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What will be impact of national issues on Iowa legislative races?
Presidential choices could impact outcome of November election
DES MOINES — Previews of the 2024 election are playing out in the Iowa Legislature this year as lawmakers debate bills on immigration, crime, abortion and education, which likely will be top issues on the campaign trail ahead of the November general election.
Each member of the Iowa House will be up for re-election along with half of Iowa’s state senators, who are elected to four-year terms. Republicans hold sizable majorities in both chambers, holding 64 of 100 House seats and 34 of 50 Senate seats.
With the presidential election at the top of the ticket in November, this year’s election is likely to be dominated by national issues, said University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle.
“Sometimes (the state legislative agenda) can be an issue in particular districts, whether it’s the House or the Senate or the state level, but quite often, they’re more likely to be driven, at least to a certain extent, by what’s going on at the national level,” Hagle said.
To the extent that local issues do motivate the election, it’s too early to know what might top that list, he said.
“We’ll start to see this a little bit more once the legislative session is over, and we see what we’ve got, and what the Democrats see what they can do with it, in terms of energizing their base, and the Republicans their base, too,” he said.
Democrats to run on abortion, ‘people over politics’
Iowa’s minority Democrats are poised to make abortion and reproductive rights a clear focus of the election.
They have proposed legislation to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, reinstate the federally funded Family Planning Program, expand postpartum Medicaid coverage and allow birth control without a prescription.
Democrats nationally see abortion as an issue that can win them votes in suburban areas and among women in key races and states in 2024.
In Iowa, Republicans passed a law last year to ban abortion once cardiac activity can be detected in a fetus or embryo, generally around six weeks when many women do not realize they are pregnant. The law is currently blocked while the Iowa Supreme Court weighs its constitutionality.
State Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, who leads the Senate Democrats, said abortion rights are supported by a clear majority of Iowans.
“That is the one issue that continues to bubble up, and that is, Iowans are very concerned about the number of freedoms and rights that have been taken from them over the past couple years,” she said. “... We believe we need to stand firm and let people know where we stand as Democrats, and what we’re going to fight for this coming election cycle.”
House Democrats have had a mantra over the last two years to justify their political priorities and their legislative agenda: People over politics.
The caucus has proposed a package of bills they say are supported by a wide majority of the state’s voters. They accuse Republicans of voting and passing bills to serve “special interests” at the expense of Iowans.
Since Democrats are a minority in both chambers, the bills they proposed have not been taken up for consideration.
House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights said this month that Republicans are “trying to govern by headline” rather than addressing needs of Iowans on issues like health care, housing and wages.
She said Democrats will be talking with voters about Republicans’ efforts to expand school choice and ban abortion, as well as the message that Democrats are advocating for popular policies.
“What Republicans are proposing is what special interests tell them that they want,” she said. “We are the ones listening to Iowans and we are going to be pointing that out over and over again.”
Republicans to campaign on tax cuts, economy
Republicans have repeatedly said that past elections are evidence Iowans are happy with their governance and confident in their policies
Republicans have expanded their majorities in both chambers since gaining a trifecta of the House, Senate and governor in the 2016 election.
Rep. Matt Windschitl of Missouri Valley, the House Majority Leader, said the party’s candidates would be campaigning on their history of improving the economy and tackling the issues important to Iowa voters.
“We’re constantly trying to improve our educational standards and make sure our kiddos get the best education they possibly can, and we are providing for the needs of Iowans, whether that be infrastructure, law enforcement,” Windschitl said.
“But we’re also being wise stewards of the taxpayer dollar and trying to make sure that when the government doesn’t need their tax dollars that we return those in a responsible and equitable manner.”
Windschitl said it was too early to say which legislative achievements from this year Republicans would run on but said he is looking forward to passing further income tax cuts.
National issues
A number of bills Iowa Republicans have advanced align with the national issues the party likely will be running on in 2024, including cracking down on crime and illegal immigration.
In passing bills targeting undocumented immigrants, Republicans have said the bills are necessary because of the record-high rate of unlawful border crossings that have been documented under President Joe Biden.
“The problem is we've had seven million people come into this country illegally under the leadership of President Joe Biden,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, said when advancing a bill to BAR in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. “And at some point we’re going to have to address that issue.”
Border security will be a major campaign issue for Republicans nationally as they seek to depict Biden as abandoning his duty to keep a secure border and prevent illegal crossings.
According to a recent Pew survey, 77 percent of Americans described the situation at the border as either a “crisis” or a “major problem,” while 17 percent described it as a “minor problem.”
Windschitl said the issues have a prominent focus this year because lawmakers are hearing about them from constituents.
“The national scene does sometimes drive those trends, but some of these things have been in drafting long before the polling data showed that illegal immigration and the border crisis was something that was top of mind to caucusgoers,” he said.
Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley of New Hartford said Republicans are not approaching policy any differently this year because of the upcoming election.
"I don’t think that we’ve been any different in laying that out this session, similar to the way we did last session,” he said. “So whether it’s an election year or not, we want to try to show Iowans what our vision would look like.”
That vision, Grassley said, includes a stable tax climate, fewer regulations, school choice and accountability around the spending of taxpayer dollars.
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver of Grimes said in a recent appearance on Iowa PBS’ "Iowa Press" that he’s confident about Senate Republicans’ chances in 2024.
“Iowa is probably in the strongest position maybe it has ever been in, and we have the biggest surplus we've ever had,” he said. “And so, we're going to tell our story, we're proud of our story, of what we have done in the majority and what we've done with the trifecta, and I feel very confident about the elections this year.”
Will presidential candidates help or hurt Iowa candidates?
Depending on a statehouse candidate’s district, the presidential candidates at the top of the ticket may be a tricky subject to navigate, said Hagle, the University of Iowa political scientist.
In tossup House and Senate districts, where moderate and independent voters will decide the election, enthusiasm about Biden and Trump, the likely Republican nominee, likely will be lower than in Democratic and Republican strongholds in the state.
Both candidates have net-negative approval ratings among independent voters nationally, according to recent polling, though Iowa’s no-party voters lean more conservative.
Local candidates in those districts may look for ways to contrast themselves with their party's presidential candidate or keep their more unpopular issues at a distance, Hagle said.
“You’ll probably try to distance yourself from that person to some extent, or it may be that the local issues dominate rather than something at the national level,” he said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Candidates also may try to tie their opponent to unpopular positions or actions of the opposing party’s leader, Hagle said.
The leaders of both parties, though, have largely fallen behind their expected presidential candidates. Whitver said on “Iowa Press” that Trump is the GOP's "best chance to win the election this year.”
Jochum said in an appearance on "Iowa Press" this month that Democrats should be more vocal in touting Biden’s accomplishments.
“I think that, in general, Democrats and a lot of no-party (voters) think that overall, Joe Biden has done a pretty good job,” she said. “And it's our job as Democrats to get out and tell people what he has done and what he has accomplished, and we're going to do that.”
Comments: cmccullough@qctimes.com
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