Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/4/26

Beskrivelse

Happy Independence Day! We start with a federal court ruling striking down Iowa’s SNAP food restrictions this week, so candy and soda are back on the table. Kathie and Laura break down just how confusing those old rules were, and note the SunBucks summer program will keep going with the pre-waiver food list. We also cover Cami Koons’ reporting for Iowa Capital Dispatch on USDA staffing cuts hitting Iowa’s county offices, including Polk County losing in-person help most days of the week. Farmers are feeling it on top of already tough market conditions. We close with the numbers: a new Fox News poll shows Josh Turek up 4 on Ashley Hinson and Rob Sand up 9 on Zach Lahn, while the Times/Siena poll has both races much tighter. To support our work financially you can click on the link above to become a paid subscriber, or the link below for a one time donation to the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative that helps fund our costs. Thanks so much to those of you who already have. Have a safe and happy 4th! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:30.670 --> 00:00:31.739 Dave Price: Okay, here we go. 4 00:00:35.430 --> 00:00:47.119 Dave Price: Welcome, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast on this first episode of July 2026. I’m Dave Price, joined by my Iowa Writers Collaborative 5 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:56.860 Dave Price: That’s not even any good. I’m, like, stumbling all over Spencer, how about we don’t count that one? Plus, I felt like I had a thing in my throat the whole time. Take two, take two, take two. 6 00:00:56.860 --> 00:00:58.149 Laura Belin: Alright, okay, hang on. 7 00:00:59.830 --> 00:01:01.679 Dave Price: Sorry, Spencer. 8 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:23.049 Dave Price: Hi everybody, welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by my fellow collaborators from the Iowa Writers Collaborative, Laura Belin and Kathie O’Brijovich, for our first show in July of 2026. How are you? 9 00:01:23.830 --> 00:01:25.980 Kathie Obradovich: Doing great. Happy 4th of July. 10 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:27.600 Dave Price: Nepsi, 4th of July. 11 00:01:28.050 --> 00:01:35.920 Dave Price: And indeed. Kathie and I were talking about right before we started this, we both have pets who are not all that thrilled with fireworks. 12 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:40.639 Dave Price: Unfortunately, our pet left a present in the corner of, 13 00:01:40.970 --> 00:01:49.530 Dave Price: my basement office here, while we were gone last night, I think, which I didn’t even notice, or it happened overnight. I’m not really sure when that happened, and she, like, never does that, so… 14 00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:52.940 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah. 15 00:01:52.940 --> 00:01:53.750 Dave Price: Oh, I can’t wait. 16 00:01:53.750 --> 00:01:57.719 Kathie Obradovich: Mine just hides, luckily. Yeah, that’s what… My cat just hides. 17 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:02.860 Dave Price: That’s what our dog usually does. There’s a corner she goes to all the time, but she doesn’t usually have… 18 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:07.580 Dave Price: Accidents, those are really rare, so something must have really spooked her overnight, I guess. 19 00:02:08.820 --> 00:02:13.709 Dave Price: Okay, well, that was not how I meant to begin this week’s show. 20 00:02:13.970 --> 00:02:26.200 Dave Price: But it is… it is what it is. All right, there is, there’s a bunch we want to talk about. We’ll see how much we can squeeze in this week, but, Kathie, props to the Iowa Capital Dispatch staff. 21 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:28.749 Dave Price: First of all, 22 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:40.270 Dave Price: You have a couple of significant pieces here over the last couple of days, but let’s talk about, one, this follow-up, really, to this federal court ruling, and it impacts the Iowa law. 23 00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:58.569 Dave Price: when it comes to people who receive the SNAP benefits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal benefits that come through there. And Iowa Republicans, like Republican counterparts in other states across the country, put restrictions on this to limit 24 00:02:58.730 --> 00:03:13.730 Dave Price: what types of food you can buy. Now, from the get-go, I remember working on these stories. Some of it’s confusing, right? Even for the people who are up at the State House 24-7, it seems like, like, granola bars, like, is… 25 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:30.669 Dave Price: Is that a yes, is that a no? And certain things… certain foods that are kind of already… I don’t know what the right word is, but sort of already made, that you can go pick up. I know nationally there was this thing about rotisserie chicken or something, like, if you go buy it from the gas station. What’s your take on… 26 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:35.909 Dave Price: the federal ruling, and now what Iowa has to do because of it. 27 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:58.819 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so because of the federal ruling, basically the Fed said, sorry, you states that have these waivers, your… this… this rule does not comply with the federal definition of food in the law. So, essentially, it’s saying to all these states, you can’t do this waiver because it doesn’t… it does not… 28 00:03:58.820 --> 00:04:22.320 Kathie Obradovich: conform with the law. So, what happened yesterday was basically the notification from Iowa Department of Health and Human Services that basically that waiver is now void. So, you know, things like soda and candy and, stuff like that that was banned under the waiver. 29 00:04:22.320 --> 00:04:45.409 Kathie Obradovich: you can now buy again with SNAP. And, you know, it didn’t surprise me. I figured they would have to do this eventually anyway. But also, they said that the SunBucks program, which is the summer, we call it… well, sometimes we call it summer EBT, electronic benefits transfer. You basically get a… families with kids that, are already on SNAP get an extra 40 bucks a month. 30 00:04:45.410 --> 00:05:00.170 Kathie Obradovich: To cover meals over the summer. And Iowa had stopped doing it for a couple years, because Kim Reynolds said it wasn’t healthy. You can get healthy food. So… 31 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:22.760 Kathie Obradovich: But they started doing it this year because of the waiver. And, I… you know, they even talked about, in the legislature, dropping the program if that waiver did not continue. You know, if kids could buy candy with SNAP dollars, they didn’t want to do it. And, in fact, HHS announced yesterday that SunBucks will continue. 32 00:05:22.760 --> 00:05:45.750 Kathie Obradovich: With the food list from before the waiver. So, you can buy candy now with the… with the Sunbucks as well as Snap. I think, you know, this… this sort of abrupt seesawing may cause problems for some, you know, retailers, grocery stores. It was confusing anyway, because it was based on… it was kind of based on sales tax. 33 00:05:45.750 --> 00:05:59.869 Kathie Obradovich: And so, you mentioned the thing with granola, it’s like, you know, if you pay sales tax for it, then, you can’t get it with SNAP, and so that includes, like, prepared food, but now people are making the point, you know, a cup of fruit. 34 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:13.839 Kathie Obradovich: cut up fruit. You know, you… you can’t get that, but you can get a granola bar that’s full of fat and sugar. So, it was definitely an imperfect program. I… the governor vowed to continue to try to 35 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:23.179 Kathie Obradovich: you know, make Iowa’s program, conform with her idea of what’s healthy. So, I think we haven’t heard the last of this. 36 00:06:24.060 --> 00:06:43.019 Laura Belin: Well, the whole thing is so weird, because I thought, and I’m gonna have to go back and read this bill again, but I thought that under one of the laws Governor Reynolds signed this year, Iowa cannot continue in that summer meals program if they don’t have a waiver from the USDA, so I was very confused. 37 00:06:43.020 --> 00:07:08.020 Laura Belin: by the press release, and the summer meals, or sun bucks, whatever you want to call it, it covers a lot of people who aren’t on SNAP. It’s any family who has a child on… eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch. So it’s about 240,000 kids where they’re getting an extra 40 bucks a month for the three months of the summer. So it’s significant for people’s budgets. But these rules, the Iowa Hunger Coalition had really good coverage 38 00:07:08.020 --> 00:07:30.909 Laura Belin: earlier this year about how confusing the rules are, because things with flour and dairy are not taxable, but other kinds of candy are, so you get these things like, you can’t buy a Snickers bar, but you could buy a frozen Snickers bar, because it has ice cream, which is dairy, which means it’s not taxable. So the idea that this waiver was 39 00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:35.390 Laura Belin: Stopping people from buying unhealthy foods is a little bit of a canard. 40 00:07:36.690 --> 00:07:59.889 Dave Price: The whole… this makes me think of this entire… the entire Maha movement, and what is the best way, at the end of the day, to help people eat healthier and to get healthier. And we are seeing different approaches about it, and it now, following this court ruling for the questions that we were facing for months, wondering how this was all going to shake out. 41 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:09.489 Dave Price: it shows that it was not gonna all shake out. There were gonna be problems with this, which is some of the questions we were asking for months, because some of the stuff 42 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:19.420 Dave Price: as you mentioned, Laura, with the Iowa Hunger Coalition, it is hard to logically explain, you know, like, for us, as reporters, you… 43 00:08:19.490 --> 00:08:37.350 Dave Price: get all this information, and then you have to spit it out in some form so the public can consume it, right? So you’re… in television, you’re doing a minute and a half, maybe minute 45 long live shot, and your example about Snickers, like, try to make sense of that. Like, that’s hard. You’re like. 44 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:44.039 Dave Price: Well, if it’s not frozen, then this. If it is, then, like, it’s illogical. 45 00:08:44.049 --> 00:09:04.179 Laura Belin: Yeah, and what Kathie said about the fruit cup, and I already forgot the difference, but whether the fruit cup, whether you can buy it, it depends on it comes… whether it comes with a fork or a spoon, or without a fork or a spoon, because there are some containers of cut-up fruit that were okay to buy, but I can’t remember whether it was okay with or without the spoon. I mean, this is the… 46 00:09:04.180 --> 00:09:04.890 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I think… 47 00:09:04.890 --> 00:09:05.410 Laura Belin: It’s ridiculous. 48 00:09:05.410 --> 00:09:19.809 Kathie Obradovich: It has a spoon, it’s like an individual serving that you would consume, and so that… that counts as a prepared food, you know, as opposed to if you buy a whole watermelon that’s cut up, I think that that would not be taxed, probably. 49 00:09:19.810 --> 00:09:44.799 Laura Belin: I think one of the best ways to incentivize healthy eating is something that they did include in the standings bill, that last appropriations bill that passed on the last day of the legislative session, where there was a million-dollar appropriation to a program that’s called Double Up Food Bucks, which means that if you have food assistance, and you use it to buy fruits or vegetables, and that could be at a regular grocery store, or it could even be at a farmer’s market, you can get double your money 50 00:09:44.800 --> 00:10:02.459 Laura Belin: and there’s some state appropriation for that, so it goes twice as far if you go and buy fruits and vegetables. And everybody agrees that fruits and vegetables are healthy, so that would be one avenue to do it, rather than restricting things with this waiver that doesn’t apparently conform to the federal law. 51 00:10:02.520 --> 00:10:17.910 Dave Price: I’m gonna segue to the next topic, which has something to do with food and agriculture, but bear with me here for a second as we get there. I do some side work for a project called the American Farmland Owner. 52 00:10:17.910 --> 00:10:34.480 Dave Price: And, focused heavily on food production and agriculture and farmland and all that kind of stuff. And so, with that, over the last two and a half years as I’ve worked with that, we’ve had a lot of coverage on the federal cuts since Trump came back into office. 53 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:53.360 Dave Price: with different programs that could pay local producers for meat and produce to provide their products in their local vicinity. And some of it was an expansion during the Biden administration, and the Trump administration cut a lot of that stuff. 54 00:10:53.360 --> 00:11:02.590 Dave Price: And it’s always interesting to me when I hear, like, you’re talking about the Double Up Food Program, Double Up Bucks, whatever the heck it’s called. 55 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:21.580 Dave Price: we talk about how are we going to support our farmers, because it’s going to be hard for a small family farmer to compete anyway when you’re going up against these giant conglomerates to begin with. But we have, on the federal level, eliminated some of the programs that helped to do that. 56 00:11:21.580 --> 00:11:31.019 Dave Price: I believe these aren’t… it’s not quite apples to apples, but Mike Neg at the State Department of Agriculture, they’ve expanded some programs here. 57 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:43.440 Dave Price: recently that could do some of this, but Laura, when you’re talking about connecting people to healthy food and fruit and vegetables and all that, I’m gonna be curious, especially in the governor’s race with Zach Lahn and Rob Sand. 58 00:11:43.470 --> 00:11:57.620 Dave Price: how are… whether they’re going to lean into… because they both talked about, like, local, buying local, those kind of things. There… it seems like some smart person could find a way to create a better system 59 00:11:57.690 --> 00:12:11.200 Dave Price: to connect our local producers with the people who need that healthy food, regardless of whether they are receiving food assistance or not. That’s my soapbox for this week. Just seems like there’s got to be a way to make that happen. 