Dems Have High Hopes for the 4th District

Democrats in the 4th Congressional District have reason to be optimistic about there chances to unseat U.S. Rep. Tom Latham this fall.

A year ago, Republicans led Democrats in voter registration in the north-central Iowa district by about 5,500. By May, there were almost 5,700 more Democrats than Republicans. The district includes 125,636 Democrats, 119,960 Republicans and 147,332 who are registered without declaring a party preference.

“This has turned into a swing district,” said John Norris, chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board and the 2002 Democratic nominee in the 4th District Congressional race.“It has slowly trended Democrat for several years, and the caucuses brought out a lot of new voters into the fray, mostly to our party,” said Norris.

The national mood is also in the Democrats’ favor, with several recent elections in former Republican strongholds changing hands.

“I think the 4th is a good barometer of the national mood,” Norris said. “And the national mood right now is that the Democrats have a lot of momentum.”

But despite the high hopes, the four-way primary race to take on Latham has flown mostly under the radar.

“A lot of Iowans have been very involved in the presidential race, doing their part at the local and state party conventions to support their candidates,” said Kurt Meyer, an environmental activist seeking the Democratic nomination. “That and the fact that the 3rd District race [between Ed Fallon and Rep. Leonard Boswell] is drawing so much attention is really keeping people from being as involved in the primary as I think they would be otherwise.”

Jan Bauer, chair of the Story County Democratic Party, said turnout is expected to be very low, with optimistic estimates pointing to about 7 percent.

The 4th District is vast and complicated, Norris said. It stretches from the suburbs of Des Moines to rural areas in the north to Mississippi River towns to the east. There are no real urban centers, so the largest pools of voters come in suburbia. That translates into a district that leans more conservative on the political spectrum, and, a district without a lot of money to offer outside the Des Moines metropolitan area in places like Waukee.

“This is still a handshake district,” said Kevin Miskell, a farmer from Stanhope seeking the nomination. “You don’t have a lot of money inside the district, so with four candidates you aren’t going to see any one candidate bring in a lot of cash.”

The name of the game, Norris said, is name recognition, something that is difficult when you don’t have a lot of money to spend.

“That’s why any publicity can help,” he said. “When the Des Moines Register endorses Becky Greenwald, the words in the editorial don’t have a lot of influence, but getting her name and picture in the paper helps introduce her to voters.”  And Greenwald, who reported only about $35,000 on hand May 15, can use all the free publicity she can get.

The lack of attention voters give to the race needs to be addressed before the general election, Norris said, in order to get the attention of the national Democratic Party.

“We have to get this race on [the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's] radar screen,” he said. “That’s the only way we will be able to get the candidates the resources in the fall to defeat Latham.”

In 2002, Norris said Latham’s campaign spent a lot of money on negative advertisements that ended up damaging the Democrat’s campaign irrevocably. But that year, the national Democratic Party had to invest most of its resources protecting incumbents, which left Norris to fend for himself unsuccessfully.

This year, Democrats are encouraged by the fact that the DCCC has listed Latham as a GOP target on their Web site.  How much money they will eventually funnel to the Democratic nominee in the district will likely be determined by polling and other indicators of Democratic support after June 3.

“Iowans in every district will have to rally to this race,” Norris said. “Otherwise, the national party is going to spend its resources elsewhere. This is a great opportunity to take this seat, we just have to make sure we don’t squander it.”

Becky Greenwald, a marketing manager for Pioneer Hi-Bred, seeking the nomination, said the national party has already expressed an interest in the race, putting the eventual nominee in a great position to defeat the eight-term incumbent Latham.

Meyer agrees.

“When this process is finished, the Democrats will have a strong nominee because we went through a primary,” he said. “Whoever comes out will be a stronger candidate in the fall.”

Since the 2002 election, the first race that took place after district lines were redrawn based in the 2000 census, Latham has averaged about 60 percent of the vote.