While the midterm elections are in six months, the race for seats in the state Capitol has been underway for months.
The Iowa Senate comprises 20 Democrats, 29 Republicans, and one independent. The state House of Representatives has 41 Democrats and 59 Republicans.
At the end of the 2016 legislative session, the Democratic Party held control of the Senate by a slim margin, 26-23, with one independent (a former Republican). The last time Democrats controlled the House occurred after the 2008 elections, when the party held a 56-44 margin.
While half of the Senate seats are on the table, there are only seven open seats. In the House, all seats are up for election, but only 16 are considered open seats, according to Ballotpedia, an online encyclopedia of American politics sponsored by the Lucy Burns Institute.
House Majority Whip Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, said the Republican Party has a higher number of incumbents this election than in recent years.
He noted that Republicans have worked to accomplish priorities highlighted by voters, regardless of party, such as education, voter reform, balancing the budget, and tax reform, which is set to roll out later in the week.
“One thing about Iowa politics is that we do like our incumbents,” said Timothy Hagle, a University of Iowa political-science associate professor. “When you have an open seat, where you don’t have an incumbent, that’s where you get a little bit more interest and a greater potential to flip a particular seat.”
Senate District 21, which includes parts of Des Moines, will have an open seat this election after incumbent Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, announced he will run for Polk County supervisor after a 26-year tenure in the Legislature.
Three candidates are running to take the seat; Democrats Claire Celsi and Connie Ryan and Republican Brian Bales.
Celsi said running against a fellow Democrat is tough, noting that she and Ryan have similar stances on issues, and she stressed party unity.
“The main goal is to get a Democrat elected to this district in the end,” she said. “We saw what happened last time when there was no party unity, a bunch of people voted for [Sen.] Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.], and that’s how we got where we are now.”
Midterm elections have historically been a time to see a change of control in Congress, and Iowa Democrats are trying to bring that change to Des Moines.
Hagle said a change in party control depends on the particular election and the makeup of the Legislature. If both parties are close in the number of legislators they have, then it would only take a couple of changes in districts to switch control of the chamber.
Hagle noted the first midterm elections during a new president’s term tend to see a rise in the number of votes for the opposite party. Many have predicted 2018 to be a wave year for the Democratic Party, which, he said, could affect state legislative contests.
“Even though this time around in the 2018 midterms, when we’re talking a lot about potential for the Democrats to retake control of the U.S. House, there’s also the potential for Democrats to make gains in the state legislative races,” he said.
Rep. David Jacoby, D-Coralville, said the Democratic Party has the most energy, but it is important to get them to the polls. Nunn agreed with Jacoby, though he noted that he believes a majority of the Democrats’ energy is focused on federal issues.
“The only thing that counts is the votes in that Tuesday in November,” Jacoby said. “We just have to make sure that energy transfers to votes … there are a lot of people who are pretty upset about the direction the state of Iowa is going.”
Jacoby, who will run unopposed, said that right now, his first priority is the work at hand, but in his free time, he helps by campaigning for other candidates, adding that he believes it is important to have a presence of strong Democratic ideals in all of Iowa.
The Republican Party has had a large following on the national stage and in the swing state of Iowa. In the 2016 presidential election, nearly every county (93) voted for candidate Donald Trump, and all counties, with the exception of Johnson County, voted to re-elect Sen. Chuck Grassley.
After nearly a year in office, Trump’s favorability has decreased.
According to a poll by the Des Moines Register in December, 60 percent of Iowans said they disapprove of Trump’s performance in office. The results were approximately 4 percentage points higher than the national average at the time, according to data cited by FiveThirtyEight.
As of Tuesday, Trump’s approval rating sits at 41.2%. In comparison, former president Barack Obama’s approval rating was 48.4% at the same point in his presidency.
However, Hagle is unsure if Trump’s approval rating will affect how Iowans vote in November.
“There are some policy things that people don’t like, immigration, of course, is a big one, but it’s more aimed at the personal side of Trump and how he conducts himself,” he said. “So I’m not sure that translates as well.”
Patrick Wronkiewicz, the Republican candidate in Senate District 43 (Iowa City), also said he’s unsure whether polling numbers are the best indicators of how Iowans will vote in November, citing discrepancies in approval ratings among various sources and Trump’s performance in the 2016 election.
“I think you’ve got to take that with a grain of salt when you try to look at historical trends, because I think President Trump just showed that he could throw that out the window because he won,” he said.
Wronkiewicz is running against incumbent Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, for one of the safest seats for Democrats in the state.
While Hagle said he does not believe Wronkiewicz will win the election, he did say there is value in giving Bolkcom some competition.
“It does force [Bolkcom] to campaign a little bit more and can’t totally ignore the race and go off and help other people,” Hagle said.
Overall, Nunn said, no matter what the result of the elections, the legislators will continue to work together.
“I think that both Republicans and Democrats work well together up here at the state level,” Nunn said. He noted that 88 percent of legislation passed in the House received bipartisan support.