The equivalent of one half of Davenport does not have a Republican state legislative candidate on the ballot. They are so-called Democrat districts but Republicans have won or made decent showings in equivalent areas. Local ear to the ground recruiting failure and confidence levels in receiving credible help from the local party are the problem.
Leg candidates are a primary conduit for building momentum for all candidates. Those campaigns are the door knockers and lit-droppers and yard sign placers in those areas. Win or lose those mechanisms are cheap and serve importantly to hold Democrats down.
Democrat incumbents in those areas are particularly jealous of their sinecures and would not only hold on to resources but would importune their usual sources for funding to insure their victory. Their hand wringing would be aggravated by concerns of a surprise in a non-presidential year with an unpopular President causing real dissatisfaction with their party, and no popular candidate to bring out the vote.
A ten grand guarantee to candidates for each House and twice that for the Senate, with no fund-raising expenses to them, would put the Democrat incumbents in protection mode and reduce money / resources available elsewhere to be used against Republican candidates. If a tide were sufficient we would have the candidate to take the seat. Now we have an absolute giveaway to Democrats.
The thought that these are seats to be ignored is folly particularly in non-presidential years. The flavor of the (Republican) campaigns could be primarily party building, done in a way to increase votes in those districts for the variety of Republican candidates on the ballot. The party had until mid August to fill the ballot positions and did not. The governor’s money vacuum could have been turned to provide credible resources for such districts and used in a way that still inured to his and all Republicans benefit. R Mall
* Ed. Note: This post appeared in a comment by yours truly in response to an article in the Iowa Republican. It was in turn denigrated by an anonymous writer. I will respond to those comments in these or those pages later this week.
