Iowa Democrats Expand Statehouse Map With Last-Minute Spending
The battle for control of the Iowa Statehouse is getting even more interesting as we’re about to reach the finish line. The last finance report put out Friday shows new races coming onto the board late for Democrats, while Republicans have fully pulled out of some districts.
Democrats’ financial advantage has become even more clear in Iowa House races, where the party’s candidates are outspending their Republican opponents in all but two of the contested districts. The strain for the GOP on the expanded map appears to have caused them to abandon incumbent Jeff Shipley in the Fairfield district and give up on their challenge to Mary Gaskill in Ottumwa. Meanwhile, Republicans are allowing Democrats’ sudden heavy investment in Charles Clayton to go unchallenged, leaving first-termer Ann Meyer to hope Fort Dodge’s new GOP lean is enough to survive.
Starting Line covered the campaign spending reports from mid-October that showed the general battleground map for both parties. We’ll focus on just the in-kind spending in this piece — those numbers largely cover the money the state party is spending on behalf of a legislative candidate (the funds are usually a mix of what the candidate raises and what the party has independently). The in-kind money is usually made of TV, radio, mail and digital ads. For the highest-spending districts, most of the in-kind totals at this point are TV ads.
Here’s a look at those in-kind numbers in House districts where one or both sides is still spending a decent amount. The latest report covers most of the second half of October.
https://iowastartingline.com/2020/11/01/democrats-expand-statehouse-map-with-last-minute-spending/