60 00:12:13.160 --> 00:12:25.070 Dave Price: Okay, maybe I’m gonna use that in my gubernatorial campaign that I’m gonna announce next week, so stay tuned for that. Okay, so this is, like, celebrating the Capitol Dispatch Week, but. 61 00:12:25.800 --> 00:12:26.160 Kathie Obradovich: Oops! 62 00:12:26.160 --> 00:12:30.639 Dave Price: Yeah, Kathie, talk about Cami’s story. 63 00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:34.449 Dave Price: Where she looked at some of this data. 64 00:12:35.030 --> 00:12:52.759 Dave Price: And let me set this up this way, that the Trump administration did a bunch of changes, obviously, in this second term. Part of it was Doge-related, and we had wondered how these pretty major staffing reductions were going to impact people. 65 00:12:52.920 --> 00:12:58.200 Dave Price: In that, a lot of these things didn’t seem to be done selectively, it was like a… 66 00:12:58.630 --> 00:13:13.820 Dave Price: you know, big, big old chunks all at once, so there was clearly going to be some fallout. Regardless of whether you think, big picture, this is the right decision, wrong decision, whatever, it was going to get… it was going to be rough when you eliminate so many people so quickly. 67 00:13:13.830 --> 00:13:23.880 Dave Price: So, on the agriculture side with USDA, there are a couple of different agencies under USDA in particular that CAMI looked into. 68 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:28.590 Dave Price: And fairly substantial staffing cuts. 69 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:43.299 Dave Price: And we knew that some of these things were going to happen. CAMI is the first one I’ve seen in our state to lay out what they mean in our state. But we’re also now hearing from the local farmers who have then lost access 70 00:13:43.590 --> 00:13:49.810 Dave Price: To some of these resources they used to be able to have more readily available to them in their county. 71 00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:55.059 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so, first of all, Cami started… 72 00:13:55.170 --> 00:14:17.890 Kathie Obradovich: Oh, gosh, last year, or early in the year, maybe over the winter, trying to figure out, you know, where these staffing cuts were going to be, and how they would land in these, in these, USDA offices. And, she kept being told. 73 00:14:17.890 --> 00:14:27.019 Kathie Obradovich: oh, we’re not gonna have… we’re not gonna lose any staff. I mean, it was… it was… it was sort of a blatantly nothing-to-see-here kind of message. 74 00:14:27.020 --> 00:14:52.020 Kathie Obradovich: And then this, this organization called the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition came out with a report that basically said that across the country, roughly 20% of staff in state and county-level offices were being cut through USDA. The report focused on the Natural Resources Conservation Service. 75 00:14:52.020 --> 00:14:54.010 Kathie Obradovich: or NRCS. 76 00:14:54.350 --> 00:15:10.909 Kathie Obradovich: They’re the ones that administer a lot of the, well, I mean, it’s in the name, conservation programs for farms. And then also the Farm Service Agency, they had fewer cuts, but still, significant. 77 00:15:10.910 --> 00:15:16.639 Kathie Obradovich: And, and so, you know, looking in Iowa, for example. 78 00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:41.629 Kathie Obradovich: the people who were cut most often in Iowa were county program analysts, and these are the staff that producers rely on to help them with pro… with their programs and paperwork. Farmers that we talked to said, you know, that the thing that they feel like they lose the most is, you know, you’d be able to come into your county, 79 00:15:41.630 --> 00:16:05.040 Kathie Obradovich: SDA office, and, you know, somebody would be there that you’ve dealt with before, who knows your farm, or at least knows the topography of the region, and can help you with these programs. And now, you know, Polk County has no one left. They’re bringing in somebody from Boone County for one day a week. The office is open. 80 00:16:05.040 --> 00:16:06.000 Kathie Obradovich: So… 81 00:16:06.070 --> 00:16:30.370 Kathie Obradovich: So it does have an impact. It is something that, you know, when you talk about farmers already being under stress, that, you know, having trouble dealing with the paperwork, you know, having to deal with new people who don’t know the background, that just adds to the stress that farmers are also feeling because of the cost of inputs and the 82 00:16:30.370 --> 00:16:47.979 Kathie Obradovich: the market uncertainty and, you know, all of that kind of stuff that has been going on. So it’s, you know, it is something that, you know, I think that we’re not hearing a lot about it yet, but it is something I think that just sort of adds to the worries that farmers have. 83 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:49.390 Dave Price: We had… 84 00:16:49.390 --> 00:16:53.590 Laura Belin: Such great reporting, Kathie, really excellent reporting by Cami. 85 00:16:53.590 --> 00:16:54.790 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, she’s great. 86 00:16:54.930 --> 00:17:10.369 Dave Price: It really is, because when you hear… at the beginning, it was very difficult to get any kind of concrete information about what these staff changes were mean, and when you’re assured that farmers are still going to be able to access the resources they need. 87 00:17:10.810 --> 00:17:18.120 Dave Price: At the beginning, you know, it’s hard to know at the beginning, because the changes are just happening, so you don’t really have any tangible way to show yes or no. 88 00:17:19.460 --> 00:17:24.760 Dave Price: these are happening or not happening, and so Cami’s is the first one I’ve seen that… that shows that the… 89 00:17:25.310 --> 00:17:30.670 Dave Price: The num… now shows the numbers, but also has the… the concrete… 90 00:17:31.230 --> 00:17:46.819 Dave Price: interviews with people saying that, yeah, this is what’s disappeared. I’m gonna be curious if, now that it’s out in the public domain, if anything changes, how will, especially Senators Grassley and Ernst get involved in this? Will they try to restore some of this? 91 00:17:46.820 --> 00:18:00.859 Dave Price: And USCA is also doing this major relocation effort, where they’re moving quite a bit of their staff out of DC to different hubs across the country, sort of organized by specialty, if you will. 92 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:20.700 Dave Price: And so that’s going to create a bunch of upheaval, too. Another one of these massive changes that really we won’t know until probably down the road, whether people are better or worse off from it. Supposed to bring some of the staff closer to the people they serve, but we’ve now seen these staffing reductions on the state level that are removing some of the people. 93 00:18:21.290 --> 00:18:38.640 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and part of the… part of the issue, too, is a lot of these people are not going to relocate. For sure. They’re going to find other jobs, so… so you’ve got, you know, you’re losing experience, you’re losing, institutional knowledge, and all of that, you know, yeah, you know, I think… 94 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:48.390 Kathie Obradovich: What farmers here are worried about more is the local people that they know, who know them, as opposed to somebody in DC, but it still all trickles down. 95 00:18:49.750 --> 00:18:57.139 Dave Price: Let’s close out this week with a little horse race stuff. Laura, the Fox News has a U.S. Senate poll. 96 00:18:57.410 --> 00:19:07.960 Dave Price: In Iowa. And on this podcast, we don’t make too big a deal out of polls, because they are, as we know, just a snapshot. 97 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:24.460 Dave Price: in time, and we’re also talking in July, and the election’s not till November. But as you look at some of these numbers from this Fox News poll, it has the Democrat Josh Turek at 50, it has the Republican Ashley Henson at 46. 98 00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:37.520 Dave Price: that’s about… that’s about the margin of error or so. So, it… yet another indication that this is a battleground race in a more… 99 00:19:37.760 --> 00:19:41.329 Dave Price: Maybe a less deep reddish-looking state right now. 100 00:19:42.220 --> 00:19:58.180 Laura Belin: Well, I said yesterday, it’s kind of like choose your own adventure with the Iowa polls, because the New York Times-Siena poll of Iowa that came out this week had a very tight race for governor, with Rob Sand only ahead of Zach Lahn by one point. 101 00:19:58.180 --> 00:20:11.499 Laura Belin: And Ashley Hinson leading Josh Turek by 2 points, and then this Fox News poll that you mentioned has Sand ahead of Lahn by 9, and has Turek ahead of Hinson by 4. So clearly. 102 00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:28.100 Laura Belin: they are modeling different electorates. I mean, it could be something as simple as just random sample, right? That you could just get a different sample, but different methodology, different assumptions about what the electorate will look like. I was trying to… I was going back and forth with 103 00:20:28.100 --> 00:20:46.299 Laura Belin: the… one of the people involved with the Fox News poll yesterday, and they did not want to give me, like, the overall aggregate number of what it… as they weighted their sample, what did it look like in terms of remembering in 2024 whether they voted for Harris or Trump? Because… 104 00:20:46.300 --> 00:21:10.480 Laura Belin: The New York Times-Siena poll has… that respondent poll has an electorate that favored Trump by about 8 points. Of course, he won Iowa by 13 points, but you can’t assume that the electorate that’s going to vote this November is going to be exactly the same composition as the people who voted in 2024. So, they seem to be making some assumptions about Democrats being more energized. 105 00:21:10.520 --> 00:21:34.590 Laura Belin: But the Fox News poll had even better numbers for Democrats, and they… I was just told that they don’t release those numbers. Typically, those aggregate numbers, like how many people in this sample voted for Harris and how many voted for Trump. But they did release the breakdown of their poll by party ID, and their sample for the Fox News poll had 48% Republican. 106 00:21:34.610 --> 00:21:38.569 Laura Belin: 41% Democrat and 12% Independent. 107 00:21:38.580 --> 00:21:57.720 Laura Belin: So, if you… it suggests that Rob Sand is getting quite a bit of Republican crossover vote, and maybe Josh Turek is getting some too, and it also suggests that both Democrats are doing very well among the independents. And if you’re asking, why only 12% independent. 108 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:22.659 Laura Belin: because there are so many registered voters who are independents in Iowa, the turnout for independents really goes off a cliff in a midterm election. So you’re much more likely to vote in a non-presidential year if you’re affiliated with a Democratic or Republican party compared to being a no-party voter. So that’s why, even though independents may be more than a third of the Iowa electorate, we can be pretty certain they won’t be more than a third of the people who cast 109 00:22:22.660 --> 00:22:24.070 Laura Belin: ballots in November. 110 00:22:24.620 --> 00:22:29.360 Dave Price: Kathie, we don’t see a lot of horse race coverage on the Capitol Dispatch. Why not? 111 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:49.130 Kathie Obradovich: Because I still miss Ann Selzer. I was just gonna say, thank you, Laura, for trying to look into the methodology of these polls, because it is super important. I learned, over years of, learning from Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register’s former, former political pollster. 112 00:22:49.160 --> 00:23:03.879 Kathie Obradovich: that, you know, when… when polls start trying to predict what the electorate is gonna look like, it introduces all kinds of potential for… for error, and… which is why she never did it. I mean, she… she would wait… 113 00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:27.799 Kathie Obradovich: the sample for demographics only, and not for, you know, whether somebody voted last time, or, you know, whether their, hair is gray, or, you know, whatever. And they… but pollsters do that, and then they don’t disclose what they did, and that is the… that’s the part 114 00:23:27.800 --> 00:23:44.240 Kathie Obradovich: where I start to get really suspicious is, well, how did you cook this, you know, sample so that you, it looks like how you think the electro’s gonna look like? You know, people… people change, you know? They can… 115 00:23:44.290 --> 00:23:54.939 Kathie Obradovich: change their mind. They can… they can say that they’re a Democrat and vote Republican. They can, you know, these things happen. And, polling is such a… 116 00:23:55.010 --> 00:24:09.839 Kathie Obradovich: you know, it’s such a difficult thing, political polling. It’s why Ann Sulzer’s not doing it anymore. Political polling is so difficult now, that, you know, when you just… when you have secret methodologies, I just… I… 117 00:24:09.840 --> 00:24:20.500 Kathie Obradovich: I worry about it. Now, it helps me that we’ve got sort of similar, I mean, not really the same results, but at least they’re sort of in the ballpark. 118 00:24:20.790 --> 00:24:27.680 Kathie Obradovich: with these polls, you know, what I take out of it, though, bottom line, these are close races, and we knew that already. 119 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:51.569 Laura Belin: Yeah, I mean, Henson is not at 50% in any poll that I’ve seen. Hinson is in the mid-40s in about all of the polling, so that tells you something. But to… I’m just trying to remember which state it was, but the New York Times, they gave their raw survey data to 4 different companies in 2024, and the polling firms came up with 4 different results for Harris and Trump. 120 00:24:51.570 --> 00:24:57.000 Laura Belin: With the exact same survey responses, based on assumptions they were making about the electorate. 121 00:24:57.190 --> 00:25:12.060 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, it’s crazy. You know, I think it’s definitely reader or viewer beware when it comes to these polls. You know, you don’t want to put, as Dave said, you don’t want to put too much stock in them, especially not this early. 122 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:26.340 Dave Price: And that’s hard, because there’s such a lack of information about a lot of these, and you do just get the top-line numbers, and those are the easiest things to report in a lot of traditional media sources. 123 00:25:26.340 --> 00:25:36.619 Dave Price: And so you see candidate X up by 2 in this one, but down by 3 in this one, and tied in this one, and you’re like, well, what the heck does this stuff mean? But… 124 00:25:36.770 --> 00:25:42.199 Dave Price: those assumptions that they bake in that you talked about, Kathie, could make the world of difference. 