“Democrats are struggling in Iowa because they’ve totally lost touch with Iowa values and our voters,” said Addie Lavis, Hinson’s campaign manager. “ … Ashley’s record of conservative accomplishments speaks for itself, and she and our team are working every single day to keep Iowa red and fire Joe Biden in 2024 so we can take our country back."
Ironically, Red Team isn’t wrong here.
By party registration, Iowa is roughly a three-way split between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. During the last major election cycle, the IDP ran multiple anti-firearm candidates. That same cycle, Iowa passed a ballot initiative to codify strict scrutiny on firearm restrictions in the state constitution. It passed with an unprecedented ~66% support. Red team wins here by simply not shooting itself in the foot in pushing something Iowans clearly reject. This should have been what one would call a sign, yet… they seem to have not learned from this.
During the 2022 cycle, voters were polled for priorities. Most voters considered reproductive health important but not as important as economy/inflation, wages, and education. The IDP campaigned almost exclusively on reproductive health while Red Team won here by speaking to these priority issues voters highlighted - even where it was misinformation or lies. It was such a shit show the Libertarian Party managed to regain major party status. Specific to my district, we lost Axne (D) to Nunn ® - and with Axne’s throwing in with anti-firearm efforts while also throwing in with police-friendly efforts, it was entirely predictable.
Twitter has been full of prospective candidates happy to criticize red team but fuck-all for those same prospective candidates and plans to actually, say, tangibly address Iowan concerns or make lives better for those Iowans.
Locally, the running commentary is that these are all such obvious shortcomings and failings its as if the IDP is trying to lose - even incompetence should eke out a win here and there but IDP loses consistently.
Just like the poll workers, elementary school teachers, and women’s health doctors who receive death threats from nutjob Republicans, who would want to subject their family to the horrors of running for political office?
This is absolutely what they want.
I’m not sure about that. There seems to be no lack of willing individuals but rather a complete lack of support from the state party, which seems to be blaming everything on a lack of support from national.
You’re not wrong - the public-facing stresses of being a politician aren’t fantastic - yet people still seem to be trying. People, unfortunately, aren’t sufficient in the face of something as well-funded as Iowa GOP unless similarly supported and working together, yet… IDP seems to be nowhere to be seen beyond myopic Twitter mud-slinging. Also see:
Hinson’s campaign benefited from nearly $3.3 million in outside spending during the last campaign cycle, mainly from ad buys by the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The super PAC spent more than $2 million in Iowa’s 2nd District race, according to the money in politics tracker Open Secrets.
There was a some national-level campaign money thrown around… to mud-sling:
Significant outside money, however, was also spent opposing Hinson, with groups like Unrig Our Economy and Tax March – progressive coalitions of labor unions and advocacy groups calling for economic justice, with a focus on taxing the rich – targeting Hinson in online and TV ads as part of larger national campaigns aimed at D.C. lawmakers.
