Grassley vs. Franken: Iowa’s U.S. Senate campaign begins

DES MOINES — They are the names Iowans will hear over and over for the next five months — the faces that will be seen on every screen that gets Iowans’ eyes.

Chuck Grassley. Mike Franken.

The matchup is set.

Iowa’s 2022 U.S. Senate general election campaign started Wednesday, the day after Franken, a U.S. Navy veteran from Sioux City, handily won the Democratic primary and Grassley, Iowa’s longtime Republican U.S. senator, staved off a primary challenge of his own.

The focus is now entirely on Grassley and Franken, and the countdown to the Nov. 8 general election has started.

The 88-year-old Grassley will enter the campaign as the favorite. His six re-election campaign victories have come by a staggering average of 35 percentage points.

Three prominent national political forecasters — Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections — all project in their strongest classification that Grassley will win another six-year term.

Some of the themes that Iowans can expect to hear over the next five months have already emerged.

Grassley and Republicans will seek to tie Franken to Democratic President Joe Biden. The Republican Party of Iowa has already called Franken a “Biden apologist,” and the Grassley campaign called Franken “another yes-man for Biden’s radical liberal policies.”

The strategy makes political sense because of Biden’s poor approval numbers nationally, including in Iowa. Just 35 percent of Iowans approve of Biden’s performance as president while 59 disapprove, according to the most recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll, from early March.

“In regard to all these things that I hear from people (at local events in Iowa) being mad at — the Biden administration, inflation, gas prices, border — I have heard Franken say that he’s with the president on,” Grassley told Iowa reporters Wednesday.

Franken and Democrats will claim Grassley has been in Congress for too long, and that he has grown out-of-touch with Iowa voters. They will criticize his role in the recent appointments of conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court — which could soon spell the end to protections against abortion bans — and allege his response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol have been insufficient.

“I think past performance is an exhibit for future achievements. And as you look at Chuck Grassley’s past performance, certainly in the last 20 years, there is a gulf of high-order achievements,” Franken told reporters Tuesday night after his primary election victory. “Certainly (Grassley) has given us the most partisan Supreme Court in all of our lives. He has voted down a series of measures that would have saved people’s lives from a responsible ownership of firearms perspective. He has not been a responsible individual in supporting antitrust legislation.”

Grassley also enters the general election campaign in a stronger position financially.

As of May 18, the most recent date at which federal campaign fundraising figures are available, Grassley had more than $4.3 million in his campaign account. Franken, who raised nearly $3 million during the primary campaign but had to spend much of it to win the competitive race, had just $253,000 as of May 18.

Surely some outside groups will put resources into the campaign as well. But that activity may start out slowly as national parties and interest groups invest more in races across the country that are believed to be more competitive.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times contributed.