125 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:44.730 Kathie Obradovich: And then what’s more interesting… 126 00:25:44.730 --> 00:26:09.700 Kathie Obradovich: I think the more useful information from these polls anyway is the why, telling us why people are supporting one candidate or another, you know, what is it that makes the difference? Because, you know, ultimately we’re going to know who wins on election day. You know, that one… that one has a finite answer, but, you know, we don’t have the ability to interview every voter to find out exactly why they’re supporting somebody. 127 00:26:09.700 --> 00:26:10.340 Kathie Obradovich: studying. 128 00:26:10.590 --> 00:26:14.549 Dave Price: That used to drive me crazy when the register would have a new poll out. 129 00:26:14.560 --> 00:26:27.880 Dave Price: What I loved about the polls is that you could then have one of the reporters follow up with one of the poll respondents to get that extra layer of the why. 130 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:38.309 Dave Price: like, who is this person, and why did you support the person you did? So then we’re stuck with… we get, as the media organization that didn’t sponsor the poll. 131 00:26:38.310 --> 00:26:50.230 Dave Price: We get, essentially, the top-line numbers and some other stuff, but we don’t have the people, and it’s the people that add all of the substance to those numbers. So I used to… that’s why I always loved… 132 00:26:50.420 --> 00:27:07.130 Dave Price: reading the… the write-ups on it, where you could find out that Mary and Creston did… used to be this, and instead she’s now going this way, and Frank up in Cedar Rapids is doing this, and whatever. That was probably my favorite part of the poll, honestly, beyond the top numbers. 133 00:27:07.130 --> 00:27:15.749 Kathie Obradovich: we call those people poll talkers, and sometimes it’s kind of terrifying. I remember one time I was calling poll talkers. 134 00:27:15.750 --> 00:27:40.680 Kathie Obradovich: And, it was in a… it was in a previous gubernatorial race, you know, years ago. And, the person I got on the phone had voted in the… or had, you know, given an opinion in the governor’s race, had agreed to speak to a reporter, and I said, so, you know, why did you choose the candidate you chose? And she said, no, who’s running for governor? 135 00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:41.430 Kathie Obradovich: again. 136 00:27:43.550 --> 00:27:49.479 Kathie Obradovich: And I was like… Okay. Well, you know what, thanks so much, nevermind. 137 00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:53.340 Dave Price: Yeah, exactly. This is not gonna go far. 138 00:27:53.570 --> 00:28:18.449 Laura Belin: I’m a groupie of the focus group podcast that Sarah Longwell does for the bulwark, because she does these focus groups. They aren’t necessarily giving you a representative slice of the electorate, but they can be so illuminating. So she will pull a focus group of a very specific segment, like people who voted for Trump… for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024. And she’s done a lot of groups with those 139 00:28:18.450 --> 00:28:43.449 Laura Belin: people to try to figure out what it was, or people who say they voted for Trump in 2024 and they don’t approve of his work now. Of course, the majority of people who voted for Trump in 2024 are still with him, but by really drilling down with these groups of people who say they don’t approve of Trump, it’s so fascinating to know what stories have broken through, what political news… because when you’re so immersed in the political news. 140 00:28:43.450 --> 00:28:51.579 Laura Belin: forget that most voters are not. Like, they are maybe only hearing about a small fraction of the political news that we’re immersed in every day. 141 00:28:51.980 --> 00:28:52.960 Kathie Obradovich: Exactly. 142 00:28:52.960 --> 00:29:09.959 Dave Price: And so many of these issues are so multi-layered and so complicated that unless you’re willing to really invest the time to dig into it, you maybe only know bits and pieces, or maybe know virtually nothing about it. You know, like you talked… like we just talked about the polls. 143 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:20.670 Dave Price: If you don’t have a way to invest like you do, and you’re not normal, clearly. And we say that in a complimentary way, but right? Like, people aren’t… 144 00:29:20.790 --> 00:29:24.270 Dave Price: Most people are not gonna reach out to the… 145 00:29:24.350 --> 00:29:33.810 Dave Price: Fox News pollsters to try to figure out how they put together their poll. Like, people don’t do that. You’re gonna look at the 50 to 46 and go, oh, okay, Turret can win, maybe. 146 00:29:33.810 --> 00:29:48.350 Dave Price: But, and with all the other issues that are involved in everything, we talked about the residency thing on here with Zach Lahn, is that the thing that’s gonna stick? That ad that Republican governors have on against SAN, saying that he didn’t do his job? 147 00:29:48.420 --> 00:30:02.630 Dave Price: Essentially, and I’m paraphrasing, but, you know, like, what is the stuff that’s gonna stick? What’s not, and they all try stuff to see which one goes, which one doesn’t, but those focus groups are so fascinating to see what is it that, like… 148 00:30:03.870 --> 00:30:08.609 Dave Price: that connects with you? Is it the price of gas? Like, do we overthink all kinds of other stuff? 149 00:30:08.770 --> 00:30:23.230 Dave Price: Like, we can talk about the reflecting pool and all kinds of stuff, and this and that, and January 6th, and all that stuff, but are some of the Trump people gonna leave because they’re pissed off about gas prices, and they’re like, this guy said he’s gonna make my life cheaper, and he did, and I’m out. Like, you know what I mean? 150 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:25.110 Dave Price: It’s so basic. 151 00:30:25.340 --> 00:30:36.539 Laura Belin: That is a big part… that’s a big takeaway from a lot of the Sarah Longwell groups. I mean, especially the Biden to Trump voters. It was like, things are too expensive, I was doing better when Trump was president. 152 00:30:36.540 --> 00:30:37.150 Dave Price: The first time. 153 00:30:37.150 --> 00:30:51.240 Laura Belin: And to a slightly lesser degree, immigration was a motivator for some people, but… and the Trump voters who now disapprove of him, it’s very strong, this idea that he said he was going to bring the prices down and everything’s still very expensive. 154 00:30:52.910 --> 00:31:02.339 Dave Price: Indeed. Alright, good to catch up with you, as always, ladies. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the 4th. Best wishes to your cat, Kathie. 155 00:31:02.560 --> 00:31:05.939 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, he’ll… he’ll be fine. 156 00:31:05.940 --> 00:31:20.809 Dave Price: Thank you all for supporting us here at the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. Thanks to all of you who have contributed as paid subscribers. We greatly appreciate you. This allows us to keep doing this week after week, so thank you very much, and thanks to the rest of you 157 00:31:20.810 --> 00:31:34.390 Dave Price: who are also willing to not only just consume this in whatever form you do, but to share this and to send it to your friends and family. That helps us grow week by week. We very much appreciate that as well. Have a great weekend, and we will talk to you next week. Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe [https://iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/27/26

Audio has leaked of RFK Jr. calling Libertarian candidate Rick Stewart, pushing him to drop out of the 2nd District race without ever making a concrete offer. That’s part of a bigger pattern of Republicans working to push Libertarians off the ballot, both through direct calls like this one and through legal challenges. Marco Battalia got disqualified over a name issue, and the Libertarian governor and lieutenant governor candidates are now fighting their own disqualification in court. We also revisited Governor Reynolds’ use of CARES Act money to pay 21 staffers back in 2020, a story Laura broke at the time and Rob Sand has criticized for nearly six years. This week the Trump Treasury sent a letter saying the spending was fine, and Sand pushed back, standing by his original finding. You can read Laura’s original stories on the topic here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/12/07/exclusive-iowa-governor-overspent-office-budget-before-tapping-cares-act/], here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/09/13/exclusive-iowa-governor-used-cares-act-funds-to-pay-staff-salaries/], and here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/10/27/exclusive-payment-scheme-concealed-cares-act-funds-for-governors-staff/]. Finally, we covered the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s likely to knock out hundreds of Roundup cancer lawsuits, since there’s no federal cancer warning requirement on glyphosate. Both gubernatorial candidates oppose the ruling, and we noted the awkward spot it puts Zach Lahn in given his MAHA messaging and RFK Jr.’s silence on the issue. To become or paid (or free) subscriber go ahead and click that button above. If you’d like to make a one-time donation to help us here at Iowa Down Ballot and everyone with the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative please click the button below. Have a great weekend! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:20.510 --> 00:00:32.439 Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, our weekly conversation about all things in Iowa politics, and then maybe some other stuff that impacts Iowa politics. 4 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:41.690 Dave Price: I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, two of my colleagues from the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Happy Friday, ladies! 5 00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:43.519 Kathie Obradovich: Happy Friday! 6 00:00:43.670 --> 00:00:45.110 Laura Belin: Good Friday to you. 7 00:00:45.110 --> 00:01:05.009 Dave Price: And we say that, obviously, for those of you who may be new to this conversation. We usually record on Fridays, and this podcast drops on Saturdays. It’s a little CYA maneuver in case something really, really big happens on a Friday night. So you might be thinking, why did these fools not talk about it? Well, that’s why, because you have to record this at some point. 8 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:07.689 Dave Price: And so we do, usually, at some point on… 9 00:01:07.810 --> 00:01:15.550 Dave Price: on Fridays. Ladies, I was thinking about my life on Thursday night, and, you know, it’s sometimes 10 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:25.920 Dave Price: maybe this is just me because I’m weird, but sometimes I just have, like, these random thoughts about things we’ve done and experienced in our professional careers and stuff. 11 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:38.280 Dave Price: And, my family was all gone last night, and I was working on this RFK Jr. phone call to the Libertarian congressional candidate, Rick Stewart. 12 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:48.290 Dave Price: which, first of all, just that sentence that I just said is unique enough, right? So I’m finding myself… so we have the audio of this phone call. 13 00:01:48.420 --> 00:02:01.060 Dave Price: And, you know, for our purposes, we’ve got to do some editing to it, we have to put their pictures up every time they talk, there are audio issues with the whole thing, there’s this weird… in the recording we got from the Libertarian Party, there’s a… 14 00:02:01.100 --> 00:02:19.099 Dave Price: little gap in the audio, so I was trying to figure out what the heck that means. Plus, at the end of the conversation, or end of the recording, it just sort of stops. So, you know, you gotta look at this thing and try to vet it and be like, alright, is this thing real? Like, what the heck’s going on? Plus, Rick Stewart’s voice is like this, and RFK is, like… 15 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:20.040 Kathie Obradovich: Great. 16 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:27.540 Dave Price: It talks anyway, but it’s, like, not very loud, so I’m trying to figure out, do I want to alter the video so that people can hear it better? 17 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:35.180 Dave Price: But then, you know, I don’t want a 60 minutes moment here of anybody accusing me of, you know, putting this stuff together differently, but… 18 00:02:35.440 --> 00:02:40.450 Dave Price: First of all, forget the journalism side of this, and the relevance to politics and all this stuff. 19 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:52.120 Dave Price: I mean, it was one of those days, I’m like, I am literally listening to a phone call from RFK Jr. with a guy who’s a libertarian, who’s run for office a ton of different times over the years. 20 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:56.849 Dave Price: And RFK Jr. is trying to get him to drop out of the race. Like, what a… 21 00:02:57.290 --> 00:02:58.910 Dave Price: What a unique story. 22 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:03.130 Kathie Obradovich: You hear about those things happening in politics. 23 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:12.960 Kathie Obradovich: know, and but so, it is so rare, one, that there’s actual audio of the call. I don’t know why more candidates… 24 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:23.470 Kathie Obradovich: Especially those who come back and accuse their opponents of doing such things, why more of them don’t record. Because in Iowa, it is legal. I mean, some states, you can’t… 25 00:03:23.470 --> 00:03:36.189 Kathie Obradovich: record a call, if… unless all parties know. In Iowa, you can record the call as long as one party, you know, like yourself, knows. 26 00:03:36.190 --> 00:03:44.020 Kathie Obradovich: That the recording is happening. So, in some states, there’s wiretap laws that wouldn’t even allow that, but… and I wonder why… 27 00:03:44.240 --> 00:04:08.710 Kathie Obradovich: you know, I was thinking about why RFK Jr. would, you know, call somebody on the phone and, you know, try to get them to drop out of the race, and, you know, in the age when, you know, you can easily make a recording of a phone call, and it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t realize that you could do that in Iowa legally without announcing it. Anyway, but yeah, it’s unusual to have an audio of the call, and secondly. 28 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:31.970 Kathie Obradovich: unusual that somebody so high profile is involved, you know? I mean, usually these things are handled through intermediaries, right? If it’s… if we can say that such a thing is usual. So… so yeah, that was… it was kind of an eye-popping thing, and I, you know, I… I believed Marco Battalia when he said, you know, he raised this, you know, as part of the state objection panel. 