Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Gov. Chet Culver
A Virginia-based polling firm makes no bones about it: “[T]he Midwest is the Democrats’ toughest region this year.”
Public Policy Polling has been accused of having a liberal bias because it was founded by Democratic pollster Dean Debnam in 2001, but the information it reports today can only be described as more bad news for Democratic governors in the Midwest like Chet Culver.
If the election was held today, the [Democratic] party would almost certainly lose the governorships it holds in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It’s also more than likely at this point to lose the Senate seats it has in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Indiana, miss out on a once promising pick up opportunity in Ohio, and quite possibly lose their seat in Illinois as well. And there are too many House seats the party could lose in the region to count.
According to the firm’s polling, there are four primary reasons why Democrats face such bad news in the the Midwestern states:
Polling in Ohio found incumbent Ted Strickland with a 34 percent approval rating. And, while that isn’t a very good rating, it turns out that Strickland is the most popular of the Midwest’s Democratic governors. Iowa’s Culver polls at 28 percent, fourth on the list of six states, with only Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (27 percent) and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (23 percent) trailing him.
Although 88 percent of the voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2008 remain happy with his current job performance, in Iowa that percentage drops to 82 percent. While that reduced support combined with the governor polling would spell trouble in any state, it is especially important in Iowa, where votes have historically been close in statewide races.
Currently, this poll is showing that Democratic enthusiasm is down 10 points when compared with 2008 voting, which is more than enough to toss state races into contention.
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