff and trade policy. In Maine, for example, there was a lot of anxiety over Canadian tariffs, but Canada exempted lobster and seafood from its retaliatory tariffs, and that’s credited with saving Maine’s lobster industry — so in some parts of the country, people clearly do connect trade policy to prices at the register. But I doubt that’s true for most voters; most of us just react to whatever our grocery total is. And to be clear, we’re mostly talking about wholesale pricing here — a lower import price doesn’t mean the price you and I pay at checkout drops nearly as much. I wouldn’t expect a fast-food hamburger to get 25% cheaper because of these imports. How much of that wholesale drop actually reaches the register is a big open question.

Statewide Office From Congress

Dave Price: We’re coming up on our self-imposed time limit, so one more for Ed. This came up in another conversation — Randy Feenstra’s struggles in the primary, and someone raised the broader challenge of members of Congress running for statewide office, where there’s a recent track record of people struggling with that. Does Hinson have anything to worry about there, or does her TV background — which makes us all naturally brilliant communicators, I’m kidding — give her something different working in her favor? She’s clearly a different kind of candidate than Feenstra or Bruce Braley.

Ed Failor: Right — and I think that’s really it. I love Randy Feenstra, but just as a candidate, Hinson is a more dynamic one, and I think that’s what tends to matter more than the “only governors get elected president” framing, which isn’t even really true — we get hung up on things that aren’t always accurate. I think it’s mostly coincidence that Bruce Braley’s campaign was what it was and Feenstra’s campaign was what it was — more a function of the individual candidates. Ashley’s someone who’s been putting herself out there, works a crowd well, and relates to people well, and that’s probably why she has a better opportunity than some others have had.

Oh, and — do you know what a fish says when it swims into a cement wall?

Dave Price: No.

Ed Failor: Dam.

Kathie Obradovich: (laughing) Thank you — I love it.

Dave Price: Goodness. Well, you said you’d come through with one.

Ed Failor: I had to. Man of my word.

What’s Next

Dave Price: Kathie, anything to tee up for the Iowa Capital Dispatch this weekend?

Kathie Obradovich: We’ve got dueling political events Saturday — Ashley Hinson’s event and the Polk County Democrats’ Steak Fry are both happening, so we’ll have reporters at both. Also, earlier this week we had an interesting story on how the constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority to raise income and corporate tax rates is shaping up — that race looks close too. The party breakdown was interesting: more Republicans than Democrats support it, but there’s Democratic support as well. Most people don’t know much about it yet, so there’s a lot of undecided sentiment.

Dave Price: In the interest of efficiency, wouldn’t it have been nice if the Hinson barbecue and the Polk County Steak Fry were at the same venue? They could’ve split the meat cost and made it easier on the media to bounce from one to the other. Come on, people. Laura, what do you have working?

Laura Belin: I’ll be at the Steak Fry tomorrow too. Earlier this week I published a deep dive on the U.S. Senate race, and my next piece is likely going to be a deep dive on the Attorney General’s race — there are already TV ads out on both sides, which I don’t think we’ve seen this early in an AG race before. It’s shaping up to be highly competitive.

Dave Price: Outstanding. Mr. Failor — thanks for being with us, we appreciate your time.

Ed Failor: Happy to be here, thanks for doing it. You all are great, and brilliant — because, you know, when you’re in the media, you’re brilliant.

Dave Price: Thank you — we need to hear that, it counters some of the online trolling we deal with.

Ed Failor: As a conservative endorsement: if I didn’t find you all very intelligent, I wouldn’t be doing this.

Kathie Obradovich: That’s sweet.

Dave Price: We’re all about civility here. Appreciate your perspective, and thanks for doing this — I hope you’ll come back.

Ed Failor: I will, absolutely.

Dave Price: Laura, Kathie, you too — have a great weekend. We’ll reconvene next week. Thanks to all of you for sitting in on this expanded episode of the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, and thanks to our new subscribers and new paid subscribers. If you’re willing, take the link when you get it and share it with a few hundred of your friends — we appreciate the help spreading the word, especially now that we’re about two and a half months out from the 2026 election. Have a great week ahead, and we’ll see you next week.

We started with the Cook Political Report’s new ratings: the U.S. Senate race moved from Leans Republican to Toss-Up, and the governor’s race moved from Toss-Up to Leans Democrat. We talked about why. Tight polling, a president underwater in approval, gas prices topping four bucks, and Iowa’s history of electing Democratic governors in red states even when it won’t send them to the Senate. We also noted how many Republican candidates went negative on their opponents at the soapbox this year, which we read as a sign of real nervousness in the party.

Then we got into the sheer number of Trump administration officials who came through Iowa this week. We counted at least nine cabinet secretaries, including Pete Hegseth, Scott Bessent, RFK Jr., and Brooke Rollins. Hegseth’s visit stood out most: no public schedule, a rare appearance for him, and a campaign fundraiser for Zach Nunn that Pentagon guidelines normally wouldn’t allow for a Senate-confirmed official. We debated who ends up paying for that kind of travel and what message it sends about how worried the administration is about Iowa’s races.

We closed out with our soapbox moments: the Libertarians’ ongoing ballot fight and court hearing, and Turning Point USA activists trailing Rob Sand, Josh Turek, and Mark Kelly around the fairgrounds, something none of us had seen at the fair before.

We’ll be back next week to see how the final 48 hours of the fair played out.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers’ & Songwriters’ Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They’ll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. We are talking to you on the final Friday morning of the Iowa State Fair. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. Hello, ladies, how are you?

Kathie Obradovich: Hello, happy Friday!

Dave Price: Happy Friday — and happy Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, to all of you, whenever you’re listening to this podcast, the final Friday of the Iowa State Fair. Much to talk about.

I wonder if we can talk first about the Cook Political Report. I was talking to somebody — this would’ve been Thursday, I think — at the fair about this. Cook Political Report looks at all these races across the country, obviously, and it shifted both the governor’s race and the U.S. Senate race toward Democrats.

As we know, Republicans have been the dominant party in our state for more than a decade. We’ve also talked early in this podcast about the new wildcards in 2026 — for the first time since ‘68, I believe, both of those races are open seats. So in theory, anything goes, although I feel like I’ve brought this up a half dozen times: Laura’s post six months ago now, showing the registration numbers — the difference between Republicans and Democrats — while it’s narrowed, you’re still looking at, what, 180-some thousand?

What’s the difference?

Laura Belin: I think it’s closer to 170,000 now. Pretty big Republican advantage.

Dave Price: That’s a big ol’ gap. Okay, let’s talk about this shift. Kathie, why don’t you lead us off? And appreciate — this is just a forecast, and we tread carefully on polls and speculation. But as Cook is looking at this, they’re clearly looking at the atmosphere and what’s going on. So how potentially significant is this, for a party that still has sizable advantages like Republicans do, to now almost be at a disadvantage in a couple of these prominent races?

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so first of all, I think this reflects what we’ve been seeing here — these races are tight. These forecasts are based largely on polling, I’d argue, although there are certainly other factors that go into it. The U.S. Senate race moved from Leans Republican to Toss-Up. And again, we talked about the Emerson poll a couple weeks ago — it was a two-point race between Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek. By most definitions, I’d call that a toss-up.

And then the governor’s race moved from Toss-Up to Leans Democrat, which again I think is reflective of that same Emerson poll — Rob Sand had a five-point lead, so it seemed weird that we were still calling it a toss-up and not Leans Democrat. You guys may disagree, but I think this is reflective of the national climate — we continue to see dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. He’s underwater in polls in Iowa and around the country. We continue to see economic angst among the population. All of that, piled on top of the fact that the president’s party typically does poorly in the midterms — I think that builds a case, separate from anything going on in Iowa specifically.

Having said that, it’s August.

Dave Price: Yes.

Kathie Obradovich: A lot, a lot can happen.

Laura Belin: I think one thing it underscores — and we’ve talked about this before — is that in a red state, voters are more likely to elect a Democrat as governor than to the U.S. Senate. That’s why we have Democratic governors in Kansas, Kentucky, and recently had one in Louisiana. So I think what everyone agrees on is that Rob Sand has a better chance than Josh Turek, regardless of the climate.

But I was struck by Ashley Hinson’s speech on the soapbox Monday — she went hard negative on Turek before she even talked about her own record. Sometimes candidates talk about their own record first and then criticize the opponent, but she did the negative part first, which normally you wouldn’t do when you’re feeling comfortable about the race. Brenna Bird also went negative on her opponent in her soapbox speech. And I saw that Sabato’s Crystal Ball just moved the Iowa Attorney General race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican, and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig also went negative on his opponent. So it does seem that Iowa Republicans are feeling pretty concerned about this election cycle.

Dave Price: Kathie, you said maybe we disagree — I don’t. I think all the things you pointed out... and, I love a bunch of things about the Iowa State Fair, but not how you feel afterward, when you’re like, “dang, it’s gonna take me three months to walk off this weight.” That aside — it’s such a good place. For years, when I was at my old TV station, we had our Cast Your Colonel booth, where people could drop a kernel of corn in whichever candidate’s jar they supported. Not a scientific measure, but the benefit for me was more the one-on-one conversations — who do you like, what’s going on in your life. We’d get 60,000 people stop by. I don’t have the corn anymore, but I’ve been at the fair a bunch of times already this year, and this is only anecdotal, so asterisk everything I’m about to say:

I can’t think of one person I saw wearing a Trump hat. “Trump ‘28,” Trump-Vance shirts, whatever. I’m not saying he doesn’t have supporters there — of course he does — but I do wonder if people are starting to tire of some of this. I felt this in ‘16 — he beat Hillary Clinton, and toward the end you saw people, including some Republicans, get tired of the chaos. Maybe it’s magnified this time, and then there’s the economic piece — we were driving to the fair the other day when gas by our house topped four bucks. We’re six months into this, and forget the politics — people notice that. Four bucks is a mental threshold.

And for people paying attention: the president originally said this wouldn’t even last a couple of weeks. Well, we’re six months in, so you’ve been paying higher prices for six months. I really think that wears on people.

Kathie Obradovich: And it’s interesting, Dave — the State Fair isn’t cheap entertainment. You’ve got to pay for tickets, the food’s expensive. So if people who can afford to go to the fair are feeling the economic hit, that tells you something about the rest of the population. People who can afford the fair typically have money to pay $13 for a beer at an Asleep at the Wheel concert, which is what I paid on Wednesday night. And that was at the free stage, country night — I didn’t see any MAGA hats there either, and I was looking for them. So, interesting.

Laura Belin: I typically park on Grand Avenue and walk in through the Grand Concourse entrance, and there’s a guy who sometimes sets up near the shuttle drop-off on Grand, near 30th, selling MAGA-type gear. I noticed the hats he’s pushing this year say things like “USA,” maybe “45” and “47” on the side — but he’s not really pushing Trump 2028 or Trump-Vance merchandise. One day as I was walking out, I asked him how business was, and compared to last year. He said about the same. But I noticed he wasn’t really presenting a lot of Trump-branded stuff.

Dave Price: Speaking of the fair — sorry to sidetrack — Kathie already plugged her concert. My wife’s best friend came to Iowa with her little girl last week to go to Rod Stewart —

Laura Belin: Oh...

Dave Price: I appreciate the guy’s in his 80s, so we’re not dogging him — he’d had to cancel a heart procedure to be there. My beef is with Richard Marx. What the heck, man — he was supposed to be the opener, and he bailed. He could’ve had the grandstand to himself. The fair is always super accommodating about this stuff. One thing that’s pretty cool: when the headliner cancels, they refund your ticket and you get to see a free show. So they got John Waite to jump in last minute and do a free show for whoever showed up. Come on, Richard Marx! You were a guy back in the ‘80s or ‘90s — I wanted to see if he still had all that hair, since I’ve never seen him in concert. That was good date music back in the day.

Laura Belin: He probably doesn’t have a 90-minute set ready to go if he’s used to just being the opening act.

Dave Price: Oh, I hadn’t thought about that — maybe that’s it. I don’t want to give the impression that fair people were dogging Richard Marx — nobody was — I was just thinking, come on, man, step up, this is your chance to be the hero. Rant aside — let’s get to it. We’ve laid the foundation here: one thing we’ve noticed, both at the fair and near it, is Trump administration people coming through.

I grew up in a family where money was tight, and I don’t know why these folks couldn’t have come on the same plane and saved us a bunch of tax dollars. They came one by one by one. I can’t imagine what this costs in security and travel. Here’s a short list — I don’t even know if it’s complete, but I jotted a few down:

* Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War/Defense — technically a campaign fundraiser for Zach Nunn

* Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary — we talked about that funky, limited-media event last week

* RFK Jr.

* The Veterans Affairs Secretary

* Trade Rep Jamieson Greer, who did something with Ashley Hinson, and I think Zach Nunn too

* Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler

* Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, supposed to do something Friday evening (we’re recording Friday morning)

* Attorney General Todd Blanche, here Thursday

* The Deputy Attorney General, here Wednesday and Thursday

I’m probably forgetting a few.

Kathie Obradovich: I think there was a Deputy Energy Secretary too, in eastern Iowa.

Dave Price: Right, eastern Iowa. I didn’t do the mental math while rambling through all that, but it’s a lot.

Laura Belin: I think it’s nine — nine cabinet secretaries.

Dave Price: And almost all of them tied to some campaign event. RFK Jr. did stuff with Zach Lahn — a private event Tuesday night, and then an official event Wednesday with Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Lahn shot what looked like a campaign-style video where he took RFK Jr. to Zach Shields on Tuesday night, and then Wednesday morning they went fishing — I don’t know if it was on the Lahn farm, but with Lahn’s little boy. So clearly they were trying to maximize their time with him.

I can’t remember a time — and I get that the fair is cool and we’re used to seeing politicians — but can you remember an administration sending this many people to one state at once?

Kathie Obradovich: It’s more than I remember, but I can’t vouch for my memory.

Dave Price: Same — that’s why I’m always nervous bringing this stuff up, someone’s gonna correct me.

Kathie Obradovich: I was taught you’re always in trouble if you say “it’s the most” or “the biggest,” because someone will always prove you wrong. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this many administration officials. The one that really shocked me was Hegseth. He came in without any notice — I had colleagues in D.C. look up his official schedule, and there was nothing on it, no events at all. He doesn’t do many appearances like this. We were initially told there’d be a media availability, which sort of happened, but he didn’t really take questions. That one surprised me more than any of the others. I wasn’t surprised RFK Jr. was doing stuff with Zach Lahn, who I’d call more MAHA-Republican than MAGA. But I don’t know what other message there is besides: the Trump administration is worried about Iowa.

Laura Belin: We’re used to this administration going against long-standing norms, but the Secretary of Defense doing any kind of campaign event at all — I can’t think of a precedent for that. That would’ve been considered way out of bounds under any other administration.

Dave Price: I was thinking back — he was supposed to do Zach Nunn’s fundraiser back in March and canceled, right after we’d gone to war with Iran. The storyline then was that they’d postpone because of the war, and to their credit, that was true — it wasn’t just spin from the Nunn campaign. They rescheduled rather than canceled. But we’re still at war, five or six months later. If the narrative back then was that his focus should be on the war, well — we’re still there. Regardless of whether he flew in and out in one day, it was not the norm.

I’m not sure Kathie gave the appropriate caveat here about relying on memory, but — when have you ever covered a sitting Secretary of Defense in Iowa? I’d have to really sit and think about who’s held that office. I’m not sure I ever have.

Kathie Obradovich: I don’t recall it either. And it gave Sarah Trone Garriott an opening to say this is totally inappropriate, disgusting that he’s here during wartime, which — as we’ve discussed — is hitting Iowans in the pocketbook. So it gave her an opening, though she was actually a little restrained about it, honestly — she put out a statement in a press release, and that was about it.

Laura Belin: Zachary Oren Smith reported for Iowa Starting Line that the Department of Defense’s own guidelines say Senate-confirmed officials — and Hegseth is one — are prohibited from speaking at a political fundraiser. So I think we’re fairly safe saying this was unprecedented. You just don’t see secretaries of defense campaigning for people.

Kathie Obradovich: And they made a point of saying he was there on his own time, so presumably he flew out not on the taxpayer’s dime.

Laura Belin: I wouldn’t assume that, Kathie — now I have to go look at what was reported. Give me a second...

Dave Price: Well, I’m with Kathie on this — I was checking with somebody, and in theory they should have paid for it, since he was here on his personal behalf. They didn’t introduce him as Secretary, just as Pete Hegseth. This wasn’t an official visit, to my knowledge, in any part of the trip.

Kathie Obradovich: Because usually, right —

Laura Belin: Here it is — it was the Washington Post: Hegseth would take a U.S.-funded military aircraft to Iowa, per the Pentagon, because he’s designated a “required-use traveler” and mandated to use military aircraft for all travel, official and unofficial.