29 00:04:31.970 --> 00:04:34.680 Kathie Obradovich: Part of it when they were kicking him off the ballot. 30 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:57.219 Kathie Obradovich: He was in the 3rd District. They were trying to kick him off the ballot, and he talked about how RFK Jr. and, the Zach Nunn campaign had contacted him, trying to get him to drop out. And none of that is illegal unless they make promises, right? They… they try to bribe them to drop out with some sort of promise. 31 00:04:57.220 --> 00:05:03.900 Kathie Obradovich: But it is… it does seem, you know, unseemly, at the very least, so… 32 00:05:04.150 --> 00:05:11.610 Laura Belin: I had the same thought as Kathie, like, did RFK know he was being recorded? And absolute… by the way, yes, for everyone out there. 33 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:34.659 Laura Belin: Iowa is a one-party consent state, so if you’re ever getting a newsworthy call, and I always say this even if it’s just a political opinion poll, just record that call, in case you want to refer to it later. Anyway, but Marco Battalia did not record his conversation, but apparently it did come from the same phone number, according to the Washington Post. The phone number 34 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:40.060 Laura Belin: that Marco Battalia received a call from on his phone was a number that 35 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:42.769 Laura Belin: others can connect to RFK Jr. 36 00:05:43.650 --> 00:05:57.520 Dave Price: And, for those wondering what the heck, why is RFK Jr. calling? For those of us who’ve been around for a little while, and really, this isn’t that many years ago, but we remember 2020, 37 00:05:57.850 --> 00:06:08.999 Dave Price: In the 3rd Congressional District, there was a guy who ran by the name of Brian Jack Holder. He ran as a Libertarian then. He got just enough sliver of the vote. 38 00:06:09.380 --> 00:06:26.709 Dave Price: that David Young, who was the incumbent Republican running against the Democrat, Cindy Axne, they look at the margin there and say, hey, if he would not have run, that could have… that could have been the difference there, and then maybe… maybe the Republican could have… could have won in that case. 39 00:06:26.710 --> 00:06:31.269 Laura Belin: It happened twice. Both of Cindy Axne’s races that she won, in 2018 and 2018. 40 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:32.360 Dave Price: and 20 a.m. 41 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:57.359 Laura Belin: He won in with, like, 49-point-something percent of the vote, and it happened in the Northeast Iowa congressional district. I believe they were independent candidates, not libertarians, but in 2010, Bruce Braley had a really close call against Ben Lang, and there were two other candidates on the ballot, and they combined to get, like, 3 or 3.5% of the vote, something like that. But in any case, it was more than the difference between Braley 42 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:11.380 Laura Belin: and Ben Lang. So I can see why Republicans would be worried about Rick Stewart in the second district. Of course, there’s also another independent candidate, Dave Bashaw, who might pull votes away from the Democrat, Lindsey Jane. 43 00:07:14.770 --> 00:07:18.570 Dave Price: Kathie, you look like you’re in deep thought, like you’re about Something profound. 44 00:07:18.570 --> 00:07:22.720 Kathie Obradovich: This way, I have 7 I want to say about that topic. Go ahead. 45 00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:43.890 Dave Price: I… and I listened to the audio, and I mentioned there was a little bit of a… there was a little bit of a gap in there, which we noted in our reporting, and I didn’t get an answer back from the party about why there was. And Laura, you’ve listened to this… this recording as well. Kathie, I’m not sure, have you listened to the whole thing yet or not? 46 00:07:43.890 --> 00:07:45.080 Kathie Obradovich: Not the whole thing, no. 47 00:07:45.260 --> 00:07:49.800 Dave Price: There’s nothing… like, Kathie, to your point about… 48 00:07:50.130 --> 00:07:57.519 Dave Price: you know, whether this is right or wrong, or there’s anything wrong with it. In the recording, from everything I listen to, like, there’s no… 49 00:07:57.580 --> 00:08:12.189 Dave Price: there is no quid pro quo, as they say. Like, there’s no promise of anything. Like, RFK just said that, he could advocate for Rick Stewart in DC. Stewart made a joke about 50 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:19.790 Dave Price: you know, are you offering me, he said, I guess I’m not getting offered a cabinet position, or something like that. 51 00:08:19.790 --> 00:08:35.030 Dave Price: And, Kennedy’s conversation to him was like, look, I ran for president as an independent, and I reached the point where I had to figure out, you know, is it good basically just to run and do your thing, or can you make a bigger difference by doing something else? 52 00:08:35.640 --> 00:08:51.669 Dave Price: is, you know, he was talking to Democrats, he was talking to Trump, I mean, he ended up supporting Trump, and now he’s a… now he’s a United States Secretary, so, you know, that path worked for him, and clearly the platform got a lot bigger. And he’s trying to lay out, hey, here’s what I did. 53 00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:57.850 Dave Price: perhaps there is something else that you can do. He never said directly 54 00:08:58.430 --> 00:09:05.219 Dave Price: drop out, we’ll get you a job. He didn’t say anything like that, but he said, I can help advocate for you, for whatever. 55 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:24.549 Laura Belin: And there was, at one point, he… RFK said that I can’t… let me… let me read the exact quote that he said. I can’t go into specifics, because there’s legal prohibitions about that. And then, shortly after that, Rick Stewart asked something like, do you mean I would be working with you 56 00:09:24.550 --> 00:09:38.069 Laura Belin: And… and RFK said something like, well, that could be a possibility. He definitely… he did not offer anything concrete, because that would be illegal to offer some kind of concrete inducement, but it… I… 57 00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:49.320 Laura Belin: I think he kept going back to the issue of trying to stress, you know, what can you really accomplish in this race, and think about what you can really accomplish. So… 58 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:58.700 Laura Belin: It was interesting. It was an interesting conversation, but RFK obviously was aware that he could not promise anything specific. 59 00:10:00.050 --> 00:10:06.799 Dave Price: And it just sort of adds to this overall effort by the Republicans to try to keep 60 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:22.090 Dave Price: libertarians off the ballot, whether they try to do it through the legal challenge process through the state, or direct conversations to try to get them to drop out. Clearly, they are looking at some races that they think could be very tight, and they want to do whatever they can to… 61 00:10:22.290 --> 00:10:28.059 Dave Price: try to help their case. And it reminded me of what President Trump did, pushing… 62 00:10:28.260 --> 00:10:31.339 Dave Price: States all over the country to try to do this. 63 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:47.610 Dave Price: unique, for sure, effort to redo their congressional boundaries mid-decade, you know, a process that’s not the way it normally works. And, we don’t have to worry about that in our state, since we have the nonpartisan system that we use here. 64 00:10:49.530 --> 00:10:50.420 Kathie Obradovich: Yes. 65 00:10:50.870 --> 00:11:01.350 Dave Price: Okay, then there’s also, we also talked about the challenge, but then the legal process, the libertarians have not given up. I mean, they’re still working to try to get on the ballot. 66 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:15.300 Laura Belin: The candidates for governor and Lieutenant Governor Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler filed their appeal in the district court this week, and I haven’t seen any court filing from Marco Battalia, but I have been told that that will be coming. 67 00:11:15.890 --> 00:11:40.490 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, he said… he said he was going to file. He hadn’t filed as of yesterday afternoon, when we checked last. You know, they… both of these should be really interesting court cases to follow, not only because of how the law is being interpreted. I mean, it’s so interesting, and, you know, if you listened to us last week, you know all about this, but, you know, Marco Battalia has run for office. 68 00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:42.240 Kathie Obradovich: Office under that name. 69 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:57.740 Kathie Obradovich: for years, you know, for years and years. And, you know, so they’re basically kicking him off, because his real name is Mark Anderson, and that, you know, to me, is… is so interesting, and, you know, Roxanne. 70 00:11:57.740 --> 00:12:11.620 Kathie Obradovich: did raise this as, you know, aren’t you arguing against yourself after you’ve… after you’ve let him on the ballot under that name for years and years? Anyway, but… but yeah, so that is… that’s an interesting case, and then the… 71 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:20.460 Kathie Obradovich: The gubernatorial case, which has actually been filed, there’s a dispute with the Secretary of State’s office about whether a worker there 72 00:12:20.460 --> 00:12:29.129 Kathie Obradovich: gave… Jules Cutler, the advice that she did not need to submit an affidavit of candidacy, which 73 00:12:29.130 --> 00:12:44.049 Kathie Obradovich: that’s what Jules Cutler says, the Secretary of State’s office, worker, denies that and doesn’t even remember seeing Jules Cutler there on the day that they were submitting those on, on June 2nd. 74 00:12:44.050 --> 00:12:59.380 Kathie Obradovich: So, you know, I think that that… these are also interesting, and, you know, if they try to bring RFK Jr. into the whole thing as well, you know, I think that that will… that will also add to the interest. 75 00:12:59.560 --> 00:13:00.470 Laura Belin: Speaking of… 76 00:13:00.470 --> 00:13:24.369 Laura Belin: when people should have recorded, right? Somebody who was with Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler should have recorded them submitting their paperwork, and if they were told that she didn’t need the affidavit, somebody should have started recording with their phone and gotten her to say, again, are you sure that you don’t need this affidavit? Because that would have helped clear things up. I was not there when they submitted their paperwork. I was… I talked to… 77 00:13:24.370 --> 00:13:29.600 Laura Belin: Nicholas Gloob at the Capitol that day, but I did not walk over to the Lucas Building, where the Secretary of State’s 78 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:54.580 Laura Belin: staff was where they actually submitted the signature, so I didn’t see or hear what happened, but somebody could have recorded that. I wanted to say that the libertarians are bringing up… so the legal issues are very different, because Marco Battalia was just excluded from the ballot because of the name issue, but the case involving the Libertarian candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are so different, and they are also raising a legal issue that I thought that they should have filed 79 00:13:54.580 --> 00:14:17.190 Laura Belin: a lawsuit last year, honestly, that they didn’t. The state moved up the filing deadline for third-party and independent candidates to the date of the primary election. It used to be, for decades, that libertarians or third party or independent candidates had until the same day in late August that the Democratic and Republican parties have to nominate people 80 00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:35.520 Laura Belin: for vacancy. So they raised this issue. There was a law in 2019 that tried to move that filing deadline for third parties up to March, and that was actually struck down. A federal judge ruled that that was unconstitutional. So when they passed the law last year, moving the filing deadline up to June. 81 00:14:35.570 --> 00:14:58.599 Laura Belin: I thought the libertarians had a strong case to sue again, but they didn’t file the suit. But they did bring it up in this case, so the court does have the opportunity to say, hey, this early filing deadline is unconstitutional, and so then there would be plenty of time before August for Nicholas Glub and Jules Cutler to submit their paperwork again, this time with the affidavit of candidacy. 82 00:14:59.150 --> 00:15:05.309 Kathie Obradovich: It seems so weird to me, and I didn’t know that this was the case before this particular situation, that 83 00:15:05.530 --> 00:15:08.439 Kathie Obradovich: That the governor candidate 84 00:15:08.710 --> 00:15:20.839 Kathie Obradovich: can’t qualify for the ballot unless the lieutenant governor candidate qualifies. You know, they didn’t say anything about Nicholas Gluba’s qualifications or paperwork. 85 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:34.639 Kathie Obradovich: It’s the… it’s his running mate, Jules Cutler, who didn’t have an affidavit of candidacy, and that seems really strange to me, that, you know, both of these candidates would be excluded. You can’t have one without the other. 86 00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:40.210 Laura Belin: Well, and there is precedent from the 1970s. There was a case where the candidate 87 00:15:40.210 --> 00:16:02.080 Laura Belin: submitted… didn’t submit enough signatures, but they had relied on incorrect advice from staff, election staff, who said, you need whatever signatures, and that’s what they went with. It turned out the law had been changed, and it increased the number of signatures, but there is precedent for the Iowa Supreme Court to say that if they were in good faith relying on advice from staff. 88 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:10.179 Laura Belin: That that should, you know, that should take precedence, and that, you know, you should err on the side of giving voters more choices 89 00:16:10.180 --> 00:16:27.030 Laura Belin: rather than the strict compliance with the law. Now, the current Iowa Supreme Court has been more in the camp of strict compliance with provisions of election law, but we’ll see what they come up with. I assume that whichever way this comes out in district court, it’s gonna go up to the Iowa Supreme Court regardless. 90 00:16:27.030 --> 00:16:40.149 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and this isn’t the first time the Iowa Supreme Court has heard, you know, cases about libertarians have been kicked off the ballot, and generally speaking, they have not agreed to let the libertarians stay on the ballot. 