For crying out loud, if you are a Trump supporter take ten minutes and vote in the Republican primary – write in Caligiuri for Congress and fill in the bubble
• Zumbach and Guy look good to us
• Republicans at a loss for candidates in other races
DEMOCRAT PRIMARY
Dave Loebsack is unopposed for the nomination for the US House seat he currently holds and Ginny Caligiuri is the best alternative on the Republican side to beat him.
There are six candidates for governor listed on the Democrat primary ballot, one has dropped out due to a sex scandal. Given the money he can and has thrown at this thing, ultra pro-abortion Fred Hubbell will be the likely winner to oppose Governor Reynolds.
The nomination for Secretary of State has two Democrats vying. That there is great interest is not surprising as Democrats know the integrity of the vote works against them and they want to loosen up Republican Pate’s minimal anti-fraud improvements (such as they are). Dems anticipate that they will receive plenty of campaign support from the likes of Soros funded groups to take back voting integrity.
Auditor, Treasure, Secretary of Agriculture and Attorney General all have Democrat candidates and all are unopposed in their party’s primary at least as to ballot listings.
As for local state legislative slots, Democrat incumbents Jim Lykam in Senate District 45, and Rita Hart in Senate District 49 are unopposed. Wannabe Mary Gleason in Senate District 47 is also unopposed on the ballot. For the State House the Dems have found wannabes or are running incumbents (Thede, Winckler and Kurth) in all local state House contests. They all have free rides in the primary.
For county offices the Dems have a race for the Board of Supervisors, a relatively well paid for the work-load position. It usually prompts interest. There are four candidates for the three positions, one of whom is incumbent Brinson Kinzer. One of the wannabes is Ken Croken former spokes-hole for Genesis Health System and ardent Hillary supporter. He is the type that would be part of ruining local government here. He has enough name ID that he will probably get to be one of the nominees. He has a WOC radio program on weekends. Will he be allowed to keep his radio program to keep up his name ID and use it to finesse his image?
Democrats also have a race for the County Treasurer nomination. Perennial candidates Jane Duax and Tom Engelmann are running, the latter the likely nominee. The Democrat incumbents for County Recorder and County Attorney are running unopposed in the primary.
That there are rare challenges to incumbents is not surprising in either party. What is most regrettable in the lineup just conveyed is that Republicans have not produced challengers at this stage to Tom Miller at Attorney General or Mike Walton at County Attorney. It is in part a reflection that of the legal profession culture being weak on active conservatives in this state, and party support for those positions. That ~~cultural~~ weakness looms large for critical reasons especially as regards populating the judiciary. That will be explained in a future post.
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
Turning to the Republican primary field, readers are reminded that the absence of a printed challenger on the primary ballot does not mean that the candidate appearing is not being seriously challenged. A viable challenger to the printed candidate Christopher Peters is Ginny Caligiuri as a write-in.
However, Republicans who show up to vote today, by ballot appearance, are being asked to rubber-stamp a person who in the span of but ten years has campaigned for Obama, has run for Congress as a Libertarian and lost, and has run and lost as a Republican in a district that Donald Trump carried substantially. And, as to that most recent attempt, Peters infamously indicated his opposition to Donald Trump “elect me I oppose Trump.”
Dr. Peters seems imbued with a Johnson County (Iowa City) way of looking at the politics in the district. Will too many Republicans continue to be clueless and think that carrying Johnson county is the key to the district? Trump carried the congressional district that Peters wants to represent and Peters opposed Trump. Indeed the district went for Trump in a higher percentage than two of the other congressional districts in Iowa and Loebsack was no stronger than any of the other candidates in the last election.
Christopher Peters is not only not inevitable as the primary winner he is the wrong candidate to have a chance against Loebsack when Trump supporters must be turned out. The best thing Republicans can do now is write in Ginny Caligiuri who is not only consistent with the Republican platform but is an ardent Trump supporter.
A victory for Caligiuri depends on Republican primary voters doing a basic analysis and Christian oriented organizations doing their voter education job adequately. If bread-buttering is to be an issue, because the hotly contested Secretary of Agriculture primary brings out ag interests, if they are paying attention, they should see Caligiuri as more in tune with their support of Trump across the board. Too many ifs for confidence but enough for hope.
As for other primary races on the Republican ballot, as just mentioned the Ag Secretary race is hotly contested. The position does not normally get into much other than Ag related issues (not that they are not very important) but across the board conservatives do not have a lot to go on /differentiate with reported information on the candidates. We are supporting Dan Zumbach based on his performance as a State Senator and his endorsement by Ross Paustian.
Governor Reynolds is now unopposed (with no viable write-in candidate), Secretary of State Pate is unopposed, and Auditor Mosiman as well. Reynolds and Mosiman are solid candidates and conservatives. Pate has not gone as far as needed to improve voter integrity but has made solid improvements. What he does not understand is that making voting ridiculously easy does not secure or enhance the franchise.
Republicans have not fielded a candidate for Treasurer or Attorney General. That is just pathetic. Anyone with some gumption would have received the nod. More in particular on the implications of the Attorney General race absence in a subsequent post.
Locally, Republicans have no primary candidates in Senate District 45 or State Representative districts 89 or 90 or 93. There is also no candidate for County Attorney on the Scott County primary ballot today.
The Scott County Board of supervisors race has three vying for the three ballot positions. So it is not a contest per se, the slots are filled. With the retirement of popular incumbent Treasurer Bill Fennelly, the county level contested race in both parties is for that position. With the namesake of Fennelly, candidate (son) Mike might have been the presumptive nominee but candidate Greg Guy has been campaigning hard with obvious depth of support. He deserves the primary win.
All open positions can conceivably be filled at the state party conventions or special conventions as called.