Dave Price: Yeah, that makes sense — you want him safe if there’s any security risk. But as we’ve just hit $40 trillion in national debt, is there any reason taxpayers can’t be reimbursed for that?

Kathie Obradovich: That’s the thing — people classified that way for security usually aren’t traveling for political events. So it adds to the narrative if he’s here on the taxpayer’s dime to campaign.

Dave Price: This is a little risky, since we’re recording Friday morning and folks will hear this Saturday at the earliest, maybe later. We’ve had a running joke among reporter friends this week, because of the way these visits keep getting announced — each day you find out about the next day’s visitor. Some of that’s probably security-related, but it’s also clearly spread out to maximize media coverage and attendance. We keep waiting to see if the vice president or the president will show up — we haven’t had Linda McMahon yet, though she’s been here before. It’s the America 250 celebration, so in some ways I expected the president to do an event at the fair long ago. I get the security nightmare of doing that with a gazillion people there — I’m sure it was hard enough with Hegseth — but America 250, USA-USA-USA, seems like a slam dunk for the president. I’ll be surprised if the fair wraps up with no presidential visit at all.

Kathie Obradovich: I remember the first fair when he was running for president — I thought he “won” the fair that year, honestly, because he skipped the soapbox that a bunch of his competitors did — I’m pretty sure Bernie Sanders was speaking on the soapbox — and here comes Trump’s helicopter flying overhead. Everybody looks up: oh, there’s Trump. He’d parked his helicopter in a lot near the fairgrounds and was giving rides to kids.

Dave Price: Iowa kids, yeah.

Kathie Obradovich: Circling over the fair while Bernie Sanders is mid-speech on the soapbox...

Dave Price: I wrote about that in my second book — interviewed one of the families. Imagine what that means to those kids once they’re older, thinking back, “I was in that helicopter.” And can you imagine what Bernie Sanders thought, flying home after getting almost no coverage that day? Though wait — I need to get my cycles right, that might’ve actually been 2020, I’m conflating two of them. Regardless — good reminder that Trump does things his way, and it’s theater.

Kathie Obradovich: He’s a showman, and the fair’s a perfect environment for it.

Laura Belin: Dave, did you all get a heads-up about these visits? Ashley Hinson’s campaign never tells me anything about what they’re doing — I heard another reporter complaining that when Kelly Loeffler came through the fair walking with Hinson, reporters weren’t given a heads-up.

Dave Price: This’ll give some insight into how the sausage is made — it’s a mixed bag for me. You’re gonna hit a sensitive spot, Laura: in my TV job, I worked for nine different TV stations that broadcast in Iowa, none of them based in Des Moines. So most people in Iowa who know me know how to reach me now, but outside the state, sometimes these offices don’t realize I’m actually based in Des Moines these days — part of my midlife-crisis reinvention. So I found out about Loeffler by accident, because a friend told me Hinson was at a farm-influencer tent setup. I didn’t see that, but I saw Brad Zaun there — one of the regional SBA administrators, covers about 10 states, and Loeffler would be his boss. I didn’t know beforehand Loeffler was coming. Bessent’s visit had limited media too, like we mentioned last week — my understanding is some of that’s coming from D.C. because of security concerns about crowd control. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, honestly — I’m a little confused how it’s all worked out.

Kathie Obradovich: I have a little inside info at the fair, which is how I found out about Hegseth. We got a regular press release about RFK from HHS, and I actually communicated with one of those folks. But for some of the others, we never got any heads-up at all — nothing about Todd Blanche, for example. Mixed bag. Sometimes you find out from the pork producers who’s coming by to flip pork.

Dave Price: Speaking of which, I’ve gotta get out there. Let’s close out the week — can each of you give us a soapbox moment you witnessed? We’re not all the way through the speeches yet, since Friday and Saturday are still ahead. But is there a moment, or a storyline, from the fair that’s sticking with you heading into the next two and a half months?

Kathie Obradovich: Not a fair storyline exactly, but it wouldn’t be this show without the Libertarians —

Dave Price: They get more coverage on this podcast than any other media outlet.

Kathie Obradovich: Well — Rick Stewart spoke at the soapbox, but he hasn’t actually been allowed back onto the ballot.

Dave Price: And he’s running for governor, not to interrupt.

Kathie Obradovich: Right, for governor. Secretary of State Paul Pate has apparently said that now that the convention nomination — which came after the petition nomination failed — isn’t being accepted either. Stewart, his running mate, and another candidate running for a congressional seat are all still not allowed on the ballot. They’re all speaking at the soapbox regardless, a couple of them again on Saturday. There’s a hearing this afternoon — we’re recording Friday — in Polk County District Court, so we’re still in court over the Libertarians’ ballot status even as they get the spotlight at the fair without technically being on the ballot.

Dave Price: Gotcha. Alright, and way to keep our streak going — thank you for that, Kathie.

Kathie Obradovich: Yes, had to keep it alive.

Dave Price: Alright, Laura, what do you have?

Laura Belin: I mentioned mine already — I’ve been struck by how many Republican candidates specifically went negative on their Democratic opponents at the soapbox. Joe Mitchell in the 2nd District did it too, and Zach Nunn. But my biggest impression was the Turning Point USA people stalking and following Rob Sand, Josh Turek, and Mark Kelly around — and then they seemed to stop. I don’t know if fair staff told them to knock it off, but I’d never seen that at the fair before. It’s one thing for someone to shout something as politicians walk by — it’s another to have posters and sustained heckling. That felt like new behavior for the Iowa State Fair, in my experience.

Dave Price: I’m not sure Zach Lahn’s a big fan of that either, which may have helped tamp it down. Alright, thank you both — we’ll see what the final weekend brings, and how much of what we said today holds up over the last 48 hours of the fair. Saturday’s Vice President Vance, Sunday’s supposedly President Trump, and then everything I said today will look foolish. But you never know with this administration — it’s not impossible they show up. We’ll see. Thanks, both of you — have a great weekend.

Laura Belin: Alright, thanks.

Dave Price: Thank you all for joining us on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. Thanks to everyone who helps us grow by sharing this and forwarding it along, and to those of you who sustain us week after week as paid subscribers — we appreciate you. Have a great week.

We split up this week: Laura hit the Wing Ding in Clear Lake, Dave went to the Field of Dreams game. Both nights ran long.

Wing Ding drew its best crowd since 2019, about 750 people, with Mark Kelly headlining and fueling more 2028 speculation. Over in Newton, RNC Chair Jeff Kaufmann made the case that Republicans only need to flip a handful of seats nationally, two of them right here in Iowa. Laura’s not so sure the math holds, she counts at least three competitive Iowa districts.

We also flagged the odd, limited-media visit from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, campaigning for Miller-Meeks and Nunn under the guise of official business.

And the Libertarian ballot saga rolls on. New candidates, a likely court fight ahead.

Plus a preview of what we’re watching for at the Register Soapbox at the state fair this week.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers’ & Songwriters’ Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They’ll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, our weekly confab of all things politics in Iowa, and some other things that impact Iowa politics — the people, the places, the issues, the events, this big campaign, all that kind of stuff. We talk about it here on the podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by my Iowa Writers’ Collaborative colleagues, Kathie Obradovich, the czar, the queen of the Iowa Capital Dispatch...

Kathie Obradovich: And...

Dave Price: ...Laura Belin, the founder, the creator, the editor, the writer...

Dave Price: The bookkeeper. Did I get them all? At Bleeding Heartland

Laura Belin: Most of them, yes.

Dave Price: Most of them, yes. It just depends on me. How are you both? And I love your peach, Kathie.

Kathie Obradovich: Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, happy Friday. It doesn’t feel like Friday, because I think we’re going to be going all weekend, right? At least with the Saturday State Fair.

Dave Price: Indeed. I feel like I need to pre-apologize just in case for how this podcast goes. We were recording on Friday morning. Laura went to the Wing Ding, which we’re going to talk about, at Clear Lake — that ain’t close to Des Moines. I went to Dyersville for the Field of Dreams game with my son — that is not close to Des Moines either. So not to whine, but we both had very short nights and took a good extended nap, separately. Do you drink caffeine, Laura?

Laura Belin: I do not. I get all the caffeine I need from chocolate.

Dave Price: Okay.

Laura Belin: But I got home at about 11:30 last night, and then I was just wired, so I couldn’t go to sleep right away, because it was a highly stimulating environment up there at the historic Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake.

Dave Price: Oh, man, I’m jealous — you beat us by an hour and a half. We walked in just a couple minutes before... before wine. My 16-year-old, he’s like the Energizer bunny — he slept almost the entire three-hour drive back. Now, he did drive us there so I could work while we drove, but I guess 10:30 was his knockout point, so it was just me and a silent car for three hours on Highway 20. But here we are. All right, how about we leave...

Kathie Obradovich: And I didn’t do anything.

Dave Price: Not bragging.

Laura Belin: So you edited a bunch of stories, I did — late.

Kathie Obradovich: I watched Field of Dreams on Netflix — not to give it a plug or anything. And yeah, I did edit the Wing Ding story when it came in, and I drank some wine, so today I have my baseball mug for my caffeine.

Dave Price: May I just say it’s good to be the boss working at home when you can drink? I’m not going to allege that you drank your wine while you edited Robin’s story from the Wing Ding — that’s for everyone else to figure out, and this is not a confessional here — but regardless of the order, that’s the way to make that night work.

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I think so. I haven’t been doing this for almost 40 years for nothing, babe.

Dave Price: Amen. All right, Laura — since you were the one of the three of us physically present at the Wing Ding, give us a little intro, because you’ve gone to a bunch of these things. Talk about what happens there first, and then, as they usually do, they had a high-profile guest — in this case, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. What’s the atmosphere like when you get into the Surf Ballroom?

Laura Belin: The Iowa Democratic Wing Ding is a fundraiser put on by a bunch of county Democratic Party organizations across northern and western Iowa, but it draws people from well outside that region too — I saw people from Scott County, Polk County, and lots of places. They said last night there were about 750 people there, and it certainly looked it — the room was very full. They said it was the best-attended Wing Ding since 2019, when they had more than a dozen presidential candidates there. I was at that one too, and it was kind of wild with the presidential-candidate sign wars.

This time, since it’s after the primary, there’s no Democratic competition, so they had most of the statewide nominees speaking — except not Rob Sand or Dave Muhlbauer, but all the other nominees for statewide office: Chris Jones, Taylor Wedick, John Norwood, Nathan Willems and Ryan Peterman running for Secretary of State. Then they always have two congressional candidates — Lindsey James, the nominee in the 2nd District, and Dave Dawson in the 4th. And, as you mentioned, Mark Kelly, the keynote, gave kind of a rally-the-troops speech. Last year’s keynote was Harry Dunn, the Capitol Police officer who was there on January 6th, and he gave a more introspective speech than Kelly did. Oh, and I forgot to mention — Josh Turek, the Senate candidate, was there too, speaking. The crowd was very into the speeches. Afterward, talking to activists, there’s a lot going on the ground — coordinated campaign offices open in several counties across the 2nd and 4th Districts. People seem pretty fired up.

Dave Price: The one thing I thought was interesting about what Kelly was talking about — this is where I feel like Democrats are a little split, at the DC level. Kelly talked about the importance of Democrats getting back into the majority so they could investigate the alleged corruption of the Trump administration. Some Democrats don’t really want to talk about that — they may not want to talk about Trump at all, or about possible impeachment, corruption, and all that. What was your take on how that played with the crowd?

Laura Belin: He didn’t talk about impeachment. But if you’re Mark Kelly, and you were threatened with prosecution over that video he and other members of Congress recorded telling service members they don’t have to follow illegal orders, I think you almost can’t avoid talking about the Trump administration a little bit. But it definitely wasn’t the focus of his remarks. He was really trying to say we’ve got to get things under control. He told a story I’ve heard him tell before, about going with his daughter — who’s about 30 now — to visit the house where he and his wife lived when she was born. It was a four-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood that he could afford to buy as a young Navy officer, which nobody in his daughter’s generation can afford at her age in a neighborhood like that. So I’d say he emphasized economic issues more, though he did touch on the investigations and what Pete Hegseth is doing. Later, after his speech, he did a segment on MS NOW where he talked more about allegations involving the Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf — he didn’t dwell on that during his speech. But I think a crowd like that does want to hear about investigating the Trump administration. Though that’s definitely not something — I don’t think I’ve ever heard Josh Turek say “send me to the Senate so I can investigate Trump corruption.”

Kathie Obradovich: Dave, you said exactly what I was thinking — it was an interesting choice, given that I think there’s a definite thought among at least some of the party that you don’t want to focus on Trump. But I also agree with Laura that from Kelly’s perspective, given that he’s been investigated, people would think it was weird if he didn’t mention it. So you’ve got two things there. It may not have been the focus of his speech, but it was probably the focus of a lot of the media coverage. The second thing I’d point out: he hasn’t ruled out running for president — he’s actually said he’s thinking about it. So having him headline the Wing Ding takes on added significance, since we’re always looking ahead to the next presidential race, even though we’re not over the hump of the midterms yet. These kinds of events are kind of the unofficial start of the 2028 cycle. A colleague of mine in Arizona asked, “Do you think Mark Kelly’s going to run?” I said, “Well, he’s making the moves.”

Laura Belin: Yeah, well, he... I’m sure he was booked before the DNC made the calendar decision that left Iowa out of the early window — he probably committed to the Wing Ding before that. But he did do the obligatory “I have an Iowa connection” — it turns out his wife’s brother was a Cyclone, a kicker for the football team, and actually held the record for the longest field goal for 45 years. He said that record was just broken last year.

Kathie Obradovich: But it’s a good Iowa connection — coming from a Cyclone and an Ames native.

Dave Price: The search for any potential presidential candidate to find some kind of real or obscure Iowa connection is kind of like what people are doing now with Quincy, Illinois, where they sold that billion-dollar-plus Powerball ticket — “man, I need to have a great-aunt who lives there, I need to go through my family lineage, because somebody in Quincy — I hope I’m related to them.”

No Wing Ding for me, but earlier this week I went to Newton, where the RNC chair — Jeff Kaufmann for the Republican Party of Iowa — was there, along with Marianne Miller-Meeks, Derek Wolf (the lieutenant governor candidate), and a few local state house candidates. It was kind of a coordinated effort.

I need to interrupt myself for a second, because the Scott Bessent visit was odd to me — the Treasury Secretary. He did a couple of events, one with Miller-Meeks and one with Congressman Zach Nunn, but it was limited media. Apparently a few outlets did preview stories and then were able to cover it — I don’t really know how it all went down. I was trying to play catch-up. It’s rather embarrassing not to know the Treasury Secretary is coming — I didn’t find out until the evening before, or something like that. Generally you get a heads-up for that. I don’t know what you two thought of it — I appreciate that the Trump administration’s probably not calling...

Laura Belin: Welcome to my world, Dave. I absolutely didn’t know either. I also didn’t know about the event in Newton, otherwise I would’ve gone.

Dave Price: I work for nine television stations that broadcast in Iowa, so I assumed we’d be part of that coverage — but it was limited, and some things got built as exclusives. I mean, this is semantics, I suppose, but as we’ve seen, sometimes a White House uses a cabinet official technically for an “official visit,” but let’s be honest — it’s campaign season, and you’re here for two competitive seats. I don’t want to get us too far into a side tangent, but I found it odd. I had six hours in the car going to Dyersville and back, so I was ruminating on it. I can’t remember a time when a cabinet official was here and you weren’t really able to cover it as a traditional member of the media. Kathie, can you go through your mental Rolodex — did you find that unusual?

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, there have been times — and yeah, we didn’t get notice either. It’s not just Laura, so you’re not alone on this one. But yeah, I think it’s unusual. Why not get the most bang for the buck if you’re going to fly somebody out here? It was a busy day, who knows if we’d have had time to cover it anyway. There have been occasions with the Trump administration where they’ve restricted media — like when Trump himself went to the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale. You can understand you may not be able to pack as much media into the Iowa Machine Shed restaurant as you’d want. But yeah, during campaign season, when you’re really trying to promote a candidate, it just seems like an odd choice.

Dave Price: Anyway, I essentially interrupted my own story, but that was on my mind. So, back to that Newton event — the speech by the RNC chair was interesting to me, and honestly, I thought it was very effective. Jeff Kaufmann gave kind of his traditional speech, portraying Democrats as “crazies” and those kinds of things — he gives these fired-up speeches. The RNC chair — that’s not his style, I think he’s from Florida — his speech was all about unity: the election’s over, the primary’s over, let’s all get together. It went over well with the crowd, several dozen people there.

The RNC chair was doing math — talking about how in the House you have 435 members, and there are only about 18 truly competitive seats. When you look at Cook Political Report’s forecasting, he made the pitch that Republicans really just need about six of those 18. Standing in the back of the room watching it, I thought that seemed like a pretty effective way to communicate to the crowd — essentially saying, “it’s a tough environment” — he acknowledged midterms don’t usually go well for the party in power — “but here’s what we really only need to focus on.”