91 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:40.920 Kathie Obradovich: So… 92 00:16:41.670 --> 00:16:46.660 Dave Price: You mentioned Rob Sand earlier. So, earlier this week. 93 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:58.870 Dave Price: We had a case involving Rob Sand and Governor Kim Reynolds from nearly 6 years ago, back in the COVID time, the period many of us would like to forget. 94 00:16:59.060 --> 00:17:18.769 Dave Price: And it comes down to how Governor Reynolds used some of the federal coronavirus emergency money to then pay for 21 members of her staff. This has led to, really, a long series of back and forth. Rob Sand talked about this. 95 00:17:18.980 --> 00:17:25.210 Dave Price: Either in October 1st, I know he did in November of 2020, I don’t remember if he did in October as well. 96 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:32.700 Dave Price: Saying that the… what she was doing was not the proper use of the money, these people were already on staff. 97 00:17:32.770 --> 00:17:46.850 Dave Price: they were already doing their jobs. The governor was arguing that because of COVID, their jobs were largely focused on COVID, they were working all the time, it was mostly COVID-related, they should be paid by this emergency money. 98 00:17:46.850 --> 00:17:55.089 Dave Price: Way back in the day, Laura, you reported on this. I don’t remember when you first reported on it, September, October, can’t remember. 99 00:17:55.090 --> 00:17:56.360 Laura Belin: So, I reported it… 100 00:17:56.360 --> 00:18:01.369 Kathie Obradovich: She totally broke the story, Dave. I mean, she was the first to report on it. 101 00:18:01.370 --> 00:18:01.900 Laura Belin: So I was. 102 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:03.379 Dave Price: I’ll let her toot her own a horn. 103 00:18:03.380 --> 00:18:05.860 Kathie Obradovich: No, I’ll toot it for her. 104 00:18:05.860 --> 00:18:06.320 Dave Price: knife. 105 00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:06.910 Kathie Obradovich: I was. 106 00:18:06.910 --> 00:18:24.389 Laura Belin: first to report in September of 2020 that the governor used CARES Act funds to pay staff salaries, and then I reported in October of 2020 that they routed this money through the Department of Homeland Security, the Iowa Department, so that it wouldn’t show up as flowing to the governor’s office. 107 00:18:24.390 --> 00:18:48.360 Laura Belin: But it wasn’t until December of 2020 that I got the documents that were kind of key documents that later appeared in the state auditor’s report. I think Rob Sand questioned the spending in October of 2020, but the documents that I considered kind of the smoking gun were documents where they had submitted… they… the… initially, there was a table that showed there was a shortfall in the governor’s budget. 108 00:18:48.360 --> 00:19:10.769 Laura Belin: And it showed what portions of these 21 people’s salaries could be covered under their budget allocation, and then what they needed to make things line up to overcome this shortfall. And somebody on the staff said, well, it’s supposed to be related to COVID, so can you change it so that it says it’s related to COVID? So they literally kept, like, all of the other numbers 109 00:19:10.770 --> 00:19:35.419 Laura Belin: in the table were exactly the same, except instead of the heading saying, you know, needed to balance appropriations, or needed for the shortfall, instead, all of a sudden it said, related to COVID-19. So… so it was like, they didn’t demonstrate that this work… all of these… almost all these people, all but one, were working for the governor’s office before the pandemic even happened, so… 110 00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:45.530 Laura Belin: it wasn’t like they took on additional people, and that’s why they incurred these additional expenses. They just ended up using the CARES Act. And I always felt 111 00:19:45.530 --> 00:20:03.720 Laura Belin: frustrated that the governor’s office was like, this is fine, it’s obviously allowed, and I felt like they wouldn’t have made it so difficult to find. If you looked on any of the public databases, it never said that there was CARES Act money going to the governor’s office, because it was all going to this other fund through the Homeland Security Department. 112 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:29.779 Kathie Obradovich: Well, plus, you have that shell game with the governor’s office does that, you know, staff working for the governor’s office are not being paid by the governor’s office, they’re being paid by various state agencies, and that was not new. It was happening even before COVID, so it, you know, unless you know somebody’s working for the governor’s office, you know, and their salary is coming from HHS or one of the other agencies. 113 00:20:29.780 --> 00:20:37.039 Kathie Obradovich: It just makes it even harder to figure out what exactly the governor’s budget is and what they’re spending their money on. 114 00:20:37.580 --> 00:20:43.269 Dave Price: And I think this practice predates Reynolds, right? Hasn’t this gone back for a while? 115 00:20:43.270 --> 00:20:44.040 Kathie Obradovich: Sure. 116 00:20:44.040 --> 00:20:46.399 Laura Belin: Even Vilsack and Kolak, although… 117 00:20:46.860 --> 00:21:01.490 Laura Belin: although I’ve done a lot of reporting on… this is actually how I ended up even finding that they were using the CARES Act money, because I had, for a series of years, I had requested these memorandums of understanding between the governor’s office and various state agencies, because 118 00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:24.459 Laura Belin: the Reynolds administration took this to a much higher level. Branstad had a few staff who were partly paid by agencies, but the Reynolds administration was outspending their budget by much, much more, and had more… and in any case, in this 2020 budget year, I realized that all of these memorandums of understanding for the state agencies, they all ended 119 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:36.510 Laura Belin: around mid-March of 2020, instead of going through the fiscal year through June 30th, like they usually had in previous years. So that is why I wondered, are they using some kind of COVID money to cover the last 120 00:21:36.510 --> 00:21:39.420 Laura Belin: Few months of the budget year, which it turned out they were. 121 00:21:39.690 --> 00:21:48.160 Dave Price: And I should mention the development of this week was the release from the U.S. Treasury Department, essentially saying that 122 00:21:48.580 --> 00:21:49.560 Dave Price: I’m gonna… 123 00:21:49.700 --> 00:22:09.610 Dave Price: interpret here. This is not a verbatim, but basically, it’s fine. They didn’t misspend any of this money, I think it was $449,000. So then the governor’s office sent this letter out. The head of the Department of Management, the former House Speaker, Craig Paulson, then insisted that State Auditor Rob Sand issue 124 00:22:09.610 --> 00:22:14.410 Dave Price: a new release to show that Treasury said that this was 125 00:22:14.410 --> 00:22:26.429 Dave Price: okay, since Sand has been critical of this for, now, almost 6 years. That then led to Rob Sand putting out a statement saying, no, it’s not okay. And I’m paraphrasing everything here, but… 126 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:38.149 Dave Price: No, it’s not okay, and this was wrong back then, it’s still wrong now, and just because you get a friendly administration to put a letter out 6 years later doesn’t cover up the fact that this was not the way to do it. 127 00:22:38.650 --> 00:22:41.379 Kathie Obradovich: Because the Treasury, under Biden. 128 00:22:41.510 --> 00:22:54.140 Kathie Obradovich: agreed with Rob Sand that this was not, you know, approved spending. So this is like the Trump administration treasury essentially reversing itself, isn’t it? I mean, they’re… 129 00:22:54.270 --> 00:22:55.440 Kathie Obradovich: Sort of. 130 00:22:55.440 --> 00:23:12.249 Laura Belin: Yeah, I mean, the State Auditor’s Office released material in 2021 that said, you know, we talked to people at Treasury’s Office of Inspector General, and they agreed with our interpretation. I have to say that every time I reached out to the Office of Inspector General. 131 00:23:12.250 --> 00:23:29.890 Laura Belin: in 2021, and I think I even went back to them in 2022 to find out, did you make a final determination about whether this was allowed? And they kept referring me to the Iowa State Auditor’s Office, so I never exactly got an independent… I didn’t get a message from Treasury OIG that said, like. 132 00:23:29.890 --> 00:23:53.399 Laura Belin: we agree this is definitely not okay, but I also never got anything from them that said, no, this is fine for the governor to spend the money this way. And the state auditor’s office issued… they had this back and forth going with the Department of Management and Craig Paulson back in 2021, saying, no, this is what… we talked about it, and the Treasury says you would have to submit it 133 00:23:53.400 --> 00:24:01.199 Laura Belin: You would have needed to submit contemporaneous documentation for this to be an allowable expense, so… 134 00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:05.840 Laura Belin: But it is true that clearly they have a more friendly administration now. 135 00:24:06.100 --> 00:24:18.429 Laura Belin: that reversed the finding. I don’t really know how it benefits Republicans. I guess it feeds their narrative that they think Rob Sanders politicized their office. And if I were them, I’m not sure I would reopen this whole can of worms, though. 136 00:24:19.340 --> 00:24:28.199 Dave Price: Hey, there… I know we’re coming up on time here, but this… this was such a big… there are… Supreme Court… the U.S. Supreme Court had several big rulings this week, but one of them… 137 00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:42.919 Dave Price: I was paying close attention to, just because of what we watched in the Iowa legislature, where they had discussed the idea of providing some additional protection for pesticide manufacturers to protect them against lawsuits. 138 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:51.670 Dave Price: And this all stems for… from… there have been hundreds, maybe it’s thousands of these individual lawsuits across the United States where people 139 00:24:51.670 --> 00:25:05.520 Dave Price: are alleging, and it’s primarily from the use of Roundup, both if you were using it maybe in your garden, or maybe on the more commercial side of it on a farm or something. But a lot of these people who got sick, I believe, were using it on the 140 00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:21.240 Dave Price: residential side. Non-hodgkin’s lymphoma was a couple of the primary diagnoses for a few of these folks who got ill. And there was the one case in Missouri where a gardener 141 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:29.890 Dave Price: got cancer, and I think had been awarded… it was one and a quarter million, I think. It was either one and a quarter or one.5 million, and I think that was the case. 142 00:25:29.970 --> 00:25:39.249 Dave Price: that was central to this recent United States Supreme Court ruling this week. Then you also had that humongous one that was, like, a $2 billion… 143 00:25:39.650 --> 00:25:53.450 Dave Price: case for a man in Georgia who also had that same form of cancer. Kathie, you do… your team does extensive work, covering agriculture, which is kind of one of your core tenets. 144 00:25:54.390 --> 00:26:06.360 Dave Price: Capital Dispatch, which I’m… now I’m gonna toot your horn. One of the things that I think you especially do well, and I say this as I’m gonna go speak to a group today, and I know this stuff’s gonna come up, where… 145 00:26:06.360 --> 00:26:22.699 Dave Price: I think we are finding out in the traditional legacy media, you can’t be all things to all people, and one of the brilliant things of whoever organized all of you that I think is so impressive about what you do at Capital Dispatch is you have, like, your… 146 00:26:22.840 --> 00:26:25.090 Dave Price: Kind of your tent poles of… 147 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:36.839 Dave Price: Of primary coverage, and that’s why, rather than chasing every car wreck or house fire, not that those things don’t matter to people, but you really dig into certain… 148 00:26:37.030 --> 00:26:48.970 Dave Price: certain beats, kind of old-school beats, and that’s why you dominate in these areas, so… Anyway, so now it’s time to teach your horn. I don’t know who came up with your mission, but they’re freakin’ geniuses, whoever they are. 149 00:26:48.970 --> 00:26:50.119 Kathie Obradovich: Well, thank you. 150 00:26:50.120 --> 00:27:06.429 Dave Price: And ag doesn’t… unfortunately, agriculture… and I’m biased on this because I do a side gig where I work with agriculture, but traditionally, the traditional legacy media don’t do a lot of coverage of agriculture, which is really too bad, and there are so many intersections of… it’s not just the people 151 00:27:06.870 --> 00:27:21.450 Dave Price: people who farm on the land, but it’s the production of food, the water that’s necessary. In this case, it’s how you grow it and the chemicals involved. Sorry, this is a long windup. But glyphosate, this really, really effective weed killer. 152 00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:27.640 Dave Price: That is used in Roundup, and that’s why farmers use this stuff. It’s so, so, so good at killing weeds. 153 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:46.639 Dave Price: And nothing in the United States, no federal agency has said that this causes cancer. And, individuals have said that they were exposed and they caught… they got cancer. But so, this big Supreme Court ruling this week, Kathie, you all had extensive coverage of it and what it means. 154 00:27:46.930 --> 00:28:11.440 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so, first of all, I think you alluded to this, but Bayer, which is the manufacturer of, they own one, Santo, which manufactures Roundup, they’ve come to the Capitol, and also in other Midwest states, the last few years, trying to, get state law to, essentially exempt them from liability for what they… what essentially are 155 00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.770 Kathie Obradovich: Warning label, 156 00:28:14.790 --> 00:28:39.770 Kathie Obradovich: issues. If the federal government, which, you know, we’re talking… we were talking about RFK, you know, if his agency doesn’t say, you know, this product causes cancer, then the product doesn’t have to have a warning on the label, and that lack of warning is what’s causing all of these people who have come down with cancer to now sue. Also, the fact that Europe bans collect 157 00:28:39.770 --> 00:29:04.740 Kathie Obradovich: glyphosate, and, because they say it causes cancer. So, you’ve got this situation where glyphosate is not sold in Europe. Farmers, you know, they want to use it here because it’s so effective, but on the other hand, and you’ve got the federal government who are not saying that it causes cancer, and you would think that RFK Jr, who is, you know. 158 00:29:04.740 --> 00:29:21.770 Kathie Obradovich: he’s supposedly against big ag, but he is not telling his agency to review that finding. So, now, you know, our state has not passed that legislation saying, you know, that you’re going to be exempting this pesticide maker from liability. 