How does Iowa Democratic Party recover from losses? Linn County Democrats have some thoughts

CEDAR RAPIDS — Bret Nilles, chair of the Linn County Democrats, conducted an informal post-mortem of the 2022 midterm election results in Iowa last week at the central committee’s monthly meeting.

Iowa Republicans dominated the Nov. 8 elections, sweeping in a statewide red wave and bucking a national trend where the GOP fell short of expectations. The party now occupies all six seats in the state's congressional delegation, the governor's office, all statewide offices save for one and gained historically large majorities in the Legislature.

Nilles posed the question to a group of about 50 Linn Democrats gathered at the Hiawatha Community Center both in person and virtually: What went well?

The list was short.

Linn County Democrats won the seats they expected to win and ran a good slate of candidates, attendees said. Democrats running for statewide and congressional offices also won the county, but by smaller margins than traditionally seen in previous election cycles.

“We knew we were going to be challenged in rural Linn County with House District 83 and Senate District 42,” Nilles said.

Republican Cindy Golding, of rural Linn County, defeated Democratic newcomer Kriss Nall, of Center Point, by 18 percentage points to win the House District 83 race. The district covers northeast Mount Vernon, Lisbon, Center Point, Central City, Coggon, Palo, Alburnett and other communities in Linn County.

Republican Charlie McClintock of Alburnett, who has served in Iowa House since 2020, beat Lisbon Democrat Jessica Wiskus and Garrison independent Bruce Gardner for the Senate District 42 seat. The district covers much of rural Linn and Benton counties.

Campaigns, activists and party operatives also took advantage of virtual tools to help organize and engage volunteers, and collaborated locally to pool resources on a combined advertising effort, the group of Linn County Democrats said.

Then came the question many — if not all — were there to help answer: What can we do better?

Attendees did not hold back.

“First, when we have a governor candidate, I don’t think we should tell each other, ‘I like her, but I don’t think she can win,’” Hiawatha City Council member Aime Wichtendahl said, referring to Democratic candidate Deidre DeJear, who lost to Republican incumbent Gov. Kim Reynolds by more than 226,000 votes.

Reynolds garnered 58 percent of the vote, and picked up about 51 percent of support in Black Hawk County, flipping it and six other counties she lost in 2018.

DeJear won more than 39 percent of the statewide vote, winning Johnson, Story, Polk and Linn counties. But even in Democratic strongholds like Johnson and Polk counties, DeJear’s margin of victory in those counties was about 10 percentage points less than the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell.

“She is our candidate. We support her. Motion creates emotion, and if you tell people she can win, people might believe it,” Wichtendahl said. “But when you start off saying, ‘I don’t know if we can win,’ then we’re not going to and it’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Bernard Clayton of Cedar Rapids, who volunteered with the DeJear campaign, responded with an “Amen.”

DeJear, who would have become the first Black woman elected governor in the state and country, struggled to raise money. Reynolds raised $11.2 million to DeJear’s $2.4 million over the course of the cycle, a nearly 5-to-1 advantage, according to state campaign fundraising records through Nov. 1.

Clayton, and other Linn County Democrats, said the lack of support for DeJear among state and national party donors "felt like a racial issue.“ They pointed to retiring Democratic state Rep. Ras Smith of Waterloo. Smith, a Black lawmaker, suspended his campaign for governor in January, citing financial difficulties that prevented him from expanding his campaign, including an inability to tap into wealthy donors or self-fund. Not long after, Smith said he would not run re-election to the Legislature.

Clayton and Lindsey Ellickson, of Cedar Rapids, said Democrats need to be less squeamish confronting issues of race.

Clayton mentioned a campaign ad from Reynolds. The ad opened with the governor watching a news clip of a Black official — who is not DeJear, her opponent — calling to defund the police. DeJear had said on multiple occasions said she does not support the notion.

Reynolds, in the ad, cites “attacks on police, open borders, paying people not to work” before pivoting to say to viewers, “Aren’t you glad you live in Iowa?”

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn, who announced Saturday he’s stepping down as the state party’s leader, and other Black lawmakers called the ad racist and dangerous.

Reynolds’ campaign denied the assertions, arguing the ad contrasts policies supported by Democrats across the country with the Republican governor’s “common sense leadership.”

Clayton and others said Iowa Democrats also should have done a better job of painting Reynolds’ policies as extreme, from pushing to provide taxpayer funding to pay for students to attend private schools to abortion restrictions.

Linn County Democrats also said the state and national party need to do a better job of messaging to rural and independent voters.

“What was our message this year? I have no idea,” Wichtendahl said. “A lot of times I feel as a party we expect people to think, ‘Well, the Republicans are crazy. They won’t vote for them.’”

The party and candidates need to get better at telling narratives, Wichtendahl said.

“Too many times as a party we come into this with a policy handbook … but policy doesn’t always win elections,” Wichtendahl said. “Stories win elections. Heart wins elections. Emotions wins elections. We’ve got to get better at that.”

Democrat Steve Moshier of Marion said that messaging needs to come from outside the state party.

“And we have to either generate the message and stick to what we want to fight for, or surrender to the Iowa Democratic Party, who seems to be like a Dumpster fire right now,” Moshier said.

Some said Iowa Democrats, too, need to focus on year-round organizing — recruiting new volunteers and conducting voter registration drives — which will require money and become more challenging with the likely loss of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on the Democratic side.

Nilles noted the change is likely to be a blow to organizing capacity.

“Local organizing is going to be a huge problem without presidential candidates pounding the pavement,” he said.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com