He mentioned two competitive seats here in Iowa — I think he said two, not three; I don’t think he counted Hinson’s congressional seat. I’m curious if you’ve heard any other prominent Republican use that kind of pitch. Marianne Miller-Meeks isn’t a screamer or a rah-rah type — she largely did her biographical speech, mixed in some patriotism, got emotional a couple times. She joked she was hopped up on Diet Coke before the event — she walked in with this huge Diet Coke, confessed it wasn’t her first of the day — but her speech was effective with this group too. Going back to the RNC chair’s pitch about “here’s the atmosphere, here’s really all we need to focus on” — have you heard that kind of message from other prominent Republicans?

Kathie Obradovich: It seems a little bit like a perverse message, in the sense of — “we really only need to focus on 6 of 18 of these seats” — to me, not having heard it, it’s like, “relax, people, we’re really in great shape, we only have to get less than half of these.”

Dave Price: Let me interrupt — sorry — I should have underscored: he immediately followed up by saying two of the six are right here in this state, and this is the most important state. Sorry to interrupt.

Kathie Obradovich: No, that helps. I think there are probably folks that kind of framing appeals to — presumably party insiders. I’d be curious whether he goes to some other state and says “two of the six are right here” there too. But yeah, it’s a different way of talking about the race, for sure.

Laura Belin: I think 18 is very low. Even with all the gerrymandering that’s reduced the number of competitive districts, if it turns out to be a wave election, I think there are a lot more than 18 seats truly in play. While you were talking, Dave, I went back to double-check my memory — the National Republican Congressional Committee, the main campaign arm for U.S. House Republicans, added Iowa’s 2nd District to their target list in March. They put Joe Mitchell on what they call their “Maga Majority” program. So they’ve officially acknowledged Iowa has three competitive districts. And Joe Mitchell, last month at the Family Leadership Summit, made a comment along the lines of — “Ashley Hinson’s been great, but the only problem is she made a lot of people think this district isn’t really competitive, but it is.” So I’d say there are definitely three competitive districts in Iowa, and I wouldn’t go along with only 18 being competitive nationwide.

Dave Price: Speaking of Nunn — he’s been touting that he’s one of the most bipartisan members in the U.S. House, which reminded me of when he was running in his first primary. I talked to a Republican strategist type back then — and, as we all know, I had that debate moment with Nunn during his congressional primary, where I’d asked, spur of the moment, who wants to ban all abortions, and Nunn kind of looked around at the other candidates and eventually raised his hand. That became a campaign commercial that probably still runs today — I wish it would go away, my kids joke about it, and it’s about a very serious topic. But I remember a Republican strategist telling me at the time: “Nunn’s doing what he’s got to do to get through this primary, but he’s going to pivot — he understands the district, he knows it’s a purple district and will stay purple, and he’s really going to push bipartisanship.” Now, he’s still a Republican, of course — he’ll do videos supporting President Trump and so on — but it can’t hurt to have a list come out ranking him the third-most-bipartisan member of the U.S. House, in a very competitive seat, in a very competitive year.

Kathie Obradovich: I wonder what their criteria were for bipartisanship, because whenever I look at voting records, the Iowa Republican delegation votes with the majority — I’d say probably more than 90% of the time. It’s got to be something other than voting records.

Dave Price: What they’ve sponsored, probably.

Laura Belin: Part of it is co-sponsoring bills — I think he co-sponsors a bunch of bipartisan bills that don’t go anywhere, but then he gets credit for being a bipartisan member of Congress. I don’t know the specific criteria, but I’ve seen that pattern on lists like this before. And speaking of the cabinet official coming here for an ostensibly “official” event that’s really connected to the campaign — Zach Nunn has been doing a lot of ribbon-cutting ceremonies for earmarks that were actually finalized back in January or March, but the ribbon-cuttings are happening now. Those are all official events, not campaign events, but he’s getting a ton of media coverage from them, which can only help his campaign.

Dave Price: Yeah, and he’s definitely taking advantage of the recess while Congress isn’t meeting. It feels like he’s had two or three of these a week the last couple of weeks — I was going to tally them up for a story I haven’t done yet.

Okay, so — related to campaigns — how many weeks in a row have we talked about the Libertarians? But seriously, every show we’ve had some new development. We need, like, a soap-opera theme song — “As the Libertarian Turns” or something.

Kathie Obradovich: Who would have thought that getting kicked off the ballot would be the most free media the Libertarian Party gets? For anyone who hasn’t followed this saga: two of the Libertarian tickets got kicked off the ballot by the state objection panel. One was lieutenant governor candidate Jules Cutler, which put the whole ticket in jeopardy. The second was 3rd District candidate Marco Battaglia, who got kicked off because his actual legal name is Mark Anderson — who knew? The party has been fighting this in court. Battaglia then announced a medical emergency and dropped out of the race. So the Libertarians held a convention and nominated Charles Aldrich — a name well known to Libertarians and political followers — as the lieutenant governor candidate; he most recently ran in the 4th Congressional District. And Jacob Heard, who’s served as the Libertarian Party’s lawyer and has run for the state house, is going to run in the 3rd Congressional District. Part of why we follow this so closely is that, with so many competitive races, any third-party candidate — including the Libertarians — can actually make a mark.

Laura Belin: Charles Aldrich — both candidates on their governor ticket, Nicholas Gluba and now Aldrich as the lieutenant governor replacement, attempted to run for Congress in 2024 and were part of the case that went to the Iowa Supreme Court, which upheld the decision disqualifying the Libertarian candidates from the ballot on the grounds the party hadn’t done the convention process correctly. I also learned that Aldrich used to live in Minnesota and ran for U.S. Senate there as a Libertarian in the 2008 election — the one that went to a months-long recount and contest between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. He got almost 14,000 votes in an election where the final margin between Franken and Coleman was like 200-something votes.

Dave Price: I mean, seriously — what other podcast gives you that kind of nugget?

Kathie Obradovich: The Libertarians could really be a force in Iowa if they’d just learn the rules and stop making themselves vulnerable to being kicked off the ballot.

Laura Belin: I didn’t even know this process existed — that you could replace a candidate. I’m sure Republicans will file some kind of legal challenge — how can you replace a candidate who didn’t actually qualify for the ballot in the first place? So we’ll probably end up with a court case anyway. I wasn’t aware of this avenue; I thought if you didn’t do it through petition, you’d have to hold a special convention, and that’s very difficult now for third parties, since the requirements for how many people need to attend a convention to nominate someone were raised.

Dave Price: Hey Kathie, let’s put a cherry on top of what we talked about earlier — Mark Kelly and the presidential race. Laura already mentioned the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee — we’re recording Friday morning, and Saturday they could finalize the decision on what the calendar will look like.

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, the full DNC is meeting Saturday and is expected to ratify the calendar the Rules and Bylaws Committee already proposed. Iowa was left out of that — there are five early states, starting with South Carolina, also including Nevada, New Hampshire (third in the lineup, if I remember right), Michigan, and Virginia.

When the Rules and Bylaws Committee made that decision, Iowa Democratic Party leadership was a little coy about whether the party will actually follow the DNC’s rules and go after Super Tuesday, or jump the line and hold a rogue early caucus. There are two schools of thought — even people who like the caucuses may not want the state to defy the DNC, while others are sick of the caucuses and say we should let them go. It really rubbed Iowa Democrats the wrong way that New Hampshire was left out of the early cycle in 2024, went early anyway, and suffered no consequences, while Iowa followed the rules and got stripped of its Rules and Bylaws Committee member — left out in the cold again. Some feel they were punished for following the rules while New Hampshire was rewarded for flouting them. It’ll be interesting to see — party leadership said they probably won’t make any decision until after the midterms. But if Iowa elects more Democrats in the midterms, the party may feel it has more leverage to test the DNC on all of that — stripping delegates and so on, which often gets waived away by the time a presidential candidate is actually nominated.

Dave Price: Hey, Laura and I are going to sprint out of here as soon as we finish recording to head over to the Des Moines Register Soapbox — day two of the fair, but day one of candidates actually appearing at the soapbox. There are about five today, a bunch on Saturday, none on Sunday, then back to a bunch on Monday, carrying through the week. Laura, without getting too specific about individual candidates — what are you going to be watching for? We’ll have Democrats and some Republicans up there, folks gathered around, maybe some hecklers.

Laura Belin: I’m always curious whether they hang around to take questions afterward, but mainly I want to know whether they come with a focused message on some issue, or just give the same introductory biographical speech I’ve probably already heard them give.

Dave Price: All right, Kathie — as you assemble your team to cover all this, and you know how the sausage gets made from your years at the Register — how do you guide your team, and what will they be watching for?

Kathie Obradovich: We’re obviously looking for candidates to make news — similar to what Laura said, if it’s just a biographical speech we’ve heard before, it’s not going to make much news. We like to see them come with a specific issue, something provocative to talk about. We also look at crowd reaction — do they have supporters there, or are they relying on whoever happens to be walking by, which is sort of the ethic of the soapbox? Organized campaigns will seed the crowd with supporters who show up early and take the front chairs, so we look for that kind of evidence of campaign organization. Soapbox is always fun — it’s unpredictable. And I always love watching candidates at the fair — you can really tell who’s comfortable talking to people they don’t know. I’ve got a lot of stories about presidential candidates at the fair; we can talk about that some other time.

Dave Price: I know — we should seriously do an entire episode on that.

Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I want to know what they eat — do they flip a pork chop, drop one on the ground, and put it back?

Dave Price: On the ground. Exactly, exactly.

Kathie Obradovich: Okay, bye.

Dave Price: All right — Kathie and Laura, thank you both. Have a good weekend, let’s hope the rain stays away. Friday morning brought another round of rain, as did Thursday, so we’ll see how that shakes out and whether the heat gives us a break next week as we’re out there listening to these folks. Thanks to everyone who’s dropped in for the podcast this week, thanks to the new subscribers, thanks to those sharing it to help us grow, and a special thanks to our paid subscribers — especially those who’ve re-upped and enhanced their support level, we really appreciate that. And to those thinking about supporting the podcast — we’re going to do something special in the weeks ahead for paid subscribers. We’ll talk more about that in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for joining us, have a great week, and we’ll talk to you next week.

We welcome first-time guest Shane Vander Hart this week. He writes at shanevanderhart.com. Please give him a follow while you’re there.

We dug into school choice first. Rob Sand wants to bring back the ESA income cap and add audits, while Zach Lahn talks expansion without much detail. Shane and Laura sparred over what audits would even target, since tuition dollars aren’t currently subject to oversight once schools receive them.

Then we turned to the new Emerson/Nexstar poll. Sand is up 5.5 points on Lahn, boosted by a 26-point lead with independents. The Senate race is tighter, Hinson over Turek 47.5 to 45, but Turek leads independents by nearly 12 points, a warning sign for Republicans this cycle.

We also covered Brenna Bird’s new Medicaid fraud task force, which drew criticism from two former state officials who say the existing Medicaid Fraud Control Unit just needs more funding. Laura flagged that the task force ignores MCOs illegally denying care.

Looking ahead, Laura’s tracking healthcare messaging in the 1st District, Kathie’s watching Sunday’s Libertarian convention to replace their bounced 3rd District candidate, and Shane has a piece coming Monday on Sand’s ESA means test.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

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Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I am Dave Price, joined by not two.

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Dave Price: But 3 media friends this week. Laura Belin, Kathie Obradovich are regulars. They’re here, of course. But we have a newbie, a rookie, Shane Vander Hart. Who the heck is this person? Hi, Shane.

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Shane: Hey!

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Shane: Hey Dave, how are you?

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Dave Price: Who are you?

Shane: Who am I? Well, I’m just a guy, no. I write a substack, shanevanderhart.com, very original.

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Shane: So, it’s…

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Dave Price: Branding, baby, branding.

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Shane: Yeah, yeah, so it’s… it’s a piece of my mind, basically, the subtitle’s Piece of My Mind About Faith, Culture, Politics, Media, and Public Policy, because

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Shane: drilling down on one particular thing is boring, and so I can… it just leaves it broad and wide open, so whatever I want to write about, I can just do that.

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Dave Price: Outstanding. We have had some private conversations, really, for a number of weeks, and we took last week off.

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Dave Price: For a little vacation, rest up as we get ready for the final sprint.

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Dave Price: I… one of the biggest… I’m just gonna talk out loud about what has been challenging for me. There is no conservative version of Laura Belin.

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Dave Price: That is… that has… because that has always been my dream, right? Laura is this unique…

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Dave Price: entity. Nobody does what Laura does. Kathie runs this sprawling enterprise, so she’s her own thing, too.

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Dave Price: But… but that… she has a different… a different mission.

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Dave Price: There is no conservative version of Laura, and so we have had private conversations about, like, how do we get some conservative voices in here? You know, way back in the day, we had Kevin Hall, Craig Robinson, they were doing some things, and they did it differently than Laura does.

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Dave Price: But nobody does the kind of deep dive stuff from the conservative side that Laura does, and that is something that I’ve always thought could probably give our conversations here each week a little more depth.

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Dave Price: So…

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Dave Price: Shane, who has 43 different jobs, so it makes it very challenging to schedule with this man, but you have been around conservative politics for a while, and I appreciate right now you’re… you’re probably a lost man.

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Dave Price: You are not… you are not the Republican guy who I met 20 years ago or whatever, when we met up for coffee at Smokey Row in Des Moines, when you were doing some other… you had caffeinated thoughts and some other things you were doing. You later launched Iowa Torch, you’ve been a youth pastor in your career, all kinds of stuff.

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Dave Price: So…

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Dave Price: welcome, because it’s nice to add yet another… yet another voice to this. And I wonder, since you’re our guest this week, maybe you lead off, but one thing that we have talked a little bit about on this podcast, but not a lot, would be looking at the idea of school choice.

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Dave Price: And how that might play out in the gubernatorial race. Laura has done a lot of reporting, Kathie’s staff has done reporting on this as well. Shane, you are working for a couple of members who clearly have.

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Shane: Mistaken it, yeah.

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Dave Price: a stake in this and a lot of interest in this expansion. So, talk about what you have seen so far from Rob Sand and Zach Lahn in this area.

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Shane: Okay, well, as far as, school choice, it’s hard to say exactly how prominent it’s gonna be in the election. Right now, it seems, obviously, focused more on the economy, and…

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Shane: I think Rob Sands,

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Shane: his hits on Lahn about where he, you know, where he resides has been landing, especially with independents, but…

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Shane: I see two candidates that are pretty far apart on the issue. Of course.

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Shane: Rob seems like he has, moderated himself to a point where he’s not… he’s not advocating getting rid of ESAs altogether, but just putting… bringing back the income cap, which I hope I’m…

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Shane: I hope I’m,

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Shane: talking about his position accurately, but… So I don’t know if that’s what he truly believes, or if that’s what he…

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Shane: thinks that’s what… the only thing he’s gonna be able to get accomplished, with… with the current political environment and the likelihood that if he’s elected governor, he’s going to have a Republican legislature to work with, so…

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Shane: It’s been interesting. Lahn hasn’t said a lot on the campaign trail that I’ve seen, other than he’s supportive of VSAs.

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Shane: I think we’re going to be trying to drill down where he really lands more on specific issues that impact private schools, not just ESAs, but independent accreditation and other things as well.

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Dave Price: Laura, what’s your take on where is the base on this?

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Laura Belin: Well, the Democratic base is extremely opposed to the school voucher program. I think I agree with Shane’s summary. I would just add a couple of things to what Rob Sands says when he talks about this issue, which he does a lot. He brings it up a lot at his town halls. And…

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Laura Belin: he definitely wants to bring back the income caps on it, but also wants to have audits, like, if public money is going to these schools, we should be able to see where the public money is going. There should be more restrictions on what they can do with the money. And finally, he says that these private schools, if they want to take the taxpayer money, they should accept all of the students who want to attend that school. So that is…

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Laura Belin: what I’ve heard from him. And I’ve heard impressed by Democratic audiences or voters saying, hey, why aren’t you calling for repealing this program? And he’ll say exactly what Shane just said. If I’m elected, I’m going to be working with a Republican legislature. I was really surprised this week with the Emerson College poll, and I know we’re going to talk about the poll more later, but they asked a question about this issue, not exactly using the phrase school vouchers, but

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Laura Belin: State-funded private school tuition assistance.

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Laura Belin: And the electorate was really evenly split on it, with just a little more than 40% each way, which I would have expected the electorate to be more against the voucher program, just based on how much I’ve heard Rob Sand talking about it.

