🔴Republicans keep Miller-Meeks' Iowa Senate seat

What can we learn from last night's election? What does an obscure race from the 1990s tells us about IA-02? Are you funding local writing?

January 27, 2021 | Letter No. 28

Last night, Republican Adrian Dickey fended off Democrat Mary Stewart handily keeping Iowa Senate District in the red as it was in 2018 when Mariannette Miller-Meeks took it; as it was in 2014 when Mark Chelgren took it.

Tuesday’s was a special election, meaning it’s kind of hard to draw big conclusions based on the numbers available. In 2018, 22,577 people voted in District 41. Last night’s unofficial totals number under 10,000.

As Dickey said on the phone Tuesday night, “I had just 18 days to get my name out there.”

As I touched on in Sunday’s letter, there was $124,000 in checks from the Republican Party of Iowa that helped get out the vote. But that again makes this special election out of the ordinary.

Zachary Oren Smith @ZacharyOS

Based on the results on Davis' website and emails sent from the Jefferson, Van Buren and Wapello auditors, we have a winner: Republican Adrian Dickey won the special election in District 41 with 5,040 votes. Democrat Mary Stewart had 4,074 votes.

Zachary Oren Smith @ZacharyOS

Sp. Election District 41: The unofficial results from Jefferson Co. are in. While Dickey carried his hometown of Packwood, Iowa, he lost Jefferson. 🔵Democrat Mary Stewart had 1,779 votes. 🔴Republican Adrian Dickey had 1,370. votes 3 counties remain. https://t.co/KZxNhYo6ch

January 27th 2021

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Comparing the percentage each party got in the 2021 special to those in of 2018 and 2014 (the only other elections with the same district lines), you see the same trend across the counties: Republican candidates steady increase the percentages of the vote:

Davis County (% of total won by Republican candidate)

• 2021 - 73%

• 2018 - 62%

• 2016 - 59%

Jefferson County

• 2021 - 44%

• 2018 - 42%

• 2016 - 41%

Van Buren County

• 2021 - 79%

• 2018 - 68%

• 2016 - 60%

Wapello County

• 2021 - 51%

• 2018 - 48%

• 2016 - 48%

District 41-wide

• 2021 - 55%

• 2018 - 51%

• 2016 - 49%

You saw that. Even in Jefferson County — the one county Democrat Mary Stewart won last night — Republicans are steady building their numbers year-over-year.

[Above: This map of Iowa Senate District was prepared by the Legislative Services Agency using U.S. Census Bureau geographic information.]

Now, Dear Reader, what does this have to do with Johnson County politics and this newsletter? I saw many from this area who donated money (including the Johnson County Democratic Party Central Committee). I saw many a Johnson County Democrat knocking doors in this district, posting about this race. Clearly, there’s some part of y’all that dont want to be the bicameral minority forever. And if that’s you, this is what I’d pay attention to.

Stewart and Democrats before her failed miserably Davis (Stewart got 27%) and Van Buren counties (just 21%). But these are the less populated parts of the district. Where they did better was in Jefferson (56%) and Wapello counties (49%). Jefferson has Fairfield in it. Wapello has Ottumwa.

Stewart told me Tuesday night that when campaign funds are limited, so are options. And if Democrats hope to gain power in a state that has only become redder, it's going to need to focus on mobilizing in areas like Jefferson and Wapello counties.

Having listed all the reasons why it’s difficult to draw conclusions from this race, it still seems to fit a narrative we’ve seen for Democrats inthe past.

If they want to compete with a well-funded, high-performing Republican Party (a party that, frankly, has their message together in a way Democrats just don’t), they’re going to have to get real about funding outreach and infrastructure. The only move left on the board seems to rest with turnout in small towns like Ottumwa and Fairfield.

IA-02 makes the 90s relevant again

We are waiting to see whether Congress will investigate the historically close race that seated Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 2nd. On Monday, Democrat Rita Hart's lawyer gave reporters a precedent to think on.

In 1996, a Democrat beat out a Republican incumbent in California. Following a recount that brought margin closer, the R. promptly appealed to Congress to the dismay of the D. who said the R. had not exhausted his state’s election contest infrastructure. This fact was ignored by the Republican-controlled Congress who took up the investigation.

Sound familiar? Read the full story here.