159 00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:31.819 Kathie Obradovich: If people get cancer in a state where cancer rates are rising, you know, it is… it’s a… it is a very political… 160 00:29:31.820 --> 00:29:43.149 Kathie Obradovich: issue, even though it comes down just to a sort of a dry thing about, you know, warning labels. So that Supreme Court ruling, probably kicks 161 00:29:43.150 --> 00:29:45.590 Kathie Obradovich: All of these hundreds of lawsuits. 162 00:29:45.590 --> 00:30:00.239 Kathie Obradovich: out of court. This is a big, big win for Bayer. It’ll be interesting to see if we see that legislation come back in Iowa, despite this ruling, like, you know, essentially trying to 163 00:30:00.350 --> 00:30:21.729 Kathie Obradovich: close the barn door after the horse is out. But, you know, the interesting thing to me as well was the reaction from our two gubernatorial candidates, Bullsack Lane, who has said he’s against big ag and concerned about, chemicals and the, you know, potential for cancer and water quality, pollution. 164 00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:29.979 Kathie Obradovich: And Rob Sand, both of them have said this is a bad ruling. It’s bad for Iowa, bad for Iowans’ health. 165 00:30:30.210 --> 00:30:54.670 Kathie Obradovich: And so, if nothing else, if presumably one of these guys becomes governor, we’re probably not going to get a bill signed into law that reinforces this, really. So, but yeah, you know, it puts the spotlight to me back on RFK Jr. to say, you know, where, you know, put your money where your mouth is and review this, decision that 166 00:30:54.670 --> 00:30:56.680 Kathie Obradovich: Glyphosate does not. 167 00:30:56.680 --> 00:30:59.089 Kathie Obradovich: You know, present a risk for cancer. 168 00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:22.920 Laura Belin: And I think that, in theory, since this was a statutory-based decision, not a constitutional decision, the Supreme Court was interpreting this labeling law. This is the kind of ruling that, in theory, Congress could overturn. I mean, they could pass an amendment to the law that clarifies, no, we don’t mean, when we say this about the labeling, we don’t mean that this precludes 169 00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:41.619 Laura Belin: court claims. I don’t think that that would ever get through Congress, nor do I think Donald Trump would sign that kind of a law, but it’s possible that Bayer and their allies might continue to be pushing for state-level laws like this, because in theory, because it’s not a constitutional decision, it is something that Congress could overturn. 170 00:31:42.090 --> 00:31:43.439 Dave Price: You know what I wish? 171 00:31:44.170 --> 00:31:49.170 Dave Price: I wish Rick Stewart on that recording would have asked RFK about this. 172 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:53.669 Dave Price: The recording was, like, 2 weeks ago, right? I believe. 173 00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:55.680 Laura Belin: By the 11th, I think it was on the 8th. 174 00:31:55.680 --> 00:32:01.970 Dave Price: We’re just releasing it, but I wish that… because part of it he was talking about, Stuart was talking about COVID. 175 00:32:02.080 --> 00:32:09.750 Dave Price: And he was talking about some other stuff too, but I wish somehow they would have gone into this so that we could have had RFK 176 00:32:09.930 --> 00:32:15.900 Dave Price: at least his voice recorded talking about this, because, I mean, he can’t… 177 00:32:16.770 --> 00:32:21.189 Dave Price: Like, he can’t… he can’t be in favor of this, right? Based on stuff he’s said in the past? 178 00:32:21.670 --> 00:32:27.050 Kathie Obradovich: Well, you certainly, you know, have that connection now between RFK Jr. and Zach Lahn. 179 00:32:27.510 --> 00:32:51.130 Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, Zach Lahn presents himself as a Maha candidate, etc, and so you do, you know, if RFK is silent on this, ruling, makes no effort toward, you know, encouraging an EPA review, of this, or I should probably, 180 00:32:51.130 --> 00:32:59.930 Kathie Obradovich: FDA review. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got a disconnect there, then, you know, so it’s… it’s just an interesting dynamic. 181 00:33:00.610 --> 00:33:03.440 Dave Price: I really wish I would have asked him about this when he was in town. 182 00:33:04.010 --> 00:33:05.450 Kathie Obradovich: He’ll be back. 183 00:33:05.750 --> 00:33:11.560 Dave Price: Huge mistake, huge mistake. All right, we squeezed it all in. Thank you for doing that. 184 00:33:12.460 --> 00:33:13.409 Laura Belin: Thank you. 185 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:21.400 Dave Price: And thanks to all of you for joining us this week here on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. Thanks to all of you who’ve become new subscribers. 186 00:33:21.690 --> 00:33:39.469 Dave Price: For the new paid subscribers, our hearty thanks. Thank you for helping us to keep this going week after week, and thanks to all of you for not just watching, listening, reading this, but also sharing it to your family and friends. That helps us grow, and it is fun to see that week after week, so we very much appreciate you. 187 00:33:39.470 --> 00:33:50.619 Dave Price: Thank you to Laura, thank you to Kathie, we appreciate you as well. And we were able to, all in one show, praise the both of you for your journalistic dedication. 188 00:33:51.300 --> 00:33:53.780 Dave Price: To both of you, so thank you. Have a great weekend. 189 00:33:53.780 --> 00:33:54.939 Laura Belin: Have a great weekend. 190 00:33:55.090 --> 00:33:57.169 Dave Price: Thanks, everybody, we’ll talk to you next week. Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe [https://iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

27. juni 202633 min

Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/6/26

Two big results: Zach Lahn edged out Randy Feenstra in the Republican gubernatorial primary — a surprise upset fueled by a dominant Polk County performance and a late push from conservative commentator Steve Deace. On the Democratic side, Josh Turek won the U.S. Senate primary more comfortably than expected. Looking ahead, we talked about why Lahn is a trickier general election opponent for Rob Sand than Feenstra would have been — he’s a change candidate with no voting record to attack. With both the governor’s race and U.S. Senate seat open simultaneously for the first time in 58 years, Iowa’s general election is set to grab A LOT of attention. Thanks so much to those of you that have become paid subscribers or made a one time donation. Please click the subscribe button above or one-time donation button below to pitch in! Also, we reached #70 on Rising U.S. Politics on Substack this week. We wouldn’t have been there without your support. THANK YOU! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:17.360 --> 00:00:34.689 Dave Price: Welcome, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, the post-primary election edition. I’m Dave Price, joined by Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin. Hello to both of you as we begin this first weekend past the primary. How are you? 3 00:00:35.230 --> 00:00:36.650 Kathie Obradovich: Fabulous. 4 00:00:36.650 --> 00:00:39.090 Laura Belin: I’m recovering. 5 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:40.039 Dave Price: We survived. 6 00:00:40.040 --> 00:00:40.920 Laura Belin: Nights, yes. 7 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:43.030 Dave Price: Yeah, but 8 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:52.269 Dave Price: All in all, to have primary night wrapped up by the time everything essentially was, was not bad. Kathie, what’s your headline? 9 00:00:53.330 --> 00:01:09.919 Kathie Obradovich: So, couple of surprises. One, I thought that this U.S. Senate Democratic primary, would be a lot closer than it was. It caught us off guard a little bit when AP called the race, excuse me, for Josh Turek. 10 00:01:10.070 --> 00:01:34.609 Kathie Obradovich: as early as they did, we thought it would go, go later and be a lot closer. And then secondly, you know, I think we saw that this could have been a possibility of Zach Lane edging out, Randy Feenster for the nomination. I mean, we saw the trend lines happening there. But again, you know, I sort of thought. 11 00:01:34.690 --> 00:01:58.689 Kathie Obradovich: you know, we were going to be going till 2AM on this race, or, you know, the potential for it to go to convention, and, the fact that, here’s the surprise, that Feenstra conceded, really, at the… at the… he was less than a percentage point behind Lane, and he conceded even before AP called the race. So, that surprised me as well. 12 00:01:59.650 --> 00:02:00.890 Dave Price: Laura, what was your headline? 13 00:02:02.310 --> 00:02:13.090 Laura Belin: Oh, I think the lane surge. I was kind of feeling the lane-mentum. I went to his rally in Ankeny on Sunday, and on Tuesday night, I started the evening at the Iowa Democratic Party’s 14 00:02:13.090 --> 00:02:36.220 Laura Belin: election night event, but when I saw the Polk County number come in really big for Zach Lahn, he had a margin of about 2,500 votes from Polk County, and Polk County tends to be one of the first to report, I scooted over to West Des Moines to go to the Lahn Victory Watch, because even though it was tight, he was hanging in there. I don’t think he ever gave up the lead at any point when they were 15 00:02:36.220 --> 00:02:41.810 Laura Belin: adding batches of votes. So, but my biggest surprise was not that Lahn won the primary, but 16 00:02:41.810 --> 00:02:52.570 Laura Belin: how many counties he carried. He carried 52 counties, and he actually carried most of the counties in Feenstra’s own congressional district, which I thought was amazing. He got 17 00:02:52.570 --> 00:03:16.439 Laura Belin: 40% of the vote in Sioux County, even. I mean, Feenstra carried Sioux County, but you would expect him to be absolutely dominating in his home county, so that did surprise me. I was also surprised in the second congressional district. Joe Mitchell won the… that was expected that he would win the nomination, but he only had, like, 62% of the vote or so. I thought he would do better against a very underfunded 18 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:23.530 Laura Belin: opponent. So, in general, there was a pretty big anti-establishment streak in those Republican primary results. 19 00:03:23.630 --> 00:03:24.149 Dave Price: We have… 20 00:03:24.150 --> 00:03:47.299 Kathie Obradovich: It was interesting to see… just a quick addition to what Laura said. It was interesting to see how dominant Lahn was in the third district. You know, that’s really where he won it. Feenstra, they were pretty close, in the first and second district. Feenstra carried his own home 4th district, but not, as Laura just said, not by very much. 21 00:03:47.300 --> 00:04:03.270 Kathie Obradovich: But I think where Lahn really won it, was in the 3rd District, Central Iowa, Polk County, and he, he was… he was quite a bit further ahead there. So, I was a little bit surprised by that. 22 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:20.019 Dave Price: I also was surprised that the Turek margin was as big as it was, although it really did feel like… I think we all sort of hinted at this the week before, that, it was… he looked like he had established himself as the… as the frontrunner with this. 23 00:04:20.029 --> 00:04:20.769 Laura Belin: It was… it was. 24 00:04:20.769 --> 00:04:22.189 Dave Price: The one thing that… 25 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:30.109 Laura Belin: I was… I’m sorry, the Vote Vets’ internal polling was showing him 20 to 25 points ahead, so it was pretty consistent with that. 26 00:04:30.110 --> 00:04:40.120 Dave Price: Yeah. The one thing I thought about is, I don’t remember exactly at what time lanes, numbers… 27 00:04:40.350 --> 00:04:56.269 Dave Price: jumped above Feenstra. I was standing behind, in front of this big monitor for our TV streaming broadcast that we did all night, and it would automatically refresh. And I remember looking, and all of a sudden, Lahn had jumped up, the early numbers had Feenstra up. 28 00:04:56.270 --> 00:05:06.809 Dave Price: But it just reminded me that this is not scientific by any means, but I talked about this a couple of weeks ago here on the podcast. Like, sometimes you can just feel some stuff. 29 00:05:07.330 --> 00:05:21.750 Dave Price: When you go out and witness some of these campaigns in action, and it doesn’t… what you… maybe what you feel as the reporter, at least for me, doesn’t necessarily match, maybe, my head. 30 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:28.829 Dave Price: So, like, when this campaign started, Feenster’s clearly the frontrunner, right? Most money, most well-known. 31 00:05:28.830 --> 00:05:45.580 Dave Price: a member of Congress, you know, whatever. And we have talked numerous times on this podcast about, boy, you know, it doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for this guy, whatever. Laura, you went to the Lahn event in Ankeny. I went to the one Friday night in West Des Moines right beforehand. 32 00:05:45.580 --> 00:06:10.110 Dave Price: Which, P.S, great point about Polk County, because they really leaned in hard to point… to Polk County and won handily. And that’s the margin right there, if you start looking at his overall numbers. But you could just feel the juice, and Friday night, I felt like you could still feel the juice in Lahn rally, even though hours before, they got the gut punch that the president had endorsed Feenstra. 33 00:06:10.590 --> 00:06:27.599 Dave Price: and, you know, changed his mind, or whatever happened behind the scenes, or somebody influenced him to get involved in the race. But it was just another indication to me about sometimes what the… I would say head and heart, but, I’m neutral here, so I don’t really have the heart involved in these things, but sort of heart and gut, maybe? 34 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:32.100 Dave Price: But Gut was telling me that Lahn was gonna surpass, and Head was telling me… 35 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:47.040 Dave Price: boy, Feenster should probably be able to hold on here, right? And then, boy, once that flip happened, and I was texting throughout the night with, Feenster supporters, and you could tell that there was angst almost from the get-go. 36 00:06:47.290 --> 00:06:56.230 Dave Price: And then desperation sort of set in, like, they were looking at Montgomery County numbers, which were late… later coming in, but that was sort of the Hail Mary… 37 00:06:57.220 --> 00:07:01.050 Dave Price: And, you know, there weren’t enough people there that were gonna make enough of a difference anyway. 