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Kathie Obradovich: We went up and covered, Zach Lahn up in Britt at the Hancock County Fair, I want to say it was last weekend, so not too long ago. And, he’s…

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Kathie Obradovich: careful about how he talks about ESA. So, he said he would like to see expansion of the program, but then he sort of couches that as saying he wants, more innovative schools to be able to, you know, participate. So I’m not sure what he means by innovative schools.

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Kathie Obradovich: Secondly, he says,

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Kathie Obradovich: that, you know, along with strengthening the ESA program, however he wants to do that, he wants to make public schools more competitive, and he likes to talk about competition. And so it’ll be interesting to see what he means… again, a lot of these are not fully fleshed out, what he means by making public schools more competitive. Does that mean you level the playing field with the rules that public schools and private schools have to

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Kathie Obradovich: Follow, or is it… is there something else that he has in mind?

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Dave Price: What do you have, Shane?

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Dave Price: Your wheels are turning, I can tell.

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Shane: Yeah, well, ESAs, not school vouchers. Those are two different types of programs. Vouchers are direct payments to schools. As far as limiting what ESAs go to.

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Shane: It is extremely limited what’s eligible under ESAs, so I’m not entirely sure what Sand is thinking as far as how he would like to limit ESAs, but

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Shane: Tuition, it goes to tuition first. These schools have to be accredited, either independent accreditation or,

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Shane: accreditation through the state of Iowa, which most Catholic schools are usually accredited through the state of Iowa. Most Protestant and other types of private schools are accredited through independent accreditation. So tuition is first, and then there’s a very,

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Shane: tight list of eligible expenses that have to be… that are allowed after tuition, that are purchased through the Odyssey Marketplace.

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Shane: so it’s not like somebody’s buying amusement park tickets, or, you know, things that we would deem extravagant through this program. So, you know, I guess I would like to hear…

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Shane: Rob say exactly

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Shane: what kind of expenses he’s talking about, what he thinks is being done that would be extravagant that falls under this program. I don’t see it.

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Laura Belin: I think what he’s talking about is not what the families can use the money for. The families have to use the money for tuition first.

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Shane: Right.

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Laura Belin: It’s what the schools can do with the money that they’re getting from all those ESA accounts, and a phrase that he likes to use is.

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Shane: But…

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Laura Belin: There’s only one thing on God’s green earth that the schools can’t do, and that’s give families a rebate. Other than that, they could pay for luxury vacations, steak and lobster dinners.

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Shane: Yeah.

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Laura Belin: anything with the money because it’s not subject to audit, so that… that’s the point.

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Shane: because Christian schools are known to do that.

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Shane: They… We’re not just talking about.

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Kathie Obradovich: at Christian schools here, though.

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Shane: Yeah, well, I, you know, basically, ESAs are allowing, finally, a lot of private schools to be able to pay their teachers competitively.

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Shane: And that’s… if you want to know where the money’s going, it’s going to that, mainly. So…

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Shane: I guess if we’re going to be talking about auditing and private entities, let’s… are we going to do that for any private entity that receives public funds?

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Shane: Because there are a lot out there. Do we audit every single college? Does the state auditors, do they audit grocery stores that receive SNAP funding? Do we audit, I mean, doctors’ offices that receive Medicaid? I mean.

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Shane: we’re gonna be talking about Medicaid fraud here in a little bit, but…

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Shane: You know, we don’t generally do that to a point, even though a lot of these organizations and even private schools actually

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Shane: there are… Fiscal and financial,

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Shane: responsibilities they have, not only to their donors and to their board, but also to the accrediting agencies that accredit them. A lot of these schools actually are audited on a regular basis, so just not by the state auditor’s office.

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Dave Price: Hey, Kathie, will you wrap this topic up? How do we know, as we sit here and talk about this in August, how do we get a feel for…

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Dave Price: What kind of driver this issue will be for voters?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so, I mean, we’re going to talk about polling.

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Kathie Obradovich: And that is one way, right? You do get a sense, at least of where voters feel about issues. Sometimes those are combined with how big of a priority that is. So, I mean, we know that the campaigns do these polling. We don’t always see it, and when we do see it, we don’t always

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, we don’t always believe it.

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Dave Price: You know?

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Kathie Obradovich: And so, so, you know, we don’t necessarily publish all the internal polls that we may have seen, but, you know, some of these reputable polls, at least give you an idea sometimes on these issues of where voters are. The other thing, too, is, you know, if you can get out with the campaigns enough.

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Kathie Obradovich: And hear what the questions are that people ask, and how often you’ve seen questions come up. That, that, you know.

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Kathie Obradovich: different gatherings may be more or less grassroots, you know, depending on who’s there. But, you know, I think it’ll be interesting, so…

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Kathie Obradovich: Just a plug, you know, a…

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Kathie Obradovich: separate media entities event, and I’m looking forward to the State Fair soapbox that the Register does, coming up, just to see what, you know, people there are asking candidates about. Those are… that is not necessarily a partisan crowd.

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Kathie Obradovich: And some of these people are seeing some of these candidates for the very first time, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing what’s on their minds.

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Dave Price: To use an example that Shane did, you know, when you were talking about how SAND is landing some effective messaging against Lahn with, this guy lives in Kansas kind of thing, or doesn’t live here enough, all that kind of stuff.

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Dave Price: while we may not see a lot… we’re not gonna have as much polling, perhaps, with the register not doing the Iowa poll, but I feel like we can also tell…

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Dave Price: what the campaigns have found out from their own polling based on what messaging they are using, and if these ESAs, if SAN thinks these are going to be a strength for him and a weakness for Lahn, I’m gonna guess organically he’s gonna bring this up a bunch, right? And if his polling shows that, as Laura already teased ahead with this Emerson polling, if it’s more of a mixed bag, perhaps there’s not a

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Dave Price: A lot of benefit for him to really hammer on this.

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Kathie Obradovich: But you’re also talking about interest groups, right? So, you know, you’re speaking, you know, Rob Sand almost certainly is speaking to, you know, the ISEA, the State Education Association, which is the teachers’ union, and would be a big, you know, an opportunity for support from that group.

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Kathie Obradovich: So, I mean, you know, the messaging’s not just speaking to, run-of-the-mill voters, they’re speaking to their interest groups as well.

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Dave Price: Laura, you already… sorry that I forgot to silence my phone, excuse me for being rude. You already teased ahead to this Emerson College Nextstar media poll, so this would be my former employer as part of the Nexstar family. And you talked about…

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Dave Price: at least it addressed the issue of ESAs, but let’s look at some of the top-line numbers. However, this weekend, you have a post looking beyond the top-line numbers, but in particular, they’re looking at the gubernatorial race and the U.S. Senate race that we have in the state of Iowa in November. I wonder if you can start with the gubernatorial race.

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Dave Price: It shows that Rob Sand is up.

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Dave Price: in this race, but you’re also looking behind… beyond some of the top-line numbers. What are you finding?

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Laura Belin: Overall, it’s a pretty good poll for San. He’s up by about 5.5 points, which is outside the poll’s margin of error.

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Laura Belin: And he has a big lead among independents. He’s got a 26-point lead among independents in the sample. And I know that his campaign has really put a lot of muscle into trying to identify and mobilize those voters who aren’t affiliated with either party, and he’s put forward a bunch of proposals to empower no-party voters, including completely overhauling our state primary system.

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Laura Belin: So.

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Laura Belin: he’s looking strong. Also, they asked… now, this was after they asked about favorability, and the… and the head-to-head matchup against Zach Lahn. They asked, how important is it to you for a candidate for statewide office to have lived in Iowa for most of their adult life? And about three-quarters of the sample said that was either very important or somewhat important. So, I think that that’s probably, as you mentioned, Dave.

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Laura Belin: when we hear campaigns emphasizing a message, it may be because their own internal polling is telling them that’s effective. But the other thing this poll showed is that he’s much better known than Zach Lahn. That’s not too surprising because

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Laura Belin: Zach Lahn, I mean, before last November, when he announced his gubernatorial bid, I had literally never heard of him in my life, whereas Rob Sand’s been a statewide elected official for the last 8 years, so that, you could say that the optimistic view for Zach Lahn is he has an opportunity, if he can become better known, to try to raise his numbers a little bit, but Sand already has a much… a more… a better split on his favorable

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Laura Belin: favorable rating.

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Dave Price: Shane, you are in Indy these days, as you stepped aside from the.

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Shane: I’ve had Democrats come up to my door.

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Dave Price: Is that right? Yeah. They think you’re a free agent. So, to Laura’s point there, when you look at Sands’ strength with independents, and clearly he has really worked, and he knows the math, Laura, as we’ve mentioned on this show a bunch of times, I believe was the first person to really deep-dive the voter registration numbers

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Dave Price: a bunch of months ago, and back then, I believe the gap was about 200,000, the registered Republican advantage. It’s narrowed some now. But that was Laura’s reality check to some of these Democrats a while back to say, hey, yeah, you know, things may be feeling good, but let’s look at the big picture numbers. So for Sand to do well, realistically, he has.

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Shane: He has to, he has to.

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Shane: Yeah, and by a pretty large margin. So… and so he’s smart to take that tactic, and I think, you know, his campaign messaging, for the most part, not redder, not bluer, but better and truer, okay.

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Shane: catchy, nice, works perfectly well, especially among indies that are kind of tired of the two-party system. So, you know, I definitely… he’s got some smart messaging, and obviously he’s got a huge campaign war chest to get out messaging on the airwaves, so that’s gonna be of huge benefit to him.

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Shane: And I’m sure he remembers his last election, where, you know, he just won by the, you know, skin of his teeth, so he definitely has to make some huge, huge inroads, and…

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Shane: On the flip side, Lahn has to recognize that he can’t just reach out to MAGA base and Republican voters, but he needs to also make some inroads into, independents, those that maybe have actually voted for Trump, but are now kind of getting turned off.

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Shane: So, I would be worried, if I were him, looking at this polling, especially with the independent numbers. It doesn’t look good. I mean, this is… looks like it’s setting up a scenario for a sandwyn.

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Shane: obviously, just a snapshot in time in August, so there’s… there’s a lot of time to go, but he does need to get his name out there more. Because I… like Laura, it’s like, Zach who? I have never heard of this guy before.

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Dave Price: So, Kathie, the… one of the fun things for me to talk to you week after week on this, and I appreciate that, you know, you’re the…

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Dave Price: you’re the driving force of the Iowa Capital Dispatch, but for a bunch of years, you knew the inner workings of the Iowa poll at the Des Moines Register, so you have more than a passing knowledge of how polling works. We always say on this show, we don’t want to make too big a deal out of polling, and it’s a snapshot in time, blah blah blah.

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Dave Price: Having said all of that, what did you think when you looked, just speaking on the gubernatorial race here, what did you think when you looked at this Emerson-Nexstar poll?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so first of all, Emerson is a, you know, it is a name in polling. They’ve done, lots of polling over the years, they’re very experienced. Every pollster is different, you know, and the thing that I liked

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Kathie Obradovich: most about, about, Ann Selzer’s polling, was that she didn’t bake assumptions in.

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Kathie Obradovich: the electorate. In other words, she, didn’t try to project

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, what the… what the electorate was gonna look like, you know, how many, you know, so she didn’t, like, cut off people who hadn’t voted in the last two elections, because that… that, you know, gets… gets rid of new voters, for example, and caucus polling was even more complicated as a result. So…

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Kathie Obradovich: So, you know, every poll is different. I think Emerson

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, Laura, you looked at, you know, whether their samples seem to lean right or left, and I have… I have not dug into that, but I do think that they are, you know, a relatively respected name with any, with any poll.

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, I like to look at the number of undecideds, and, you know, so I think…

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, both in the Senate race and gubernatorial race, there’s room, you know, there’s wiggle room there. You know, but if I’m… if I’m Zach Lahn looking at this

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Kathie Obradovich: Paul, and I kind of agree with Shane, he needs to get out and get his name out more. We’ve been looking… we had a week, I think it was 2 weeks ago, where Rob Sand had 3 events in Central Iowa, or at least, he, you know, he shared a media release with us early, so we had that and 2 events.

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Kathie Obradovich: Anyway…

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Kathie Obradovich: they were, and we were looking for Zach Lahn events that we could cover, you know, to try to provide some balance, and we couldn’t find one. He finally had a couple up in north central Iowa, and we were able to send a reporter up, but he, you know, not having a lot of public events.

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Kathie Obradovich: not doing as many, you know, yeah, he’s putting out news releases saying Rob Sand is a fraud, or whatever, bad guy. But, you know, those are… those are not necessarily the kinds of things that we jump on, so we’re, you know, we’re looking for, we’re looking for opportunities to cover Zach Lahn, and he’s not giving us enough yet.

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Shane: Yeah, he’s not going to be able to win the airwave battle right now based on funding, so this is… this is the only way for him to really get his name out there. To answer your question regarding the Emerson polling, it looks like they’re pretty fair. I was looking at the crosstab breakdown, and…

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Shane: Let’s see. It looks like, they had about 283 Republicans, 222 Democrats, and about 206

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Shane: independence, so I think a pretty accurate weighting as far as registration numbers.

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Laura Belin: It was about a 40%… yeah, 40% Republican, 31% Democrat, 29% Independent, but as Kathie pointed out, I mean, there’s a lot of guesswork that goes into that, and if you had gone into the…

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Laura Belin: 2014 midterm, polling the electorate, expecting that the turnout was going to match the 2012 presidential election.

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Shane: wrong. Yeah.

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Laura Belin: So, you know, he… it looks like a reasonable snapshot, but we really don’t know what the electorate’s gonna look like in November.

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Dave Price: Okay, let’s look at that U.S. Senate race. So, in this case, now this one’s within the margin of error, and as Laura already pointed out in the gubernatorial race, Rob Sands’ lead was beyond the margin of error, so that… we’ll see if that ends up being significant. But Ashley Hinson in this one, 47.5.

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Dave Price: And Josh Turek, 45, with 6.1.

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Dave Price: undecided. Laura, as you started digging into the Senate race, what were you noticing?

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Laura Belin: Well, Ashley Hinson is much better known than Josh Turek. She’s not as well known as Rob Sand, but they both have similar favorable ratings. She has slightly higher unfavorable than Josh Turek, but Josh Turek just isn’t known to a lot of people. So you could look at that two ways. You could say he has more of an opportunity to grow as he becomes better known, or you could say Republicans have more of an opportunity to define him.

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Laura Belin: before he can get his support up. I’m waiting for some pollster to name Thomas Lahn the Libertarian who will be on the ballot in the Senate race. They had an option for other… for the Senate, but I think that they should name the Libertarian Thomas Lahn and see what happens with that, because I feel that he has potential to get more than the 1.5% that this poll

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Laura Belin: Found go to other.

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Dave Price: Lahn and Lahn.

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Laura Belin: No.

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Dave Price: Different race, but…

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Dave Price: Shane, also in this Senate race, there is a gap with the Indies, and so you have, in this case, Turek with almost

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Dave Price: almost 12-point advantage with independents. So, despite down in the polls with you, although it’s very, very close, so essentially a statistical tie, perhaps, but again, this gap with independents. So, we’re in… we’re in August. Is that a concern for the Republican side?

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Shane: Oh, it should be. It should always be a concern with midterm elections when your… the… your party’s president is in office. There’s always the… especially when he’s got the unfavorability rating that he has. In Iowa, a state that has voted for him twice… you know, well, three different times.

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Shane: And… and he’s underwater with his favorability rating, so that is definitely where you’re gonna… you’re gonna see that with the independent vote. And, you know, I… more independents are aware of Ashley Hinson, so…

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Shane: it’s not quite as bad as you see with the gubernatorial race, but yeah, Republicans cannot

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Shane: Depend on just their huge voter registration advantage.

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Dave Price: Kathie, what do you make of the fact that Rob Sand has a more comfortable lead in the gubernatorial race, but it’s essentially a tie in this Senate race, with Hansen perhaps slightly ahead?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I mean, it’s exactly like Laura said. Hinson is better known. She’s not… she’s not universally known, because, you know, she represents

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, a specific area of the state in Congress, but the area of the state that she represents right now is a lot bigger than, you know, as a state representative that Josh Turek was representing in Council Bluffs. So… so yeah, he has to,

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, remain competitive enough with fundraising, and, you know, of course, with all the downsides of that, which means, you know, there’s gonna be outside money, there’s gonna be, you know, and that’s a… that is controversial with people, but I think both sides are gonna be dealing with that.

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Kathie Obradovich: But yeah, he’s gotta, you know, introduce himself to voters all across the state, and make the most of the dissatisfaction that people have with Donald Trump, because Ashley Hinson has been, I think, a pretty reliable vote, for House Republicans and for Trump’s agenda. So, I mean, they have to be able to make the most of that dissatisfaction.

