Corbett faces steep climb to GOP nomination

CEDAR RAPIDS - Iowa Republican political consultants sound like investment advisers when they talk about the prospects of Ron Corbett winning the GOP nomination for governor: past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Corbett, 56, has served as speaker of the Iowa House, led the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, was successful as an executive in the private sector and is in his second term as mayor of Cedar Rapids.

That's no guarantee that the campaign he kicked off at a picnic Tuesday evening will carry him back to the Statehouse, according to political consultants who work with GOP clients.

The first challenge, according to Ryan Rhodes, who has worked with tea party campaigns and in 2016 had GOP congressional clients, doesn't see an opening among Republicans for Corbett.

'He's essentially coming at it from the left of Reynolds rather than as a challenger from the right,” he said from Washington, where he now works in government and public affairs. 'I don't see any room there.”

Nick Ryan, another longtime Republican campaign fundraiser and consultant, concurs.

'Republicans enthusiastically embraced her following her swearing-in,” said Ryan, the founder and president of Concordia Group, a public affairs consulting firm. 'Reynolds has strong support from the Republican base across the state.”

Despite being a 'successor-incumbent” rather than an elected incumbent, Reynolds will enjoy the benefits of being an incumbent in fundraising 'especially with the grass-roots activists,” according to Craig Robinson, founder and owner of now-shuttered TheIowaRepublican.com.

As far as rank-and-file Republicans, they'll consider Reynolds the incumbent, Robinson said. 'If Reynold had any vulnerability in the primary, it would be a challenge by a hard core right-wing candidate or Trump loyalist.”

In the Virginia GOP primary earlier this month, he noted, 'the establishment front-runners were expected to post sizable victories, (but) struggled with candidates to their right.” They both won by less than 3 percentage points.

Fundraising could be a challenge, longtime Corbett friend Brent Siegrist conceded. However, Siegrist, who was the House majority leader when Corbett was Speaker of the House, believes a rocky start to the Reynolds administration and dissatisfaction with the GOP's legislative agenda may create an opening.

Reynolds has been nicked for accepting use of a private jet owned by a Republican donor who is asking for a state gambling license, and her administration has been criticized after the deaths of two teen girls under the supervision of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

'There is a little of what you could term ‘Branstad fatigue,'” Siegrist said. 'He did a fine job, but was around so long that some people might be looking for a change.”

He also sees an opening for Corbett among an estimated 30 percent of union members who vote Republican. They're not happy about the GOP majority in the Legislature gutting public employee collective bargaining and may be motivated to support Corbett.

'Plus, he's going to have some big ideas on reducing the income tax, the environment. People may be receptive to that if he can spark people's imaginations,” Siegrist said.

Robinson, now also with Concordia Group, compared a Reynolds-Corbett race with the 2014 Republican U.S. Senate primary that many saw as a contest between conservative Joni Ernst and moderate Mark Jacobs 'and as we know it wasn't even close.” Ernst received 57 percent in a five-way primary.

Although the issues Corbett will be talking about might play well in a general election, they won't change the minds of GOP primary voters, Rhodes said.

'They're going to be looking at religious liberty, where she is on life issues, her support for the Second Amendment and, generally, limited government,” he said.

Siegrist sees all the warning signs, but said Corbett shouldn't be counted out.

'He will campaign hard,” Siegrist said. 'Whatever he does, it's pretty much full-speed ahead.”

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