38 00:07:01.890 --> 00:07:02.580 Kathie Obradovich: I was… 39 00:07:02.580 --> 00:07:25.600 Kathie Obradovich: You know, beforehand, we weren’t… didn’t really have a lot of information about what Lahn’s get-out-the-vote operation was going to be like. You know, I was sort of assuming that Feenstra and Steen might both have an advantage there, with Steen, you know, having his tried-and-true supporters from the family leader, etc. 40 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:50.180 Kathie Obradovich: But, yeah, the… either, you know, that organization is not quite as influential as it has been, or, there wasn’t enough difference between Steen and, Lahn and Feenstra in terms of how people felt as far as their, you know, religious, Christian conservative, values. 41 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:51.280 Kathie Obradovich: So… 42 00:07:51.280 --> 00:08:00.670 Laura Belin: Well, Steve Dace, who was an early Steen endorser and a big Steen endorser, came out on Saturday, the day after the Trump endorsement, and said. 43 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:07.269 Laura Belin: I’m still voting for Steen, but if you want to stop Randy Feenstra, who’s gonna lose to Rob Sand, you have 44 00:08:07.270 --> 00:08:31.550 Laura Belin: You have to vote for Zach Lahn. That’s what he said. You have to vote for Zach Lahn. And when he… I mean, he has a big megaphone, he has tens of thousands of followers, the Lahn campaign texted this video of Steve Days to everybody, and I gotta believe that that got him a couple thousand votes. I mean, his margin statewide over Feenster was only a couple thousand votes, so that also, I think, when people started to see Steen as less viable. 45 00:08:31.880 --> 00:08:43.050 Laura Belin: That… that could have pushed Lahn over the top for sure. I wanted to mention, this is something we did, like, a special post-election broadcast of KHOI’s Capital Week, and I noticed when I was looking at the county results. 46 00:08:43.049 --> 00:09:08.030 Laura Belin: that Feenster had these clusters where he did, well, like, in the… he won almost all the counties in the Quad Cities market, most of the counties in the Omaha market, in the Rochester, Minnesota market, and I think Lahn only won one county in the Omaha, or not Omaha, Ottumwa, Kirksville market. And I would guess that Lahn probably just wasn’t spending that much on TV outside Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City. 47 00:09:08.030 --> 00:09:32.410 Laura Belin: Because it just seemed to me like in the areas with those smaller media markets, that people just didn’t know as much about Lahn, and Feenstra was able to hang on. So, Feenstra’s strategy all along of, like, well, let’s just assume that nobody else can consolidate the support, if you didn’t have Zach Lane putting in $2.5 million of his own money to fund this very aggressive advertising campaign, I think that 48 00:09:32.410 --> 00:09:45.270 Laura Belin: that would have worked for Feenstra. And the Trump endorsement, I mean, what if Trump had endorsed a few months ago? Maybe Lane never would have gotten that momentum. Or what if he had endorsed last summer, and maybe Lane would have decided not to run for governor at all? 49 00:09:46.210 --> 00:09:47.340 Dave Price: I, I would like… 50 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:48.750 Kathie Obradovich: Interesting questions. 51 00:09:48.750 --> 00:09:53.760 Dave Price: Yeah, I would love to have… Exit polling on this. 52 00:09:54.130 --> 00:10:12.119 Dave Price: because I had wondered at the time, was it too late when the president got involved, and would it even… these were 5 guys who all supported the president, so you didn’t have any of them who, you know, were speaking ill of the president by any means. I’m still super curious who… 53 00:10:12.170 --> 00:10:19.660 Dave Price: who convinced him to get involved in this so late? There had to be some kind of behind-the-scenes effort. I really question that he did this on his own. 54 00:10:19.890 --> 00:10:21.430 Laura Belin: Oh, no, there, no, yeah. 55 00:10:21.430 --> 00:10:26.370 Dave Price: Some, something, something caused this, and, contributed to this, 56 00:10:26.640 --> 00:10:42.549 Dave Price: within our border, I would assume. But I would love to know, somehow, if we could find out how many people, if any, were motivated to support Feenstra because of the president’s endorsement, but then this whole thing with Steve Dace at the end, and really even Bob Vanderpla’s. 57 00:10:42.550 --> 00:10:50.629 Dave Price: did they… did that make any difference at all? Did people look at this like… because there… I got messages from people about, what is this? 58 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:53.879 Dave Price: So you got a guy who’s endorsed him, now he’s saying this. 59 00:10:53.930 --> 00:10:59.669 Dave Price: And then he took credit after the election that maybe what he did, 60 00:10:59.830 --> 00:11:04.240 Dave Price: made a difference here and contributed to the win. Would love to know, like. 61 00:11:05.880 --> 00:11:11.899 Dave Price: some proof, one way or the other, you know, like, I don’t know how we’re ever gonna know, it’s all gonna be anecdotal. 62 00:11:12.510 --> 00:11:37.500 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I mean, we talked to voters in all four, all four congressional districts on Tuesday, my reporters and some stringers, and some of the Feenstra voters did, you know, specify that the president’s endorsement, you know, made a difference to them. Some said, that they were Trump supporters, but that they hoped Trump’s endorsement 63 00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:42.060 Kathie Obradovich: would not, influence people’s votes, because they were, they were Berlain or steampunk. 64 00:11:42.060 --> 00:11:42.740 Dave Price: Oh, sure. 65 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:57.329 Kathie Obradovich: So, Trump’s endorsement was, you know, maybe, important to some voters, but, it wasn’t an anti-Trump vote if they… if people chose Lane or some other candidate. 66 00:11:57.920 --> 00:12:07.109 Laura Belin: Oh, Gary Loeffler, the Trump tractor guy, was a big Lane supporter, and he was there… he was there in Ankeny on Sunday, and he was there on Tuesday night at the Victory Party. 67 00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:14.019 Dave Price: I’m, like, looking ahead toward the general election, I’m really fascinated 68 00:12:14.520 --> 00:12:17.699 Dave Price: what the LAN campaign will look like. 69 00:12:17.950 --> 00:12:27.069 Dave Price: how the campaign team will grow, who comes into this, are they gonna bring… bring in some Feenstra people? Are they gonna bring in… 70 00:12:27.540 --> 00:12:33.419 Dave Price: outside people, will Republican Governors Association be part of this? I mean, there had been talk… 71 00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:43.719 Dave Price: about the RGA getting involved if Feenstra held on to get a different-looking campaign post-primary, because there was so much… 72 00:12:44.230 --> 00:12:51.679 Dave Price: consternation about the way they ran it, and I… I can’t remember if I mentioned this on the podcast, so… just… 73 00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:55.450 Dave Price: beat me out here if I’m repeating this, if I’m doing an old man, 74 00:12:55.660 --> 00:13:07.879 Dave Price: a recount that I’ve already said this once before, but big picture, and maybe I was only talking to a friend of mine, and I didn’t say this on the podcast, so I’m a little careful with what I say on here before something happens. 75 00:13:08.220 --> 00:13:08.960 Dave Price: I… 76 00:13:09.130 --> 00:13:16.569 Dave Price: I would be curious with you two, with all the campaigns we’ve covered over the years, both statewide and presidential. 77 00:13:16.970 --> 00:13:36.739 Dave Price: When I was talking to a friend, I was trying to think of a time when there was a legit candidate, not some fringy, nobody knows who this person is kind of thing, but somebody who’s, like, legit, who was looked upon as somebody who could win. I don’t remember ever covering a campaign like Randy Feenstra’s. 78 00:13:36.740 --> 00:13:42.240 Dave Price: where I had so many true supporters of his, Complaining. 79 00:13:42.550 --> 00:14:01.479 Dave Price: about what they were and were not doing, and I’m wondering if either of you can help me… I’ve got 25 years here now, and I was going through my middle-aged memory bank to try to see if I could remember anybody, and I can’t think of anybody that would be a good comp, and I’m wondering if either of you can? 80 00:14:01.730 --> 00:14:11.540 Kathie Obradovich: I mean, I think the closest parallel I can draw is with Jim Ross Lightfoot, where, you know, this was, 81 00:14:11.540 --> 00:14:35.249 Kathie Obradovich: again, an open governor’s race. He was the prohibitive favorite, and nobody knew who Tom Vilsack was. And, you know, that it wasn’t a situation where Lightfoot wasn’t getting out, and wasn’t doing media, or wasn’t doing debates, etc. The concern was his, was more like his message discipline, that 82 00:14:35.250 --> 00:14:58.049 Kathie Obradovich: he couldn’t stop talking about, you know, and sort of in technical terms, legislation in DC, as opposed to stripping down a message and focusing on state issues. So I think that that was the main thing that you would hear, you know, supporters of his saying, yeah, he’s got to stop talking about Washington, D.C. so much. 83 00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:16.029 Kathie Obradovich: You know, but that… that’s… I think that… that is not a direct, comparison, and… and you’re right, it’s been a, you know, it’s been a long, long time since we’ve seen, that much kind of grumbling behind the scenes about, you know, the party frontrunner. 84 00:15:16.790 --> 00:15:32.609 Laura Belin: I was living overseas at the time of the Vilsack-Lightfoot race, so I was not on the ground to observe it. I’ve never seen a worse candidate than Randy Feenstra in my life. I mean, and we had a warning sign when he only got 60% of the vote in his own primary. 85 00:15:32.610 --> 00:15:57.049 Laura Belin: two years ago against Kevin Virgil, but it seems like they didn’t learn any lessons from that. He was completely inaccessible to people, even in his own district, heavily conservative areas, and I think that he was just counting on being able to sail through in a fractured field, and I also thought that he was on track to win. I thought that several of the other people could beat Feenstra one-on-one, but with four-on-one, I thought that they would all 86 00:15:57.090 --> 00:16:14.050 Laura Belin: split the vote. So, but then when you have one of those four being extremely well-funded, and able to get his message in front of voters, and people were just looking… I mean, what reasons was Randy Feenster even giving people to vote for him? His ads were just all about how he’s with Trump. 87 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:20.360 Laura Belin: But he wasn’t really giving anyone any reason to feel inspired about his campaign. 88 00:16:20.410 --> 00:16:28.170 Dave Price: And I believe we talked about that on here, that clearly they felt like the Trump thing was a problem. 89 00:16:28.540 --> 00:16:31.540 Dave Price: And they had to convince the base that… 90 00:16:31.730 --> 00:16:45.370 Dave Price: Feenstra was with the president and would support the president, and it was Trump, Trump, Trump, all the time in his launch videos, really everything, his introductory videos, and that was… they kind of ran on Trump, and he’d never… 91 00:16:45.880 --> 00:16:51.109 Dave Price: never shared any kind of vision. I was trying to think through, like, you know, you try to think of, like. 92 00:16:51.840 --> 00:17:01.659 Dave Price: obviously, from our standpoint, we want everybody to debate, and I did a four-candidate debate and really wanted to do a moderate a five-candidate debate for obvious reasons, right? 93 00:17:01.660 --> 00:17:16.030 Dave Price: But I guess I understood their point in that they felt there was nothing to be gained, and they thought he could be… if he was going to get pulled too far to the right on some issues, standing up there with the other four, it’d be hard to… 94 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:22.510 Dave Price: to push back toward the middle, let’s just say, if that was one of their concerns or whatever. But they didn’t counter-program. 95 00:17:22.940 --> 00:17:24.139 Dave Price: So if that’s what. 96 00:17:24.140 --> 00:17:24.640 Kathie Obradovich: what you’re. 97 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:30.549 Dave Price: about, then you could choose to go do… look what Rob Sand does with the 100 town hall things. 98 00:17:30.890 --> 00:17:44.320 Dave Price: Like, Feenstra could have done something similar, and just non-stop… and I appreciate he’s got a job in Congress, so it makes it a little more challenging to do it. But he had time. He also took a long time to officially get into the race. 99 00:17:44.490 --> 00:18:01.880 Dave Price: Which, frankly, annoyed some Republicans who were wondering, do you want this job? Do you not want this job? What the heck’s going on? But they could have counter-programmed, they could have been all over the place, and they chose not to. It was a really low-profile thing, and it wasn’t really until some of the activists and donors were grumbling that he… 100 00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:04.549 Dave Price: Kinda got out there a little bit more, but… 101 00:18:04.790 --> 00:18:09.700 Dave Price: Doing these sort of small pizza ranch gatherings and little select… 102 00:18:10.020 --> 00:18:19.649 Dave Price: almost felt like private-type things, they weren’t really private, but there was just no energy when you compare it to Lane, and even on a smaller extent, to Steen. 103 00:18:20.100 --> 00:18:23.370 Kathie Obradovich: One of the few… one of the few times that he actually did 104 00:18:23.370 --> 00:18:45.480 Kathie Obradovich: do an event. Was it the Westside Conservative Club, where he put his foot in his mouth, you know, and basically said, yeah, the ESA program, the Educational Savings Account, public dollars for private tuition, that those private schools should, if they’re going to take that money, should have to accept 105 00:18:45.490 --> 00:18:52.440 Kathie Obradovich: all students. And, you know, that, was basically a democratic talking point against. 106 00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:57.259 Dave Price: Yeah, which… Which is probably a pretty good general election. Yes, it would have been. 107 00:18:57.490 --> 00:18:58.380 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah. 108 00:18:58.380 --> 00:19:21.970 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, but I, you know, all of the other candidates jumped on him, the governor jumped on him, the Republican lawmakers were unhappy with that, and so, you know, that sort of made me wonder, it’s like, okay, is this why they’re keeping him away from, you know, that he’s gonna put his foot in his mouth if he gets asked the right question, by a reporter? 