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Kathie Obradovich: But… avoid running against Donald Trump, because…

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, that is not… he’s not on the ballot, but…

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Kathie Obradovich: That has not been successful in the past. I mean, Democrats focused on Donald Trump to the exclusion of

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Kathie Obradovich: offering a better and, you know, more, a more compelling message, and you can’t stop by saying Donald Trump is bad. If that’s, you know, if that’s what you’re gonna try to do for a message, you’ve got to offer something better. And that’s where, you know, I think Josh Turk has got to be…

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, very thoughtful, not just, you know, to get his name out there, but to be thoughtful about what it is that he’s offering, especially rural voters who are maybe disenchanted with tariffs and the cost of fertilizer and the Iran war.

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Dave Price: you know, just cost of living in general. Kathie, I wonder if you can start us off for our final big topic of the week. Since we took last week off, we did not get to dig into this, but Iowa Capital Dispatch has had reporting on this. Brenna Bird, the Attorney General, is headed up

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Dave Price: this task force that will look at cases of suspected Medicaid fraud. So that was… that was the initial launch, but then there was this news conference with two former state directors who both worked under Democrats.

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Dave Price: who say that this is kind of a misguided approach, and this is not the way you need to be going after this. What did you make from this so far?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so, this was a task force that was created by the governor, it’s being headed by Brenne Burr, the Attorney General, and it is,

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Kathie Obradovich: and I was kind of happy to see this, that it is more focused on law enforcement than it is about prevention. I worry that prevention basically creates a lot of red tape, both recipients and providers, and essentially leads to people

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Kathie Obradovich: Dropping out or losing access, because people don’t want to deal with the red tape. So, I was happy to see it focus more on law enforcement.

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Kathie Obradovich: But what, Kevin Tekow, who is a former director of the Department of Inspections and Appeals, which is now

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Kathie Obradovich: Dial, which is inspections, Appeals, and Licensing, and Dean Lerner, who is also a former director of that agency. And then they’ve also gone on to do, like, Kevin Tekow was a former U.S. attorney, for example, so they’ve also done some law enforcement work.

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Kathie Obradovich: Basically, they’re saying, you know, instead of doing this task force, that they should focus on putting more funding into the existing structures of state government that already investigate Medicaid fraud and do a good job of it. So, in the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing, there is currently a Medicaid fraud control unit

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Kathie Obradovich: Which basically exists, obviously, to investigate Medicaid fraud. Both TechOut and Lerner are arguing that the state is underfunding this agency, and that, you know, for every… they’re saying for every dollar spent.

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Kathie Obradovich: that it recovers $4 to $5, for taxpayers. So, so that is part of it. They also say you need to, you need to upgrade your data.

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, improve your technology, etc. And they had a couple of other recommendations as well. You know, I think these recommendations are worth considering. I don’t see anything wrong with having a task force to talk about this, frankly. There’s, you know, and because Medicaid,

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Kathie Obradovich: is facing, cuts and increases in some of the regulation, that looking at fraud is, you know, a good idea, but I do think that some of these recommendations are worth being discussed as well.

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Dave Price: Shane, this has been part of a national conversation that’s focused on Medicaid and Medicare, too, but let’s just focus on Medicaid. But with the Trump administration, other Republican governors have talked about Medicaid oversight, and we know that the feds are

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Dave Price: zeroing in on the error rate, with Medicaid, and states would have to potentially take over more of the cost if they go above that threshold. Iowa’s below the threshold, the current numbers. But what do you make about both Brenna Bird’s

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Dave Price: sort of mission, if you will, under the… under the direction of Governor Kim Reynolds, but then also this, the two former state officials saying this is not the way to go.

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Shane: Right, well, I think obviously going after fraud is low-hanging fruit, and everybody’s against it. There’s bipartisan consensus. We don’t want to see the program

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Shane: cheated, and if we could recover some taxpayer funding through that, all the better. I agree with Kathie. I don’t see why you can’t, you know, fund… I think, yeah, definitely fund…

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Shane: the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit more, because I was looking at… I was looking at the Iowa Capital Dispatch’s article on this, and seeing where Iowa was as far as staffers compared to other states, and it’s like, whoa, yeah, we could definitely do a better job there.

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Shane: But as far as the task force itself, it might generate some great ideas. You might have some technology improvements that are advocated for through this. You’ve got the director of Iowa’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit as part of the task force, so…

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Shane: you know, I’m ambivalent about task force… task forces as far as how effective they are, but if it gets the conversation rolling, and maybe this be part of that, let’s better fund this unit, I think that’s a win-win. I don’t see a problem with it.

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Dave Price: What’s your take, Laura?

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Laura Belin: Well, one thing that Rob Sand mentioned when this task force was created, this was not connected to the recent press conference by the former state officials, but that the task force is very skewed toward

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Laura Belin: government and these… the private companies that manage the Medicaid program, and they’re… it’s not really patient advocate, and why isn’t this task force looking at the illegal denials of care? I mean, if you’re only looking at fraud, of course, none of us want to see any fraud in the Medicaid program, but there have been a lot of reports, compelling reports, that these MCOs are denying care and services to people

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Laura Belin: who are legally entitled to them. And it seems like that is just not of any interest at all to the current administration, so that strikes me as an area where a task force that’s looking more holistically at Medicaid might also want to look at that side.

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Dave Price: Alright, let’s make that the final word on that. I wonder if we can close out this week by teasing what you’re working on. Laura, I already sort of heavily teased what you did, because you did a Saturday morning post, but do you want to tee that up?

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Laura Belin: Yeah, I… well, I did a post kind of digging into the Emerson poll numbers, and then a couple of days ago, I did a separate post about the role that access to healthcare is playing in the first congressional district campaign after Christina Bahannon launched her first TV ad, and then earlier in the year, Marionette Miller Makes TV ad also was much about healthcare, and that included a little bit of information about some polling in the first district, too.

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Dave Price: Kathie, it’s probably difficult for you to zero in on one, but Kenya?

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, I’ll give a very little… a very short-term thing. We haven’t talked about the Libertarians today, and they are… they’re going to have their convention, interestingly, on Sunday night, from 8 to 10 p.m. Who has a convention?

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Shane: That is weird.

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Kathie Obradovich: But…

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Dave Price: Yeah, non-traditional folks sometimes.

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Kathie Obradovich: They are planning to pick a substitute candidate for Marco Battalia.

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Dave Price: Good.

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Kathie Obradovich: was kicked off the ballot, and… or if we want to call him Mark Anderson, because he was kicked off for not using his legal name. And, so we’ll see, we’ll certainly have.

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Dave Price: And that’s the congressional race, we should say. It’s already interrupted, in the 3rd District.

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Kathie Obradovich: 3rd district congressional race, exactly. So, it does, you know, that is a really close race as well. We didn’t have polling on it this time, but I think most people, you know, are looking at that as a potential close race. So having a, third party slash, you know, independent candidate, in that race could very well

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Kathie Obradovich: affect the dynamic, so it’s worth watching anyway.

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Dave Price: And you, ShaneVanderhart.com?

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Shane: Yeah, well.

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Dave Price: Is that your legal name?

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Shane: Yes, that is my legal name, even though you will not find me on the ballot ever, anywhere.

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Shane: So… I… Yeah, I’m putting out an article on Monday about Rob Sands’ means test.

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Shane: With ESAs, so addressing that.

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Dave Price: Outstanding. Shane, thanks for jumping in with us this week. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

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Shane: Very welcome.

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Dave Price: Kathie and Laura, thank you, as always. I know I said this privately, but…

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Dave Price: These two women are so… Super, super flexible.

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Dave Price: so that we can all get on here at the same time. I… my family didn’t get back until Friday. My… my 16-year-old son put this epic road trip together that I’ve never been part of in my life, but we went on this, literally a two-week road trip.

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Dave Price: where we went through, and I’m gonna write about this in different pieces the next couple of months, because they’ve reminded me of some things, but we took this trip through Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and then we went to Glacier in Montana, we went to Banff.

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Dave Price: West of Calgary, and then we continued on and went through Calgary and a bunch of all these random stops, which was so super fun, and then hit Winnipeg and came back home.

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Dave Price: My car is a mess, and it will take countless weeks to clean this thing, but I am so super thankful to… you too, of course, Shane, for joining us, but to Kathie and Laura, there’s no way to say this enough on this podcast. Your flexibility is so super helpful as we try to get together week after week, and we are recording this

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Dave Price: at lunchtime on a Saturday, which we usually try to do this show on a Friday, so…

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Kathie Obradovich: And thanks to Spencer, too, by the way.

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Dave Price: Very, very much so. Spencer Dirks, who produces this sucker, all the post-production and stuff that has to get done, so this means that Spencer has to crank this thing out on Saturday night so that we can drop this on Sunday morning. So, I know this is sort of how the sausage is made, but it’s very, very, very, very, very much appreciate all of you being willing to jump around. And in this case, it was totally due

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Dave Price: Accommodate my family’s schedule, so… Very, very thankful.

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Dave Price: Thankful to all of you who’ve become new subscribers. Realized we took a week off last week as we get ready for the final push, the final countdown.

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Dave Price: Which was also on our family playlist on our road trip, by the way. My son put that on his Apple playlist. But thank you to all of you who’ve become new subscribers, especially thank you to those who’ve become new paid subscribers, who help to pay the production costs of this week after week. We very much appreciate that, and if you are willing to become a new paid subscriber, you can help us keep pushing through this November election.

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Dave Price: Thanks for joining us this week, and have a great weekend, have a great week, we will talk to you next weekend.

Kathie’s team at Iowa Capital Dispatch broke a story on a 119-page study the Reynolds administration commissioned on letting community colleges offer four-year degrees, then sat on for months. The findings: Iowa doesn’t really have “education deserts,” and the brain drain problem is more about low wages than higher ed. Community colleges are already pushing back on the report’s methodology, and expect this fight back at the legislature next year. Read Brooklyn Draisey’s reporting here.

We also got an update on the libertarian ballot cases. Marco Battalia (running under a name that isn’t legally his) and Rick Stewart both had name-based challenges heard in court this week, with rulings expected soon. The tougher case, over Jules Cutler’s affidavit for lieutenant governor, is headed to the Iowa Supreme Court either way.

Last up, a Dave Muhlbauer campaign stop for the Rob Sand campaign at Ember Recovery turned into a real, unscripted moment when YSS president Andrew Allen raised concerns about legalizing marijuana and its effect on kids. Good discussion, and a reminder that this issue deserves more nuance than it usually gets.

We’re off next week, back in two weeks as the fall campaign heats up.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

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Dave Price: Hi everybody, welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, as we get toward the end of July, and my son’s 16th birthday, so kind of a fun… a fun day in my household. How are you, ladies?

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Kathie Obradovich: Doing great, how are you?

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Dave Price: Kathie, I’m gonna call you out, but just to show how I do think women are genetically superior at this, which is probably sexist toward men, but it is what it is. Right before we open this podcast.

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Dave Price: Kathie, as she’s getting ready to do this show, is texting as part of her editor duties at the Iowa Capital Dispatch. So, you know, it just shows how she can break that brain up into multi… little multi-chunks.

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Kathie Obradovich: I would never get anything done otherwise.

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Laura Belin: Women… women are good at multitasking, Dan.

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Dave Price: Honestly, I…

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Dave Price: I am… I learn that every year, year after year. Anyway. Alright, we have a bunch to talk about. Kathie, can you lead off today? Because on… late on Thursday night, Iowa Capital Dispatch had a story that posted about something that you all have been chasing down, really, for a number of months. And to catch us up on this, this was something that came up

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Dave Price: during the past legislative session, where there was talk about community colleges offering four-year degrees, to lay this out generically. And it faced some pushback from the regents, obviously, it faced some pushback, especially from some of the private colleges and universities.

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Dave Price: But your staff found out that there had been this study commissioned to look at this concept. Can you walk us through the journey to actually get ahold of this study?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so it’s interesting. It’s probably been more accurate to say it’s been weeks, as… Okay.

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Dave Price: It’s better to say months.

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Kathie Obradovich: But, it’s been 8 months, anyway. So, yeah, we covered during the legislative session, the push from community colleges to establish baccalaureate degrees at community colleges, which is, you know, really.

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Kathie Obradovich: something that has never been done in Iowa. Community colleges, have four-year or two-year associate certificates, and they also have programs where their students can transfer to a private college or one of the region’s universities to get a four-year degree. And that was a hotly contested issue at the legislature, the private colleges especially

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Kathie Obradovich: were up in arms over that, saying it would really help them. And really, one of the, the arguments behind it, on the community college side was that there are, higher education deserts in Iowa, that the community colleges could help fill, because

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, there are places where

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Kathie Obradovich: Especially adult students who may be, trying to go back to school to upgrade their skills and get a better job, that they, you know, might not be able to access those, courses, you know, either they’re too far away, or they are too expensive. So, okay, that was the… that was the big driving argument. The bill didn’t pass. And at some point during the process.

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Kathie Obradovich: the Reynolds administration commissioned a study from a consultant. Never told anyone this study was going on, but some of the stakeholders participated in the study, so they knew about it.

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Kathie Obradovich: And then the study, was received by Department of Education, in June.

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Kathie Obradovich: At some point, the study actually was dated in March, which is while the legislative session was going on. The Department of Education says they received it in June, but it was never released. And so…

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Kathie Obradovich: We put in a Freedom of Information Act request, and after being handed around, you know, various departments, we finally got a copy of it yesterday morning. And it was really interesting, because the study basically said, you know, that there really isn’t education deserts in Iowa. That, they, you know, people can

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Kathie Obradovich: access higher education, either through, you know, within an hour’s drive or online, and that there’s plenty of access, etc. And, also, and this is maybe even the more interesting part, they said that

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Kathie Obradovich: Iowa’s workforce woes, you know, the concerns about the brain drain are really due to the business climate, and not how higher education is performing in the state, which I thought was pretty interesting. So, you know, we can use our imaginations about why the governor’s office wasn’t in a big hurry to release this study.

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Kathie Obradovich: But, you know, the community colleges are still pushing back. They’re saying that the

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Kathie Obradovich: Their definition of an education desert was flawed, or at least different from what the community colleges are using.

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Kathie Obradovich: community colleges say a 30-minute drive is, is really more practical for people. And, you know, I think they have a point there. But also arguing that, you know, online, doesn’t serve the bill. So they’re pushing back, essentially, especially at the education desert part of that. And, you know, I think that there were some recommendations that the private colleges don’t like as well, including

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Kathie Obradovich: putting, more, you know, kind of putting more conditions on the Iowa Tuition grant, which is taxpayer money that private colleges get.

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Kathie Obradovich: For student scholarships. So, anyway, this is a… just an interesting point, with actual research that’s gone into this issue. I would expect it to come back again next year, and we’ll see how this study plays into the discussion.

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Dave Price: Was there any context on when they talked… Yeah, for sure. Sorry, Laura.

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Laura Belin: Yo, I didn’t even know about this report, so very nice work in finding out.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’m Brooklyn, Drazy’s part.

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Dave Price: Multitasking, here we go. Exhibit A. Hey, did they have… was there any context when you mentioned that the challenge is the business climate? Was there any contact with that?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and we did post the report, so, you know, you might want to dig into the details there, but, you know, they’re essentially talking about, you know, the fact that, Iowa has lower wages, than surrounding states, people leaving for, for lower wages, or for higher wages elsewhere, etc.

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Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, that they’re saying that there’s enough graduates to fill the jobs, it’s just that they’re getting… they’re getting out of Dodge when they… when they.

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Dave Price: Better opportunities elsewhere.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, yeah.

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Laura Belin: I’m sure the bill will come back next year, but the…

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Laura Belin: chair of the Iowa Senate Education Committee, Lynn Evans, he did survive his primary challenge, which had nothing to do with this bill, but I remember when he said that he wasn’t… he just didn’t think this was ready to move forward. And so unless there’s new leadership with the Iowa Senate Education Committee, I’m not sure that this is gonna have any more success next year than this year, because

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Laura Belin: Lynn Evans’ district includes Buena Vista University, pretty important private college for the whole

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Laura Belin: Storm Lake area, and I think the legislators who have private colleges anchoring towns in their district are not going to want to kneecap those colleges by allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees.

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Dave Price: A nice, a nice scoop, for sure. 119 pages, that report is, so, you know, get yourself a good, strong cup of coffee, and sit down with that sucker this weekend, but I’m sure that thing is packed full of little nuggets that’ll…

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Dave Price: Probably be helpful, actually, as we think about this race for governor and these legislative races as well.

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Kathie Obradovich: There’s way more in there than we had time to report yesterday.

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Dave Price: For sure. All right, Laura, this will be part 6 in your soon-to-be-released Netflix documentary on Iowa libertarians. Their court struggle.

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Dave Price: Man, it… it’s just one more chapter to this, but you… you were in court once again this week, for the latest development in this series, and, you know, I’m trying to be funny, but how many… how many parts to this has there been?

