Stories

County canvasses on Monday and Tuesday changed few votes in two close Republican contests from last week’s primary.

Christopher Reed held both his lead in the U.S. Senate race over George Eichhhorn and, more importantly, his percentage above the required 35 percent.

With the potential of recounts looming in the Republican U.S. Senate and 2nd Congressional District races, it’s worth looking at why the numbers you see on election night change later and why the results are “unofficial.”

The results aren’t final on election night. That’s both a formality and a reality.

In a race marked by open loathing of Peter Teahen by Iowa’s conservative bloggers, Mariannette Miller-Meeks overcame a big Teahen margin in Linn County to claim a 109 vote win in the 2nd Congressional District. The Ottumwa doctor will now challenge first-term Democrat Dave Loebsack in the fall.

So did Miller-Meeks win, or did Peter Teahen [...]

The incumbents with challengers all survived and the favored candidates generally came through in last night’s legislative primaries. Your round up:

Between the last Democratic presidential contests, and Iowa’s contested primaries in three congressional districts and the Republican U.S. Senate race, state legislative races won’t be on many radar screens Tuesday night. But several of the contested primaries in deep red or dark blue districts will be decisive or nearly decisive.

Here’s the legislative scorecard for Tuesday [...]

An email from a one-time disaster relief colleague of 2nd Congressional District candidate Peter Teahen, charging the Cedar Rapids Republican with misconduct and dishonesty on a relief mission in Darfur, is false and dangerous to his family, the candidate told Iowa Independent. Teahen also alleged that the campaign of one of his rivals in Tuesday’s [...]

If you’re watching the primary returns next Tuesday night, you may want to keep a calculator handy. Iowa law requires a candidate to win 35 percent of the vote to earn a nomination, but the percentages that get reported aren’t always the ones that matter.

If no candidate gets 35 percent, the party has to hold [...]

The incumbent ran as an experienced, moderate congressman, attentive to his district’s needs. The younger, issue-based activist challenger, coming off an unsuccessful statewide race that nevertheless raised his profile, stressed his own legislative record and said the incumbent’s congressional voting record was insufficiently loyal to the party.

Leonard Boswell and Ed Fallon? Nope. Hop in the [...]

Iowa and Mississippi remain the only two states which have never elected a woman either to Congress or as governor. Iowa has come close a few times — Lynne Cutler’s congressional race in 1980, Roxanne Conlin’s gubernatorial race in 1982, and Elaine Baxter’s run for congress in 1992.

Ottumwa doctor Mariannette Miller-Meeks “absolutely” believes she can [...]

The countdown to the June 3 primary reached 40 days Thursday, and that’s a major milestone. Early voting began at auditor’s offices across the state, and the first absentee ballots are in the mail.

Iowa has one of the longest early voting periods in the nation, and that has changed the state’s political landscape since the [...]