During the past eight years, Iowa has gained as many people - about 76,000 - as states like South Carolina and Virginia gained between 2007 and 2008 alone.
To retain the congressional seat, the state would have to gain nearly twice that number by 2010, according to projections by Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that analyzes the impact of demographics on politics.
So, Iowa will be left with four Congressional districts. No one knows what the new map will look like, but it's likely that the 2012 race in the new third district will determine whether Iowa Democrats (who now hold a 3-2 edge in U.S. House seats) gain a 3-1 advantage or have to settle for a 2-2 split.
Democrat Becky Greenwald has been low on cash the last few weeks, but her campaign bought 60 seconds of air time on the CBS and NBC affiliates in Des Moines and Mason City immediately before Barack Obama's prime-time special on October 29.
Greenwald's ad was outstanding and could not have been more clear about the contrast between her and incumbent Tom Latham. Click the link to watch the commercial, which made clear that Latham is a Republican who's voted with George Bush 94 percent of the time--even more often than John McCain. Meanwhile, the ad made clear visually and in the voice-over that Becky Greenwald is a Democrat who will support Barack Obama's policies.
I hope they will be able to air this commercial during the final days of the campaign. Please donate to Greenwald's campaign if you can afford to, so that more viewers will be exposed to this message. It's much stronger than the biographical ad Greenwald was running in late September, which didn't make much of a case against Latham.
We'll find out next Tuesday if Obama's coat-tails are enough to overcome Latham's big edge in paid media. It's a D+0 district where Democrats have made huge gains in voter registration in the past two years.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the United Auto Workers PAC has been running a radio ad criticizing Latham for voting for tax breaks for corporations and against equal pay for women. The ad also says we need Becky Greenwald in Congress.
Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters):
Becky Greenwald (D): 42
Tom Latham (R-inc): 47
(MoE: ±5%)
We're still sweeping up from the avalanche of Research 2000 polls that Daily Kos released this weekend, but although this one has been out since Saturday, I'd hate to see it slip through the cracks. IA-04, one of our true longshot races languishing down in 'Likely R' and not getting any DCCC love beyond R2B status, looks to be a truly competitive race.
This seems to be one of those happy confluences of a motivated challenger, a coasting incumbent, a Democratic wave year, and a swingy district (D+0). In fact, the presidential results seem odd, pointing to a possible sample problem (unless there's a lot of ticket-splitting going on) that might suggest an even better IA-04 result: McCain leads Obama 46-42 in this district. But in a D+0 district, Obama should be breaking at least 50, based on his national numbers, and probably more, since he's overperforming in Iowa in relation to Gore and Kerry numbers.
This is shaping up to be one of the best shots that we have where the DCCC isn't getting involved with independent expenditures (yet), and it's a dirt cheap district. Time to strike while the iron's hot! (Discussion is already underway in desmoinesdem's diary from Saturday.)
I suspected that Republican Congressman Tom Latham's internal polling must be showing a close race when he put up a negative tv ad on the bailout. Now the first public poll of Iowa's fourth district is out. Research 2000 for Daily Kos found this:
Tom Latham 47
Becky Greenwald 42
undecided 11
Click the link for the internals.
Interestingly, the same poll found John McCain leading Barack Obama in the fourth district by 46 to 42 percent. Given the many polls showing Obama above the 50 percent mark in Iowa, I would have thought Obama would be leading McCain in this D+0 district.
If Greenwald is doing as well in IA-04 as Obama, then I feel really good about our chances for an upset in this district. Obama's superior ground game could easily be worth several percentage points on election day.
Paging EMILY's list and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: please start spending some money on tv ads in this district! Greenwald has launched a good web ad recently, but she hasn't been on tv for the past ten days or so.
EMILY's List endorsed Greenwald last month, and the DCCC added her to Red to Blue in early October, but I am not aware of any independent expenditures on her behalf yet. (UPDATE: Supposedly the United Auto Workers just went up on the air with an anti-Latham radio ad, but I haven't heard it and don't have a transcript.)
There have been no public polls in the race between Republican incumbent Tom Latham and Becky Greenwald in Iowa's fourth Congressional district, and neither candidate has released any results from internal polling.
However, Latham may be increasingly concerned about holding this D+0 district amid what looks like a landslide victory for Barack Obama in Iowa.
Until this week, Latham's campaign messaging touted his record and mostly ignored his challenger. But on Monday he went negative, issuing this statement blasting Greenwald's support for the recent bailout package. (She came out against the first bailout bill the House considered but supported the version that cleared the Senate before coming up for a House vote.)
Latham voted against both bailout bills, one of very few times he's ever refused to support something the Bush administration wanted. For months, Greenwald has been hitting him on his lockstep Republican voting record. He is clearly grateful to have this issue to separate him from the White House and Republican leadership in Congress.
Currently Democrats seem poised to pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House and five to six Senate seats. If we are on the verge of a wave, Democrats could win more than that, including a few districts where the Republican incumbent never saw it coming.
Late last week, Tom Latham did just that in his first television commercial of this election cycle. You can view the ad at Latham's campaign website. It focuses on a bill Latham introduced to address the nursing shortage in Iowa.
Judging from the content of this ad, Latham recognizes that 2008 will be a big Democratic year in Iowa.
UPDATE: On September 16 EMILY's List announced their endorsement of two more Congressional challengers: Becky Greenwald in IA-04 (D+0) and Sharen Neuhardt in OH-07 (R+6).
Maybe someone out there who knows the inner workings of EMILY's List can explain to me why this group has not put money behind Becky Greenwald, the Democrat challenging loyal Republican foot-soldier Tom Latham in Iowa's fourth Congressional district.
I have been going over the list of Democratic women running for Congress whom EMILY's List is supporting, with a particular focus on the six challengers most recently added to this group in early August. I do not mean to denigrate any of those candidates, and I recognize that every race has its own dynamic.
However, after comparing Greenwald's race to those of other candidates, I remain puzzled that EMILY's list is not more involved in IA-04.