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Laura Belin: So, there are two… well, technically, there are three cases

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Laura Belin: Two of them are sort of consolidated. There’s the case involving the libertarian ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler, that was basically an all-day evidentiary hearing and oral arguments on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday morning.

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Laura Belin: a different judge heard the two cases related to Marco Battalia trying to get back on the ballot in the 3rd District, and Republicans trying to get Rick Stewart off the ballot in the 2nd District. And those were…

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Laura Belin: they weren’t exactly consolidated into one case, but they were consolidated in the sense that the same judge is hearing both of them, and it was back-to-back, because both of those appeals have to do with the candidates’ names. So, I guess I’ll start with that one, because it’s simpler to understand.

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Laura Belin: Marco Battalia, turns out, is not his legal name. Mark Anderson is his legal name, and even though he’s run for office a number of times before as Marco Battalia, he was challenged this year because he signed his candidate affidavit as Mark Anderson, his legal name, but all of his petitions said Marco Battalia. And the state panel that considers these kinds of challenges split, voted 2 to 1 with the Republican

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Laura Belin: Secretary of State Paul Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird saying that Marco Battalia should not be on the ballot because the law does not allow candidates to run under a fictitious name. Whereas Rob Sand, the Democrat, dissented from that decision. He said that the law does not specify that you have to use your legal name or your real name, it just says the candidate’s name in the form the candidate wants it to appear on the ballot.

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Laura Belin: And he also, pointed out, there’s this legal concept called estoppel, which means that if you’ve done something before, that it would be unfair to try to stop you now. So, since Marco Battalia had already been on the ballot a number of times, that it would be unfair. So, I felt in the court, to me, it seemed that the judge was fairly skeptical of Marco Battalia’s

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Laura Belin: arguments there that the judge seemed to think that candidate’s name, it has to have some relationship to the candidate’s real name, even though the statute doesn’t say real name or legal name. So, we’ll see how that goes, but I kind of felt that the judge… the way the judge’s questioning went, it seemed fairly sympathetic to the idea that the law might allow you to run as a shortened version of your name, but not just a complete

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Laura Belin: different name, like Battalia versus Anderson. And then the second case that was consolidated with that was about Rick Stewart, the libertarian running in the second congressional district. The argument that the Republican objector made was that his petitions all said Richard Stewart, but he signed his affidavit and wanted to appear on the ballot as Rick Stewart. And Alan Ostergren, the attorney for the Republican objector, said.

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Laura Belin: You know, he could… certainly, he could run as Rick Stewart, but in that case, he needed to put Rick Stewart on his petitions, not Richard.

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Laura Belin: So the state panel unanimously rejected that argument, kept him on the ballot, and I think it’s very likely that the judge is going to rule to keep Rick Stewart on the ballot, because Rick and Richard are just two versions of the same name.

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Laura Belin: The case for governor… boy, I don’t… there are so many different legal and factual disputes, and I don’t know which way the judge is going to go with that one. The main issue is that the libertarian candidate for Lieutenant Governor Jules Cutler did not submit the required affidavit of candidacy. So there’s a factual dispute over whether she tried to present the document, and the Secretary of State’s worker rejected it, or said it wasn’t needed.

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Laura Belin: There are also all kinds of legal arguments over whether the state objection panel’s consideration of this was fair, and I feel that the judge could just make it very simple and say she was required to submit this document by June 2nd, she didn’t, end of story.

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Laura Belin: But they could… I mean, the judge did seem sympathetic to a few of the libertarian points about the state panels.

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Laura Belin: hearing being unfair, so it’s possible that the state panel’s decision could be overturned, but again, that one is also going up to the Iowa Supreme Court either way.

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Dave Price: So it’s… this is gonna be a while.

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Laura Belin: Well, the judge

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Laura Belin: the case about the Battalia Stewart, Judge Patrick Smith, he said he’s gonna try to get a ruling out next week. The libertarian cases for governor, that’s more complicated, and the parties are actually supposed… the deadline for them to submit their briefs is today, so Judge Joseph Seidlin didn’t say exactly when he’s going to rule, but there are a lot of balls in the air on that one, and I don’t know if he’ll rule next week or the week after that, but it all has

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Laura Belin: to happen quickly, because it’s going to be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, and then the Iowa Supreme Court needs to have some kind of briefing and arguments. I’m sure that’ll be on a very accelerated timetable, but the ballots need to be finalized by, depending on who you talk to, either the end of August or early September, so this is all gonna come together quickly, and I’m sure that the judges are gonna be… In the past, we’ve had these cases where

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Laura Belin: you could tell the judges were working weekends and really trying hard to turn these opinions around as fast as possible. And I think the Battalia Stewart cases are just simpler, so I expect that ruling to drop before the one related to Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler.

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Kathie Obradovich: just to remind people what the stakes are here, I mean, we’re talking about close races, potentially for governor, for these congressional seats, and Republicans, I think, are right to be concerned that a libertarian candidate can draw, votes away from Republican candidates. I mean, that’s why we’re all paying so much attention to this.

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Kathie Obradovich: And why, you know, the…

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Kathie Obradovich: Especially the Republicans are really pushing this case, not just accepting the State Objection Panel’s decision, even on Rick Stewart.

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Laura Belin: And I agree that, on balance, probably the Libertarian candidate on the ballot draws more from Republicans, but the libertarians, for what it’s worth, they dispute that. They say some… I mean, Marco Battalia, for instance, he has an anti-war message, a pro-legalization of drugs message, so they argue that there are voters on the left who also find their message appealing.

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Dave Price: Alright, there is one other thing, one other event, I went to this week. Kathie had a reporter from the Iowa Capital Dispatch there as well, and it was a Rob Sand… I found this interesting, and frankly, even in the news release that went out about it before… beforehand from the SAN campaign.

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Dave Price: Because the names on the list, so you had Dave Mulbauer, the Lieuten governor candidate, and you had Brian Loci, who’s a state rep from Bondurant, a Republican who had just lost his

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Dave Price: Republican primary, so he’ll be losing the… leaving the legislature. And you had Andrew Allen, who is the president and CEO of YSS, this… the Youth Recovery

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Dave Price: Center Enterprise, and so they went to Ember Recovery in Cambridge. And so this was set up to showcase what they do at this center, which is pretty remarkable, honestly, when you go there. It’s almost kind of overwhelming to…

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Dave Price: look at what they have, and we are all familiar with a friend who… multiple friends, really, who have… who have unfortunately found out how difficult it is to get service. And in this case, this is pri… Amber is primarily focused on young people 18 to 24 for substance…

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Dave Price: abuse, recovery, along with mental health crises. And…

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Dave Price: The setup for this is that Dave Mulbauer decided to go public with the fact that his son, one of his children, had a mental health crisis last year, and because of

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Dave Price: contacts that Dave had, he knew about Ember, and that connected him with this facility, and he credits this with helping his son.

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Dave Price: And going through this program. Brian Loci’s case was different, and one of their boys from a very young age had a substance abuse issue and dealt with it.

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Dave Price: for a number of years. At the time, this Cambridge facility was not there, and so Brian and his wife found treatment for their son in several other places, including Minnesota, and then there was a place in, southern Texas where they went to, too. So the setup was pretty remarkable. I was, you know, sometimes… sometimes I’m sitting there and, you know, you kind of…

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Dave Price: You can kind of forget about the politics of stuff.

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Dave Price: And when I was looking at this table, you have, Brian Loci, whose son successfully went through

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Dave Price: recovery for substance abuse, and Brian and Mary, for those who don’t know, won the Powerball a number of years ago, so they’ve also, in honor of their son’s success, they donated a lot of money, frankly, to Ember as well, and so there’s a gym there.

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Kathie Obradovich: this.

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Dave Price: Where the young people, can play ball and stuff. So they’re very much connected to this. But, one thing that sometimes is just… I just feel like sometimes these… politics is so polarized, right? So we’re looking at this table where we have

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Dave Price: Here’s the guy running for Lieuten governor as a Democrat. Here’s a Republican state rep.

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Dave Price: Who’s…

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Dave Price: maybe leaving politics now, but nonetheless. And then you have Andrew Allen, who’s the head of this, who is now 31 years sober. As a kid, he went through a bunch of stuff.

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Dave Price: Overcame that, and now he leads this thing that’s helped, like, 5,000 young people, something like that.

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Dave Price: Then they also had this young man who was an addict as a younger guy. He’s still young, but when he was, I think, a teenager, he was homeless and an addict and all that, and now he’s one of the counselors there, so he has a really cool story. And then there was this really sad case where there’s a mom who was part of this whose son struggled with a bunch of stuff and ended up

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Dave Price: Dying in a car wreck. She became an addict.

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Dave Price: she received treatment, and now she’s a dedicated advocate. So just, you know, sometimes you’re like, gosh dang, this is just, like, a powerful event, like, forget RD, all that kind of stuff.

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Dave Price: So it was just a remarkable kind of event. But, Kathie, you also, you had a staffer there, Caden, who wrote about this, but sort of the news of the day, if you will, despite the power of all this, and Mulbauer talked about… I had asked him about, you know, his decision to go public with…

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Dave Price: Because that’s hard to talk about this stuff, right? I mean, their son really had a hard time. And, you know, he kind of got choked up talking about it, and he’s like, you know, hopefully people can… this brings awareness, that kind of stuff.

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Dave Price: One of the things that came up organically during this discussion was that Andrew Allen brought up Rob Sands’ position on legalizing marijuana, recreational marijuana.

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Dave Price: And his concern, and he can cite a bunch of stats, is that if kids try stuff, like, before the age of 14, they’ll… they might be…

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Dave Price: more likely to become addicts later. And so his concern is, if we legalize pot.

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Dave Price: does that sort of change the atmosphere and kids think, basically, it’s okay? Which, you know, it’s kind of one of those unscripted moments, right? And I’m… I’m wondering what the campaign thought about it, but, you know, frankly, it’s a legit question, right? We wrote about it for TV as well, and Caden did for you.

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Dave Price: And we talked about… Mobauer answered it in their roundtable discussion, and he answered it within the gaggle with reporters afterwards.

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Dave Price: And it’s saying that, you know, they want this regulated like alcohol is, they’re not talking about this for kids, they want programs out there and awareness out there, to make sure that, kids know not to try this stuff, drugs and alcohol and all that stuff. But, it really became… I mean, it was a good, rich discussion.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and you know, I think that this is an issue that needs more discussion in Iowa. I mean, it’s… it gets treated as a, you know, just sort of a black and white.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, whether you’re for it or against it, etc. And there’s so many facets to it, and, you know, there’s the argument that, you know, it’s potentially possible that marijuana is less harmful, you know, for your body over time than alcohol, but there’s really not enough study, etc. So, I mean, I do think that there’s a lot of robust discussion

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Kathie Obradovich: And so, you know, I think the campaign probably didn’t know that it was going to come up at this event. But, you know, I think that they don’t need to shy away from it. They need to embrace, you know, this discussion. But as a reporter, as a journalist, when you see something unscripted come up at one of these events.

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s like, oh, wow, there’s actual news here, you know?

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Dave Price: I thought, I thought so, for sure. Like, when they brought it up.

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Dave Price: But people have those questions.

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Dave Price: And so it… I mean, it was… it was worthwhile to talk about. Go ahead, Laura, sorry.

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Laura Belin: No, it’s a legitimate question, and I just… it made me think… I was not at this event yesterday, but it made me think about last year, late last year, when the Attorney General, Brenna Bird, signed on to a letter with a few other attorneys general around the country, expressing concern about the Trump administration’s policy to reschedule marijuana. And one of the arguments for rescheduling it is that then it would make it easier to do some of these

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Laura Belin: studies on the long-term impact, and how harmful is it, or is it less harmful than alcohol or some other drugs? So, and then I’ve also read things that the marijuana that people are smoking today is more potent than what people may have been smoking in the 70s and 80s. So, in any case.

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Laura Belin: It’s… it is a worthwhile discussion. I can… I have seen Rob San answer questions about it, and he has definitely talked about it in the context of, like, alcohol and things that adults should do. He’s never downplayed the problems of youth.

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Kathie Obradovich: news.

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Laura Belin: Use of any kind of drug.

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Dave Price: This was a good example this past week, Kathie, you talked about how nuanced and complex this all is, and I had a conversation with a TV colleague this week, and I feel like the longer I do this, the more it becomes apparent to me, but especially in television, you are so often driven by the clock.

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Dave Price: And there are some stations out there that are starting to do things a little differently as, you know, the research is showing how people… what people want, and I’m talking about just on the TV side, may be changing. For years, consultants really pushed this thing about boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like in a television newscast. You need to have, like, 10 stories in the first section. We call it the A block.

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Dave Price: of the newscast.

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Dave Price: And it’s… But, you know, if you’re, like, sitting in your cubicle selling insurance all day, or what have you, like, you have your phone, right? So you have all of these headlines already. So you’re starting to see some places put a little thought into, is that really the modern-day way to deliver news? Like, do you really need… should TV be headline news? Should it be more substantive, whatever?

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Dave Price: And it’s still primarily, you’re driven by the clock, so most of the TV stories are somewhere, like, a minute and a half long, a minute 45, something like that. But this story, to me, brought up yet another example about…

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Dave Price: how we’re trying to treat things, both… I do the same thing with my column, with my…

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Dave Price: different, journalism projects that I’m part of, like, sometimes you just can’t… like, you can’t go after everything in one chunk, right? You talked about the, you know, the story you broke on Thursday night, like, it’s a 119-page report, for crying out loud, on community colleges. I guarantee you that you could sit there and come up with about a half-dozen follow-up stories if your staff has the time to do all of this stuff, you know what I mean? Like, and I feel like with the legalized marijuana.

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Dave Price: It ended up giving us a great entry point to do yet another angle of this conversation, which I think is valuable.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, and I would also argue that the children’s behavioral health issue is also worthy of a deeper dive.

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Dave Price: Hmm.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, we’ve been talking for years in Iowa now about the lack of services that there has… there was just an effort here in the last legislative session

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Kathie Obradovich: For, you know, some of these acute, diagnoses, and, you know, building up some of those programs and changing some of the insurance barriers, et cetera.

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Kathie Obradovich: this kind of treatment. So I, you know, they’re both, you know, worthy subjects of more discussion, and if it’s happening in the context of a gubernatorial race, all the better, because

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Kathie Obradovich: It raises the, you know, the level of attention.

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Dave Price: Alright, alright, just as a note to folks as we wrap up this week, we’re gonna take one week off, so we’re gonna take a break for the coming week.

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Dave Price: as we then get ready for the final push, I don’t know how many weeks that is, but… I mean, seriously, I can’t…

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Dave Price: I’ve had so many discussions with close friends about this, like, this campaign is like something else, right? Like, there are so many competitive races, and it’s like, this is no knock on anybody we’ve had in office, so I don’t want anybody to take it that way. I’m not ripping on…

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Dave Price: any Republicans, Democrats, whatever, but, like, having these open seats, I mean, we have, like, an open Senate race, an open gubernatorial race, we have…

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Dave Price: two, no offense to anybody, but we have two competitive congressional races, maybe it’ll end up being three, like…

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Dave Price: some legislative races to watch. There are some other statewide offices we need to pay attention to, like, this is, like, this is something else, right?

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s like Christmas. Well, it sort of is.

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Dave Price: And it’s like, there’s always this, you know, the fun, like, horse race side of it, but, like, as we just had this discussion today about, okay, we have one guy who’s talking about he wants to legalize weed.

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Dave Price: And so, here’s… here’s sort of an unscripted moment that came up at a campaign event. Like, this isn’t just some random thing that came up elsewhere. Like, this was actually at their campaign event.

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Dave Price: which…

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Dave Price: Amen that it did. Like, we have covered stuff in the past that’s so overly scripted, and stuff… these remarks have to be approved ahead of time.

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Dave Price: So, unless I’m really reading the room incorrectly, I don’t think this was that way, and Andrew Allen, the head of YSS, had also talked about they’ve invited Zach Lane, too, because I don’t want to make this sound like a Democratic thing.

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Dave Price: But I think Andrew… I mean, Andrew has 30-plus years’ experience at all of this. I think he brought up, and it was a legit thing to brought up, it was a great discussion. I hope we see more of that kind of stuff, where this… these events are not so…

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Dave Price: ridiculously scripted that real stuff can’t come up during these events, you know what I mean?

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Dave Price: And also the fact that Mulbauer didn’t avail with reporters afterwards. And we have already seen some campaigns that aren’t very accessible. And I hope the closeness of some of these races in particular will

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Dave Price: Give that kind of push, and

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Dave Price: And hopefully the public will demand this as well, that these people…

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Dave Price: are answering questions, and many of these questions before November. That’s my soapbox.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’m hoping these candidates decide to show up at the State Fair, because, that… that is the most, you know, to me, an opportunity for some of these organic, moments.