A Little Village if you can keep it

Johnson County, how many times are you tired of people tell you, ‘We’re a big tent.’ But when it comes to are terrible existing media institutions, the necessary work they do and the future of that work, we’ve gotta be a big tent.

So if you support what I’m doing for the Press-Citizen/Register or the People’s Bureau; if you support the propagation of more writing and thinking about this place, you have to support your local alt-weekly.

Is the work of Paul Brennan a glowing gem in my media diet? Yes. Is Izabela Zaluska one of the hardest-working reporters in the market? Absolutely. Was the infamous Grassley cover over-the-top (and hilarious)? Well, you get the point.

They’re having a membership drive. And you should support their work.

If we want to grow a media market producing the best work anywhere, we need to support outlets doing that work everywhere.

Zachary Oren Smith @ZacharyOS

Little Village, Iowa City’s bi-weekly, celebrates 20 years in print. I donate $10 a month, a bargain. If you have the cash you should become a member too. Not to sour the deal, but they also made this cut anthropomorphic gherkin. So. There’s that? littlevillagemag.com/subscribe/?mc_…

January 26th 2021

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Take Five (<—this time with a beat machine.)

🔖 You’ve walked in Marvin Bell’s poetry. You’ve probably seen it literally carved into the pavement. One poem, Etched on a wall in the ped mall, is signed by the late Iowa Citian, Iowa’s poet laureate:

“Writers in a Cafe” by Marvin Bell (2008) as inscribed in downtown Iowa City

Amid semi-tralers hauling produce

grown in the deep blue-black topsoil

left mid-country by an inexpressible Ice Age,

there is known to be a place where words

have dirt on their shotes. Where sky reaches

to girdle the globe, the earth is etched

by signs and portents. Many have bowed

to their writing in attics and basements,

at rest by the river or paused on a bridge,

in the shadow of winter or eclipse, voicing

local lives and affairs of state - as much by

the reflections of leaves and the glow

of prairie grasses left to live in the mind

as by shapes in clouds or the dark news.

They were here who made the sentence

behave and misbehave, who added

chapter and verse, and recast the myths.

The cafe grows quiet as they write.

The espresso machine lets go the steam

someone may write in on the mirror.

It is an impulse that survives disaster.

The guns fail when surrounded by writing.

He died in December after a heart attack. Here Isaac Hamlet does a marvelous job writing about his life.

🎒 Pandemic era Hybrid model could be shelved - Iowa City Schools prepares to scrap hybrid class model should state require 100% in-person model. Cleo Krejci reports that keeping the mixed model would strain infrastructure, teachers.

😷 A two-thirds silence - The Gazette’s Fact Checker gave Gov. Kim Reynolds a “B” rating for her statement that the data shows schools that were in-session, in-person during the pandemic did so in a “safe and responsible manner.” There was one line that caught my eye:

The survey with the most districts participating looked at between the start of the school year and Nov. 29. Of the 130 districts reporting data, 121 indicated students wore masks, 123 socially distanced and 77 had dividers between students.

More than two-thirds of districts did not participate in the survey, though. Participation in the voluntary survey decreased in subsequent weeks, with 7 percent participating Jan. 4 through Jan. 10.

Two-thirds didn’t participate in the state Education Department’s COVID-19 weekly surveys. How this hasn’t been the lede, I’ll never know.

💊 Plan B Minus - Iowa could join such luminary states as Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah by passing a bill requiring physicians to provide women seeking a drug-induced abortion information on “reversing” the abortion. According to the legislative chair for the Iowa chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the claims of efficacy are "based on limited studies that are scientifically weak and rely on an ethically compromised method." 

🏫 Also in Iowa Legislature news, Reynolds has been pushing ahead on work to get public funding into the hands of private schools. The Register put together this analysis of her proposal. I thought the explanation of how this impacts enrollment calculations (and therefore funding) as well as the look at how it expands open enrollment was super interesting. This will be the topic of the session. It’s worth getting read on it now.

[Cheat code: Did you know that if you have a press-citizen.com subscription, you can read anything on The Register too? Just cut out the “desmoinesregister” in the url and put in “press-citizen” in its place. That one’s for free.]

My niche tweet of the week (plz clap)

Zachary Oren Smith @ZacharyOS

The Daily Kos, or some say Kosm?

January 26th 2021

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Zachary Oren Smith writes about government, growth and development for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com, at 319 -339-7354 or on Twitter via @Zacharyos.