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Dave Price: moments.

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Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, hopefully for the candidates, they don’t involve stepping into anything organic.

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Laura Belin: She’s.

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Dave Price: Always the headline writer. That is one in the works right there. You’ve got that in your back pocket. Yeah, but can we not… let’s not go over the top, though, with the heckling, though. Like, a little passion’s okay, but let’s not be crazy, please. Like, these made-for-viral moments that the opposing campaign does, can we not have that kind of stuff?

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s true, although the heckling did give us Mitt Romney.

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Dave Price: Man, right?

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Kathie Obradovich: generations are people, too.

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Laura Belin: Yes.

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Kathie Obradovich: Or it’s just.

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Laura Belin: Thinking about that.

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Kathie Obradovich: One of the biggest stories of that campaign.

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Dave Price: That is true, that is true. Thank you, ladies, good to talk to you. Enjoy the week to focus on your other professional duties, and we will reassemble in two weeks.

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Laura Belin: Thanks, see you then.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Dave Price: Thank you to all of you who have become new subscribers. We very much appreciate you watching, listening, reading, however you consume this podcast week after week. Thanks to those of you who’ve become new paid subscribers to help us pay the bills. I know we talk about this week after week, but that’s really… we don’t have advertisers on this sucker, so it, we are really dependent on those of you who appreciate our conversation here week after week.

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Dave Price: We very much appreciate whatever you can do to help us defray the production costs so we can keep doing this week after week. So those of you who’ve been doing this, we very much appreciate you, and I hope you’ll think about this as we take a week off.

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Dave Price: next week to think about if you have a way to try to help us continue this in the future. Have a good week ahead, and we will talk to you in two weeks.

Firstly, Kathie is on the road and fighting off some wildfire smoke in Chicago, which set the tone for a conversation about just how bad conditions got in the Midwest last week.

Then it was on to the big events: Democrats’ Liberty and Justice dinner drew Pete Buttigieg and, by Laura’s read, a noticeably more energized crowd than in 2025. Rita Hart’s talk of two dozen-plus field offices and 65 hired field organizers (many former Rob Sand campaign staffers) suggests Democrats are finally taking a real statewide ground game seriously, something we debated the roots of going all the way back to Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.

On the other side, the Family Leadership Summit brought Kim Reynolds, Zach Lahn, Ashley Hinson, and Speaker Mike Johnson to Des Moines. Johnson’s speech leaned hard into warnings about socialism and communism taking over Washington, a rhetorical strategy Laura, who’s actually lived in post-communist Czech Republic and studied in the Soviet Union, called out as more base-rallying than accurate.

We also got into Attorney General Brenna Bird’s new Medicaid Fraud Elimination Task Force, with Kathie raising concerns that “fraud prevention” efforts often turn into red tape that hurts people who legitimately qualify for services, and Laura noting the task force isn’t looking at the flip side: people being wrongly denied home-based care.

We closed with a fun bit of trivia from Laura on Steve King’s surprising 2010 role, plus one of Dave’s stranger childhood stories (you’ll have to listen for that one).

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

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Dave Price: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich.

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Dave Price: on a Saturday, back-to-back weeks, we are testing the flexibility of these to find journalists, because we’re trying to… we’ve had too much stuff happening on Friday, so…

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Dave Price: So we’ll be dropping this on Sunday, and for those of you who consume at different times, you’re like, what the heck are you talking about, dude? But, we really wanted to work some stuff in for Friday. So, let me start as we begin on this Saturday morning with, good morning, how are you both?

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Kathie Obradovich: Good. I’m going to apologize in advance. I’m a little froggy this morning, so I’m going to try not to cough in your ears, but a little bit, a little. I had a cold and then went and spent a couple days in the Chicago smoke or Canada smoke in Chicago, maybe so.

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Dave Price: Yeah, how bad, I mean, clearly we’ve seen national stories on that. How bad is that?

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s bad. It’s really bad. I mean, so we were in the Chicago suburbs, southwest suburbs and you know, clearly, literally a haze just over everything. And you know, it’s not too bad going in from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building, et cetera. But, and I do too much of that and my eyes were starting to burn and yeah, it’s, it is not good. Some other

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Kathie Obradovich: friends of ours were going to go up to northern Minnesota and came back a day early, because it’s just, you know, literally in the red zone. One day that we were there, both Chicago and Detroit were claiming to have the worst air quality in the entire world.

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Dave Price: I heard a story on the radio.

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Dave Price: Yeah, Friday morning, I think it was. And, the report was that it’s so thick and bad that even if you don’t generally have any kind of respiratory issues, it’s still not a good idea to be outside.

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Dave Price: Yeah. Like, it’s seriously at that level.

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Kathie Obradovich: I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time outside. My nephew was supposed to play a softball game on Thursday night, that got canceled, so there was a lot of outdoor activities being canceled, all around the Chicago metro, so…

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Dave Price: Speaking of activities, we’ve had a bunch of kind of high profile ones. The Democrats on Sunday had their Liberty and Justice dinner. The Republicans the Friday before, so a little bit more than a week ago, had the annual Lincoln dinner, and then the family leader had the annual Family Leadership Summit. We had all of those kind of jammed one after another, but we had a couple of

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Dave Price: IPs, Headlining it for the Democrats, you had Pete Buttigieg

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Dave Price: which his thing was Sunday, so we didn’t really get to talk about this, but

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Dave Price: I thought it was interesting that early on in his remarks before the group he made a little comment about the 2020 Democratic caucuses, and how they’re still waiting on some of the results from a few of the precincts, you know, and I think for the most part, I think people laughed. If Troy Price, the former chair of the party, was watching online, he’s probably like

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Dave Price: But, and then Buttigieg was asked about it in the gaggle afterwards with reporters and, you know, has he let bygones be bygones or whatever? And I forget, he kind of playfully handled the question. But Laura, I saw you in the, obviously we were both there at Prairie Meadows when they had this thing.

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Dave Price: what’d you think about…

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Dave Price: I’m always curious about, like, who’s in the audience, you know what I mean? So this is, like, a late afternoon event on a Sunday. It was an older crowd, I felt like. A decent amount of empty seats, and I don’t know if that matters or not matters. People probably bought tickets and then didn’t show.

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Laura Belin: They set it up for more people.

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Laura Belin: There were definitely more people attending than the last few years, but because they’d set up the room in rows instead of having tables with chairs around it.

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Dave Price: Mhmm.

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Laura Belin: It ended up looking like there were some empty seats, but…

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Laura Belin: I would describe the crowd as kind of the usual suspects. I mean, I saw a lot of people who are activists in certain counties, and they’ve been involved for a long time, or they’re involved in county Democratic leadership. But I was really struck by the upbeat mood in the crowd. I mean, in twenty twenty five, when I was around at Democratic events, I mean, Democrats were just struggling to pick themselves up off the floor, basically.

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Laura Belin: And I think that people feel very…

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Laura Belin: They feel like they have a strong chance to win some of these races. Rita Hart talked about the ground game that the party is building, that they already have more than two dozen field offices open. And I talked to some people from different counties who said, oh, yeah, they have there’s an office and people are out every weekend. They have volunteers out knocking on doors. I mean, we haven’t seen anything like that level of ground game since Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in twenty twelve.

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Laura Belin: On the Democratic side.

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Dave Price: And I think, are you the one who asked Rita about that in the gaggle?

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Laura Belin: after the.

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Dave Price: Yes. About the organizational side, and you know, you’re the, you’re one of the few nerdy types that really looks into that kind of deep level stuff, but it, and that doesn’t get a lot of reportage statewide, I don’t think, because it’s sort of inside baseball so much, but as you know.

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Dave Price: That could reflect a number of things, right? Enthusiasm.

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Dave Price: greater fundraising, and then maybe even just a broader view of instead of isolating to a couple of pockets that some Democrats have believed they should go to kind of maximize turnout where they know they have a bunch of people. This might reflect a little more emphasis to do, maybe not truly statewide, but more of a statewide focus than they’ve done recently. Is that fair?

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Laura Belin: Definitely, and the fundraising is crucial, and I think that the largest chunk of it is coming from Rob Sand’s campaign to support this field effort, because a number of the field organizers, Rita Hart said there are about 65 field organizers who have already been hired, and a number of them were working on Rob Sand’s campaign initially, and now they’re technically working for, I guess they call it Iowa Forward, so they’re employees of the Iowa Democratic Party right now, but

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Laura Belin: They have people out everywhere. I talked with Caitlin Dre, the Democratic state senator from Sioux City, and asked her about the field office that’s open there. And she’s focused on her own race and knocking her own doors. But it’s gotta be helpful for candidates in all of these down ballot races all over the state to have volunteers out there. They’re targeting, they’re IDing supporters. And at this point, they’re also doing a lot of volunteering.

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Laura Belin: recruitment for the people who can help later in September and October, when the broader public is tuning in.

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Dave Price: I talked to a Republican activist who heard that figure of 65 and was part of a meeting.

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Dave Price: and said they addressed that, and were concerned about the resources that SAND is bringing to the party, and this is only by one person’s account of this, so take that for what it is. It’s more, maybe, anecdotal than empirical, but…

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Dave Price: that he said it became part of the conversation about, hey, we may not be able to play dollar for dollar with what they’re putting together here, so we’re gonna have to get our people fired up and do the work. And Kathie, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

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Kathie Obradovich: Oh, no, that’s okay. I was just going to say, you know, candidates sometimes complain about coordinated campaigns because there’s some control issues and, you know, there can be, you know, struggles about that. But there’s no arguing about the resources that Rob Sand is bringing in and how that really extends what individual campaigns are able to do. And the Democrats have not had those resources over the past

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Kathie Obradovich: cycles. And, you know, I think that we’ll see, especially in terms of

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, getting volunteers out, doing those, knocking those doors, which is so crucial, for Democrats, that all of those things are probably, you know, if they can maintain that, without having big blowouts over egos, that that’s gonna make a big difference.

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Laura Belin: Well, and you know, I’m always, I have my low-key obsession with what I call the mid-sized cities, those micropolitan areas. And like, let’s take the first congressional district, which has the largest number of those cities between 10,000 and 30,000 people. There’s going to be, if they’re actually in most of these towns, I think there already is a coordinated campaign office. If Christina Bohannon had had

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Laura Belin: field offices in Indianola and Clinton and Burlington and Newton. I mean, you gotta believe that they would have found her an extra 800 votes that she needed in 2024. They just didn’t have anything, any organization to speak of.

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Dave Price: This, maybe this is for a deeper conversation for another show, but what.

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Dave Price: I guess I’ve been confused with the differing philosophies on this, and maybe this and I don’t. I don’t know the inner working. So maybe this just comes down to a thing about resources. But going like way way back to Howard Dean, when he was

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Dave Price: chair for Democrats, you know, he wanted this 50-state approach, and some people sort of mocked him from that, for that, you know, why waste resources in Republican red states, blah, blah, blah. And we still had that…

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Dave Price: there was that philosophy in this state as well, which I never quite understood.

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Dave Price: why you would concede so much of the state as you just keep seeing your numbers go down. And Sand, who… and I realize Republicans make fun of him for saying that he’s been campaigning for governor ever since he’d be… you know, he got elected, but…

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Dave Price: he has been all over the place, so he does the 99 county tour, I mean, he does the 100 tour, but, I mean, he’s in all these counties, he goes there, I think, every year, so he’s the Democrat going everywhere, and some of the Democrats just didn’t seem to fundamentally believe in that, so maybe he is… is it really…

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Dave Price: Is it too much to say that he gets the credit for really.

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Dave Price: kind of making this party more statewide than it was because of his both efforts and resources? Is that too simplified?

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Laura Belin: I think there were always Democrats in Iowa who wanted the party to be doing more in some of these smaller cities and rural areas, but they just didn’t have the resources. The party had few staff, and so they didn’t… in 2022,

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Laura Belin: I mean, there was barely… I don’t even know what they did. They maybe did one absentee ballot mailing. I mean, there was hardly anything of a turnout effort for Democrats in 2022, and it really made a difference in some races. This is something I like to

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Laura Belin: tell audiences. So, of course, the governor’s race was a blowout. But the attorney general, the Democratic turnout statewide, the level was at about 60% in 2022. And if you just had 63% Democratic turnout with no persuasion at all, just, you know, just more Democrats voting, Tom Miller gets reelected. And if you have 65% Democratic turnout.

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Laura Belin: Miller and Mike Fitzgerald both get reelected. Again, with no persuasion of any swing voters at all. And those are achievable levels. In 2018, the Democratic turnout was

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Laura Belin: just under sixty eight percent. So it’s not like that’s impossible to get for a midterm, but the party just wasn’t doing anything. And I think that Rob Sand’s campaign having the resources means that that people get what they want. Now I don’t know as to Kathie’s point, it could be that we see in September and October some differences in opinion of how much is the party doing the right thing. Mhmm. Are they focusing too much on mailed ballots versus

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Laura Belin: canvassing. I mean, both Rita Hart and Rob Sand made a big deal at that event about getting out there and having face-to-face conversations with voters and listening to what their concerns are, rather than just showing up at their door with a prepared script that you’re going to read to them.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’ll just jump in and say, you know.

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s really simplistic. But, you know, we know that, you know, Democrats are not likely to win the fourth district, but to win statewide. And Rob Sand being the only Democrat who is currently elected statewide, I think he understands this. You’ve got to you’ve got to have some Democratic votes in the fourth district in order to win statewide. And the more that you have.

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Kathie Obradovich: there, you know, and ultimately, you’re not necessarily persuading a lot of Republicans to vote for you, maybe a few, but, you know, getting the people who are likely to vote for you out of their houses and actually casting those ballots is critical.

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Kathie Obradovich: And I think, you know, when it, when it comes down to priorities that those, you know, bright red counties become, you know, the lower priorities and you’re focusing on getting people turned out in the cities and there’s just not enough to win statewide if that’s all you’re doing.

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Laura Belin: Mmh.

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Dave Price: If I may selfishly make a plug, I have, for my, TV role, I have a longer form piece with some of what Pete Buttigieg said at Liberty and Justice. We also talked to him in the…

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Dave Price: in the gaggle. So he did a couple of different events, and then there was also a he did a campaign event with Sarah Trone Garriott, the 3rd District Democratic candidate. I will link to all of that on my column this weekend, and I’m doing what Laura does sometimes. If you say it out loud, that assures that you must

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Dave Price: be complete with your work by your self-imposed deadline. So just saying it out publicly will force me to

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Dave Price: to get on it and make sure I have this done this weekend. To Kathie’s point about enthusiasm and all of that, I went Friday to the Family Leaders Family Leadership Summit. I wish I were better at estimating crowds, because I’d love to know how many showed up at Liberty and Justice, and I’d love to know how many Family Leader had in there. Sometimes it’s like hard.

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Dave Price: To tell, because of the way people are spaced out, and to your point, you know, Liberty and Justice wasn’t really, like, a meal, so you’re not sitting around tables, so you can jam a lot more people in there on a folding chair, whatever kind of chairs those were. So Family Leader had a bunch of people there.

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Dave Price: I know the ballroom very well, because my wife’s nonprofit organization has their big spring luncheon there, like, year after year after year, so I know ballroom A, or whatever the heck that is at the…

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Dave Price: Yeah.

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Dave Price: at what used to be called Betts Auditorium, whatever it is now, community choice.

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Dave Price: Anyway, so, I mean, a lot of people. They, for sure, had a lot of people, and most of… Chuck Grassley wasn’t there. Joni Ernst was on the schedule, but wasn’t there. I don’t know if she ended up having a scheduling conflict, or what happened there. Kim Reynolds had kind of an emotional moment.

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Dave Price: They… there was a moment where I just sort of, like, had a flashback when they were sort of talking about what Kim Reynolds has done in office, because Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the family leader, is the one saying it, and as we know, Bob Vander Plaats wanted to be Terry Branstad’s running mate back in the day, whatever the heck year that was, 10?

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Laura Belin: 2010.

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Dave Price: And I was saying, well, boy, that’s… that’s kind of interesting now. I wonder… I doubt she… that went through her mind, but I was thinking, boy, how times change. He wanted the job, and now he’s praising…

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Dave Price: after she ascended to be Governor all these years. But and there was so there was. She got a little emotional talking about stuff, and she’s interweaving faith with her time in office, and what she tried to do, and Vander Plaats was very complimentary of things she accomplished, and afterwards they did sort of a group prayer kind of blessing her for

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Dave Price: What’s ahead in that? Zach Lahn also gave…

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Dave Price: also spoke up there and kind of wove in Christianity and the importance in his life. And, you know, he’s very much… he does a lot of historical anecdotes. He did that when we saw him at the Lincoln dinner.

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Dave Price: I’m always curious when he… when he goes deep into that stuff, if it works in that kind of setting.

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Dave Price: You know, if that’s, like, connecting with people, or if I’m overthinking this, because it’s like, you know, you can get out there

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Dave Price: Or, I mean, he goes sort of deep and philosophical. In this case, he’s.

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Dave Price: weaving in both history and, the spiritual importance to him and mistakes he’s made and, you know, kind of growing and all kinds of stuff. But, I mean, it seemed… it seemed well received. But my…

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Kathie Obradovich: It helps. I think it helps audiences. You know, that kind of helps audiences to get to know him as a candidate. But I don’t have to tell you guys. Reporters hate that.

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Dave Price: I know.

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Kathie Obradovich: Why? Because a long story with, you know, weaving in a variety of themes do not translate into news stories. I’m sorry, but you know, and, and even to do a video clip of something like that, you know, you start telling a story about in the case of the the, the Lincoln dinner about James Garfield.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, the the accidental candidate for president, you know, etc. And and to explain an anecdote like that in, you know, even in 30 seconds is impossible. So, you know, as reporter, you know, the audience may be getting into all of this and the reporters are going, geez, how much time are you going to spend on this story?

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Dave Price: Oh my gosh, I am so glad you brought this up because at Lincoln Dinner in particular, I had to flip around the story that night for our 10 o’clock news for our gray media station group across the state.

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Dave Price: And, you know, you go through a meandering story like that and just, I mean, it’s just a long event, right? Like you have a lot of speakers. And the Kim Reynolds thing, she was up there with her two of her daughters, then she was up there with her granddaughter. And like, if you’re in the audience, you know, it’s an evening of entertainment, of course, but when you’re on a tight deadline, selfishly as a reporter, you’re like, gosh, dang.

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Dave Price: there’s so much stuff, and you’re already struggling with, like, what’s the story, right? Like, what should I focus on here? Because there are so many ways to take this. Jeff Kaufman, the party chair, he both spoke to the group at that event, he did a gaggle with us.

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Dave Price: and Zach Lahn, same, speech, and did a gaggle with us. Like, you could go a hundred different ways.

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Dave Price: But like in the back of your mind, you’re like, “Okay, what can I do that’s a good story that I can crank out quickly enough that is a fair assessment, a fair report about what just happened?” And it was sort of the same way, family leaders event was the same way.

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Dave Price: You’re standing there and this thing goes all day. So do you focus on some of the outside, the national folks who came in and they primarily spoke at the family leader thing primarily in the morning.

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Dave Price: You had Governor Reynolds there. You know, this is like the last time she will address this group like this. As governor, you have Zach Lahn, to your point, trying to introduce himself.

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Dave Price: Ashley Hinson was there, talking about how she keeps a Bible in her office in Congress as, like, her guide, to remind her about, service and sacrifice and all of that.

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Dave Price: Then the United States Speaker of the House is there. So it’s like, how do you not cover him? So you’re. And then you’re like, oh, but we got a deadline here. We got to have a story on television at five o’clock. So what can we do that’s going to be, like, super fast? So you have, like, this internal fight about. So the only way I found to do this lately is we just do multiple bites of the apple here. We did some quick turn stuff for TV, and then the

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Dave Price: longer piece that I’m putting together. I already put it together with Buttigieg.

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Dave Price: And as we record this, I’m finishing up a longer piece with Johnson. Johnson’s speech reminded me…

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Dave Price: of some of what Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024, where it’s very…

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Dave Price: It’s like this foreboding warning about what would happen.

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Dave Price: to the future of the country, and this is about saving the country, and making sure the country survives, and you gotta keep Republicans in power. He was really leaning into communism, Marxism, democratic socialism… I mean, those are 3 far different things.

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Dave Price: but saying that this is what’s happening. He counted 20-something Democratic Socialist congressional candidates across the country. I don’t really know how to fact-check that.

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Dave Price: And saying that they’re essentially gonna take over DC, and they’re gonna destroy a commitment to faith, like, it was very… I mean, it was heavy. It was heavy, but it reminded me of some of Trump’s warnings in 2024.

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s a different boogeyman, but the same strategy, right? So, you know, the last couple of cycles have been all about the enemy without the, you know, immigrants and that we have to be, you know, scared out of our boots by these, you know, criminals, alleged criminals who are coming across the border and being terribly afraid of all the crime, etc.

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Kathie Obradovich: And now it’s, you know, the enemy within that we have to be scared of.

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Kathie Obradovich: of democratic socialism, and, you know, somehow that this is going to be going off the rails. And it’s not a new tactic.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, we’ve got, both parties, like to conflate the fringes of either party, you know, with the mainstream. So we hear, you know, you know, somehow that democratic socialists are, that a mainstream Democrat is exactly the same and has all the same goals.

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Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, the, Democrats do this with the fringes of the Republican Party, and how, you know, extreme they are, and they want to take away the votes from women, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So…

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Kathie Obradovich: So it’s not a new tactic. It is really interesting to me, though, that we’re now focused on communism as opposed to immigration in this cycle. We have to have a new enemy here to worry about.

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Dave Price: Laura, one of the three of us in this podcast has lived in a communist country. It would not be Kathie, as far as I know. I think I know Kathie.

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Kathie Obradovich: I have not.

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Dave Price: I don’t believe she’s had any secret former life, and I know I have not as well. So that would leave you. You have lived in a communist country. What do you think about when they start, when you start hearing the communist label?

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Laura Belin: Yeah. It and I was not at the event. I didn’t watch the speech. I did see the media coverage of the speech. I just it’s it’s a big eye roll for me. I studied Russian and Soviet history, and I visited the Soviet Union. I spent a summer in the Soviet Union doing a Russian language study program. And then I lived in the Czech Republic. That was in the post communist period, but I lived in the Czech Republic for several years and visited Russia several times.

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Laura Belin: while working there. So I feel like, not to pull rank on Mike Johnson, but I feel like I have a somewhat better understanding of what communism is and socialism is, and

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Laura Belin: You know, I don’t know why the democratic socialists call themselves that they’re not really.

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Laura Belin: Socialists in the sense of the government seizing the means of production, right, the government owning the means of production. In a communist country, there’s no private property, right? You don’t own your home, you don’t own much property. The agriculture is fully collectivized and so on, so nothing that anybody is talking about.

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Laura Belin: in any of these campaigns is really communism and socialism. Really, what the democratic socialists are mainly talking about is having a stronger social safety net. So if I were a communications consultant for them, I guess I would probably not recommend that they call themselves socialists, but it might be fair that there might be 20 democratic socialist candidates for Congress, but they’re not in a position to take over

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Laura Belin: The Congress and even if they did, I mean, they’d be talking about more support for caregivers, more child care, you know, the health care, well, I guess some of them may be talking about Medicare for all, depending on who’s

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Laura Belin: plan it is. That could mean, for some people, no private health insurance. But nobody’s talking about expropriating private property, okay? Nobody’s talking about banning religion like the way religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union. And even there, they didn’t completely ban religion. But nobody’s talking about suppressing Christianity the way it was suppressed in the communist world. So I think it’s just not realistic. I don’t know how much it will

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Laura Belin: work. To me, it sounds like a message very much aimed at getting the base Republican vote out. Okay, this is not a message targeted at swing voters.

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Dave Price: The boogeyman story, just to put a final point on this, Kathie, reminds me of a conversation I had at the Iowa State Fair I do not know how many years ago.

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Dave Price: but it was with David Young, and I feel like he was still in Congress at the time, and he told a fascinating story about the boogeyman mentality and how that works in politics, and I could be conflating a few things.

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Dave Price: I feel like whoever the house speaker was at that time had come to the fair. I could be old and confused right now.

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Dave Price: mixing up a bunch of stuff together, so I’d really have to sit down hard and remember, what the heck year was this? But I’m pretty sure he was in Congress, and I feel like there was a VIP who had come to the fair as well.

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Dave Price: forgive me if I’m mixing up a bunch of stuff. I know the boogeyman conversation happened, though, and it was fascinating the way Young had laid it out, and it’s… it, like, when you listen to it, while…

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Dave Price: Yes, it’s an exaggeration of all kinds of stuff, and…

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Dave Price: numerous politicians do this, and their strategists encourage them to do it. But it kind of makes sense, right? Like, rather than have all kinds of different nuances on party, on policy and everything. And even Speaker Johnson said something at the family leader thing Friday about. We’re not talking about marginal tax rates and arguing about that, you know. Now he’s

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Dave Price: taking it to the next level about, you know, this is the future of the country and stuff.

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Dave Price: But when you have that bad person, the boogeyman, it makes it so much more simplistic, and it pisses you off, and you’re all fired up, and it is this us versus them kind of thing, good versus evil, love versus hate. I mean, it plays on that emotions, and you’re not thinking.

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Dave Price: You know, in a cerebral way about, you know.

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Dave Price: policy and issues and all of that. You’re you’re ready to go. You’re you have your pitchfork, and you’re ready to burn the place down to protect your family and your country like you can see why it works.

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Kathie Obradovich: I mean, when you think about, you know.

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Kathie Obradovich: If these campaign, you know, rhetoric.

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Kathie Obradovich: actually translated into policy, okay? Because, I mean, you know, people sort of discounted Donald Trump when he was talking about, you know, well, we’re gonna, you know, get all the illegal immigrants out of this country. Nobody really believed that he was gonna actually try to get, you know.

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Kathie Obradovich: 5 or 6 million people who are undocumented out of the country. It looks like he’s trying pretty hard, actually, to do that now. I mean, so, you know, you look at, you know, the 19, you know, the Red Scare of the past and, you know, blackballing people in society and, you know, how do we root out communists among us in a society? And, you know, all you have to do is look

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Kathie Obradovich: at history and how that was done. And a lot of people’s lives were ruined, you know, because people would, you know, claim that they’re communists and whether they were or not. So it is a it is interesting to think about, you know, how you take this campaign rhetoric and actually how do you actually translate that into policy?

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Dave Price: Speaking of rooting out, I wonder if we can take our last few minutes here and talk about Attorney General Brenna Byrd kicked off the inaugural meeting of this Medicaid Fraud Elimination Task Force. Governor appointed her as the chair of this task force, and this has been a Republican.

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Dave Price: priority on the federal level under the Trump administration, for sure, about rooting out alleged fraud. Some have said this is rampant all over the place. We’ve not seen, as the case with a lot of this stuff, it’s sort of like migrant crime as well. You know, you find some

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Dave Price: incidents of it somewhere, and then blow it up and say that it’s everywhere. Our state has a low

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Dave Price: fraud rate, according to what was reported on the Federal level. As Attorney General Byrd said, though, that any fraud is too much fraud. So where is this going to go, do you think?

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Kathie Obradovich: The way I, where it usually goes, is instead of,

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Kathie Obradovich: finding and rooting out fraud that’s actually happening, the conversation turns to preventing fraud. And that then turns into a lot more stringent application requirements and paperwork and red tape for people who might qualify for these services and for providers.

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Kathie Obradovich: And so, yeah.

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Kathie Obradovich: that actually, ends up cutting down access to healthcare, because you have people who, you know, might qualify but can’t keep up with the paperwork, and you’ve got providers who, you know, the paperwork becomes so onerous that they just stop seeing Medicaid patients.

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Kathie Obradovich: So I hope that the focus really does stay on enforcement. And, you know, I would just throw out one suggestion for this group. Look at the Board of Medicine. We write stories all the time. And, you know, there are there are incidents of Medicaid and Medicare fraud that happen. And, you know, a lot of times it’s.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, people who are

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Kathie Obradovich: Selling assistive devices that aren’t needed or all those kinds of things, and the Board of Medicine works so slowly, it takes months and months and months to investigate and eventually take licensure board action against some of these providers who, you know, are actually, you know, they might even have been criminally charged with fraud, and it takes a long time.

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Kathie Obradovich: to, impose any sort of discipline on them. So, you know, I hope they do take a look at

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Kathie Obradovich: Things that will actually make a difference with bad actors, as opposed to saying, okay, everybody, you know, to prevent fraud, we’re gonna have to impose a lot more paperwork and red tape on you.

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Laura Belin: I did not attend the first meeting of the task force, but I find it interesting that the whole orientation of the task force is

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Laura Belin: Let’s make sure that no one’s getting any money or services that they aren’t entitled to. Whereas there’s a huge issue, and there was a lot of good reporting on this earlier in the year. Tony Lays, who now reports for KFF, had a feature on this, and I I think the the Des Moines Register may have as well of these Medicaid, the managed care organizations, the insurance companies that are managing Medicaid, they’re massively cutting back on

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Laura Belin: the home-based services.

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Laura Belin: that people are entitled to. And that’s causing issues with some families feeling like they may need to institutionalize people who would rather be living at home. But that is not the focus of this task force at all, right? People not getting the services that they are entitled to is not something that they seem to be looking at at all. They’re only looking at are there any people who are improperly

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Laura Belin: getting paid. So, I mean, that’s a choice, that’s a policy choice that they made not to look at the other side of the equation.

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Dave Price: Let’s wrap it up there for the week.

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Laura Belin: Can I give one bit of trivia, Dave? I you you walked down memory Lahn, and it reminded me. This is one of my favorite bits of trivia that I have a feeling our listeners would enjoy. You mentioned that in twenty ten, Terry Branstad won the primary. Bob Vander Plaats was a, you know, close second in the primary. And there was a real.

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Dave Price: None.

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Laura Belin: there was a real effort at the Republican State Convention to nominate Vanderpod’s

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Laura Belin: as Lieutenant Governor. He got more than 500 delegate votes, if I recall, and instead of just having it be a rubber stamp for Kim Reynolds. Do you happen to know who gave the nominating speech for Kim Reynolds to be Terry Branstad’s running mate at the GOP state convention in 2010?

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Dave Price: I don’t remember that.

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Laura Belin: Kathie?

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Kathie Obradovich: I don’t remember either.

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Laura Belin: Congressman Steve King.

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Kathie Obradovich: Oh, interesting.

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Dave Price: Oh, yeah.

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Laura Belin: Yeah. So he he was out there vouching for Kim Reynolds to be the running mate anyway.

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Kathie Obradovich: Hmm, okay.

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Laura Belin: They had a falling out much later.

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Dave Price: Fascinating, I did not.

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Kathie Obradovich: That is interesting.

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Dave Price: No.

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Laura Belin: Yep. I thought our listeners would enjoy.

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Dave Price: I don’t have as good a one for that, but just a random fact. When I’m hearing Kathie talk about fraud, a kid I grew up with who was a twin, and his mom was our 4H local leader. We used to go to the house for

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Dave Price: for meetings. Now, also a fun fact with that family, they were busted, showing produce at our county fair.

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Dave Price: and clearly bought the produce at the store. How were they busted? They literally left the price tags

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Dave Price: on the produce that they submitted, which is almost impossible to believe that it happened. Clearly, she ended up no longer being our 4-H later, but one of her boys, who later became a doctor.

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Dave Price: was busted for insurance fraud and went to prison. I followed a little bit of that on… I saw some nugget on Facebook, and I deep… kind of did a deep dive into that one day, and I thought.

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Dave Price: all right, I guess the old apple did not fall far from the tree on this one. And it’s, like, so weird. I went… I went… grew up with these kids. Like, I didn’t play with them a ton, because we didn’t live near each other. They lived near our elementary school, but… you know, like…

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Laura Belin: Wow. It’s still hard to process that. Like on your county fair entry though.

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Dave Price: Like who does that? Like you bought it at the store? Like who seriously does that?

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Dave Price: And it’s not like the prizes we got were so crazy, and they weren’t like a destitute family trying to… I mean, they weren’t rich by any means, but the whole… I never could process… I remember when we found out, and I was a little kid, and you’re like, what the heck? But I remember that it had the…

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Dave Price: They forgot to take the little price sticker off there, so…

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Kathie Obradovich: Hilarious. I love it.

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Laura Belin: Try it out.

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Dave Price: Who knows?

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Laura Belin: I don’.

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Dave Price: what to make of that. That should be a Netflix documentary one time.

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Dave Price: Anyway, okay, hey, thanks for… thanks for adjusting on, the recording schedule. Kathie, I hope you feel better. Tell your husband to quit spreading his germs. What the heck? That’s not a way to show love.

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Dave Price: And I hope you both have a good weekend and a great week, and we will talk to you next week. Thank you to all of you for your support here of the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I won’t get into these details, but I really appreciate the private conversations at the Family Leader, from a couple folks in the crowd there who are regulars of the podcast.

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Dave Price: And we very much appreciate your support. Thanks to those of you who have helped support this financially. We very much appreciate you helping to defray some of the production costs to produce this week after week. Those who have been with us from the beginning, those who have come on as new paid subscribers recently, if you’re thinking about doing that, we hope that you will consider joining them as well to keep us going week after week.

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Dave Price: week. Thanks for being with us this week. Have a great week ahead. We’ll talk to you next week.