109 00:19:21.970 --> 00:19:24.660 Kathie Obradovich: Or, you know, or somebody in the audience. 110 00:19:24.660 --> 00:19:49.659 Laura Belin: Look, I mean, even the last week, we talked about this because you went to that house party, Dave, that he did, but I was following his social media last week, and he was doing these private events, basically, at somebody’s farm or somebody’s home for 20 or 25 people. I was just speaking to the Urbandale area Democrats last night, and they had about 50 people just at their regular monthly meeting. I mean, I’ve seen larger meet and greets for city 111 00:19:49.660 --> 00:19:56.490 Laura Belin: council candidates than Randy Feenster was having in the final week of a statewide campaign for governor. It’s just ridiculous. 112 00:19:56.820 --> 00:20:08.740 Dave Price: I also wondered, you know, does it demonstrate, and we’ll see how Lane does this, he, he, Lane has brought in some new subjects, right? He is talking about some stuff, and we’ll have to see how it plays with people. 113 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:09.890 Dave Price: But… 114 00:20:11.110 --> 00:20:36.090 Dave Price: We knew going into this, the challenge is, no matter who the Republican nominee is, you’re following long-time Republicans in the… who have been on the job, right? Since Brandstick got back in in 11. That’s a long time of Republicans, they’ve had the trifecta since 17. You’re not gonna realistically go in there, you wouldn’t think, and rip on what your party has done, so you have to 115 00:20:36.090 --> 00:20:40.420 Dave Price: Thread a needle about how you’re gonna… sort of, 116 00:20:40.490 --> 00:20:55.060 Dave Price: stay the course, to use George W.’s line from 04, you know, kind of build on it, though. And that… there is a little bit of a thread there, because you don’t want to rip on it, and you saw Feenster try to do that a little bit with Butt. He questioned how they did the budget. 117 00:20:55.110 --> 00:21:08.010 Dave Price: He doesn’t think that they should be dipping in all the reserves to make up for the deficits. And, you know, there were some people who didn’t like that, but that’s probably a theme he was going to have to have for the fiscal management side if he was governor. 118 00:21:08.520 --> 00:21:32.390 Kathie Obradovich: Right, and Lane, you know, a big part of his campaign was, you know, pushing back on big corporate control, you know, big pharma, and, you know, that comes out with, sort of with his MAHA affiliation, Make America Healthy again, and, you know, aligning himself with RFK Jr, who’s the Health and Human Services Secretary. 119 00:21:32.390 --> 00:21:35.310 Kathie Obradovich: There’s an anti-vaccine component to that. 120 00:21:36.430 --> 00:21:59.850 Kathie Obradovich: And then, you know, second, and this is, you know, he’s talking about Iowa’s skyrocketing cancer rate, and tying that concern to Big Pharma to that. Also, the big ag, and, you know, tying, tying farm chemical contamination also to Iowa’s rising cancer rate, which most other Republicans are not willing to do. 121 00:21:59.850 --> 00:22:16.980 Kathie Obradovich: they’ll talk about cancer, but they’re not really… they really don’t want to make that connection to farm chemicals, so… so he broke away from his party a little bit there. I’ll be interested to see how much he, emphasizes that part of his message now, going into the general election. I think that that… 122 00:22:17.450 --> 00:22:30.590 Kathie Obradovich: part of his message, can appeal across party lines, and so it may be worth it for him to continue with that discussion. But yeah, Lane, I think he’s… it’s going to be more difficult 123 00:22:30.590 --> 00:22:40.109 Kathie Obradovich: for Rob Sand to run against Zach Lane. He’s more of a wild card than it would have been for him to run against Randy Feenstra. You know, I think that Zach Lane 124 00:22:40.230 --> 00:23:04.439 Kathie Obradovich: there’s still a lot of things that we don’t know about him. He doesn’t have a voting record, etc. The Republicans did raise some negatives about him during the primary campaign, especially right at the end, when suddenly he started looking like a threat. But, you know, his part-time, residency in Kansas, or previous residency in Kansas, you know, his… some of his invest… 125 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:28.160 Kathie Obradovich: investments that were sort of eyebrow-raising. Those, those things have, you know, started to come to light, or, or, you know, people are sort of digging into those a little bit more now, and I think that there’s, you know, more to know about Zach Lane, you know, potentially, things that are good for his campaign, maybe some things that aren’t so good. Rob Sand, on the other hand, you know. 126 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:37.110 Kathie Obradovich: Republicans have been, running against him now for at least 7 years. They’ve raised a lot of, you know, they’ve raised concerns about him. 127 00:23:37.250 --> 00:23:48.370 Kathie Obradovich: over 7 years, but I don’t know if there’s anything new that we’re likely to hear about him, because they, you know, Republicans have been running negative, messaging about him for such a long time. 128 00:23:48.560 --> 00:24:12.899 Laura Belin: I think this is a very tricky matchup for Rob Sand. I’m sure that he would have rather run against Randy Feenstra, who was completely uninspiring and part of the old guard, and could be tied to both the state management and mismanagement fiscal, according to Rob San, and also the unpopular things that Congress has done, whereas Zach Lane basically blank slate, Dave, as you’ve mentioned, running on a change message. 129 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:18.379 Laura Belin: And we saw the first memo from Rob Sand, and in some of his comments. 130 00:24:18.380 --> 00:24:43.079 Laura Belin: to reporters since the primary, saying things like, well, we’ve had 10 years of one-party rule, and Zach Lane just wants to continue another 4 years of one-party rule. Well, Zach Lane is going to present himself as very different from what Iowa’s had up to now. So that’s part of what Rob Sand is trying to do now, is going to be to convince people that he’s really going to bring more change, because he would bring divided government and 131 00:24:43.080 --> 00:25:08.069 Laura Belin: and all of the other things, rather than Zach Lane. But I do think it’s trickier. But Rob Sand is already making fun of all the time that Zach Lane spends in Kansas. There was Des Moines Register reporting about his many trips in Kansas where some of his children live, and that he made a comment to the Register, Zach Lane did, something like that he’s already had this conversation with his family, that if he’s elected governor, he’ll have 132 00:25:08.070 --> 00:25:15.499 Laura Belin: to spend as much time in Iowa as humanly possible. And Rob Sand quoted this in a video, and he said, most of us just live here. 133 00:25:16.890 --> 00:25:25.340 Laura Belin: Instead of saying, I’m gonna spend as much time in Iowa as humanly possible. So, that’ll be a theme we hear quite a bit about during the general election campaign. 134 00:25:25.340 --> 00:25:35.859 Dave Price: I do wonder how people are going to look at that. I mean, he’s… this is not a… this is not a summer home he has in Wichita. He has a home there because he has children there. 135 00:25:36.300 --> 00:25:47.470 Dave Price: And so, he goes back and forth. I’m gonna be curious how willing he is to be open about this, because you start talking about this, then this gets into your tricky first marriage and all of that stuff. 136 00:25:48.610 --> 00:25:51.300 Dave Price: But it’s probably… he’s going to have to… 137 00:25:51.950 --> 00:26:00.560 Dave Price: Probably speak at length about this, to explain how this is going to work, and how is he going to navigate this if he’s the governor. 138 00:26:01.010 --> 00:26:09.609 Dave Price: When I was… when you were talking about the ads that went against him, can we just get these dual ads out of the way, where… 139 00:26:10.020 --> 00:26:18.970 Dave Price: Lane invested in a company that later produced sex toys. Rob Sand used to be an underwear model. Can we just do a split-screen 140 00:26:19.330 --> 00:26:31.190 Dave Price: joint ad, get it over with, so we can then start talking about issues. They’re gonna find… Rob’s saying they already have the video of him, like, on a skateboard, or whatever that stuff is. They’re gonna make… 141 00:26:31.910 --> 00:26:35.859 Dave Price: The idea’s gonna be maybe make the other guy look like a weirdo. 142 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:40.989 Dave Price: But I also think we can get rid of… 143 00:26:41.220 --> 00:26:48.710 Dave Price: the nature of these two candidates, it’s gonna be tough for Republicans to rip sand for being… 144 00:26:48.850 --> 00:26:49.859 Dave Price: The rich guy. 145 00:26:50.490 --> 00:26:51.810 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, I think. 146 00:26:51.810 --> 00:27:02.299 Dave Price: I think Lahn has probably made money on his own, too, but he married into money, so you’re gonna have to deal with that. Then you’ve got two guys who are really kind of pushing for change, so that kind of… 147 00:27:02.740 --> 00:27:19.720 Dave Price: balances each other out. I need to ask you both about… I don’t even know if you had time to read this. Kathie, you… you were knee-deep in a conference while you were doing everything else this week, covering the election, but have you read the release from the SAN campaign about the debate proposals? 148 00:27:19.860 --> 00:27:20.640 Laura Belin: Yes. 149 00:27:21.560 --> 00:27:28.100 Dave Price: So, he is… He’s basically trying to take charge… 150 00:27:28.230 --> 00:27:39.549 Dave Price: of the debate system, rather than having the media outlets, like we usually do, propose it, and then we negotiate with the candidates. He is saying he wants 4 of these, and this is… 151 00:27:39.550 --> 00:27:50.039 Dave Price: Part of this is similar to what Lahn did when he challenged Feenstra. He wants four regional debates, so spread across the state, and he picked the four bigger media markets. 152 00:27:50.110 --> 00:27:51.350 Dave Price: And… 153 00:27:51.470 --> 00:28:07.999 Dave Price: essentially, if I’m reading this right, the media outlets sort of apply to be able to do debates. I don’t know if SAN’s campaign thinks they’re the ones who are gonna make the decision on this, and put it all together, and then it’s up to Lahn to agree or not agree, but it’s gonna be four regional ones. 154 00:28:08.180 --> 00:28:27.410 Dave Price: And, if it doesn’t happen, then I think he’s got a challenge in there that Lahn needs to do a bunch of town halls or something like that. Clearly, it’s different. I like the idea about having four of them. I know, selfishly, as we put the one together that we did statewide with my company and with KCCI in Des Moines. 155 00:28:27.580 --> 00:28:35.170 Dave Price: that it’s hard. We had 90 minutes with 4 candidates, and so much that you want to ask about, you can’t. 156 00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:51.679 Dave Price: And you don’t get in-depth enough on stuff, you know? I mean, with 4 of them, you could get into a lot of things if, they would actually agree. It does sort of feel kind of an old-school way to do this, but I’m not sure what the media outlets are gonna think about SAN, if it looks like sand’s kind of in charge. 157 00:28:51.680 --> 00:29:16.650 Kathie Obradovich: Well, and if I were… if I were Lahn campaign, I would be really uncomfortable with having my opponent be the one to, you know, organize and bet the debates. I mean, the reason that the media outlets are the ones who organize it is that they’re, you know, at least, you know, expected to be neutral in terms of not, you know, trying to give an advantage to one campaign or another, or, you know, to 158 00:29:16.790 --> 00:29:36.919 Kathie Obradovich: you know, choose their moderators, you know, based on, you know, whether we think they’re going to ask tougher questions of the opponent. So I am uncomfortable with the… I love the idea for debates, regional debates. It’s good to get out around the state. Don’t love the idea of the SAN campaign trying to be the one to organize it. 159 00:29:37.090 --> 00:29:48.920 Laura Belin: Well, I… what I thought was interesting about the proposal is he kept saying, if our opponent does not agree, so it seems like he’s only interested in debating Zach Lahn, whereas 160 00:29:48.920 --> 00:30:13.889 Laura Belin: I mean, most of the time, Rob Sand is talking about how the two-party private clubs shouldn’t have a monopoly on this or that. I went to watch him vote on Tuesday morning, and he spoke to reporters, and the first thing he said was that this is… a third of the state is disenfranchised because independents have to declare with a party to vote in the primary, and so on, but it looks like a libertarian is going to be on the ballot. They’ve qualified for the ballot, Nicholas Gluba. 161 00:30:13.890 --> 00:30:37.290 Laura Belin: filed his nominating papers on Tuesday. I haven’t seen whether those will be challenged. He told me on Tuesday he was very comfortable that he was way above the threshold and wouldn’t be knocked off the ballot, but I didn’t see anything in Rob Sands’ proposal that indicated that he’s willing to debate anyone other than his Republican opponent, so that’s something I’m gonna try to find out next time I get a chance to ask him a question. 162 00:30:38.050 --> 00:30:44.550 Dave Price: Laura, you… I wanted to, do a little PS on what you just said there. I’ve heard the criticism 163 00:30:44.580 --> 00:31:01.929 Dave Price: from some Republicans about sand, and that he’s basically trying to run away from being a Democrat. The one thing listening to you talk there reminded me that for almost as long as I’ve covered him, he has talked about the weaknesses of a two-party system. 164 00:31:01.930 --> 00:31:12.030 Dave Price: He is not talking about ranked choice voting, but I know he’s done… I think he’s read books on this, and he’s looked into how this would work and all of that. I mean, he’s got his own… 165 00:31:12.030 --> 00:31:22.629 Dave Price: his own, ideas that he’s put out there, but there are certain things for those who have talked to him for quite a while, he has been consistent about 166 00:31:22.770 --> 00:31:28.399 Dave Price: some of the things he’s talking about out there on the campaign trail as governor. This isn’t just… 167 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:41.020 Dave Price: that the Democratic Party brand stinks, or something like that, and he’s trying to get away from it. He has… he has been talked… he has talked about the traps of a two-party system for quite some time. 168 00:31:41.020 --> 00:31:46.639 Laura Belin: Oh, yeah, years ago, I remember hearing him talk about it, and this primary, sort of a jungle primary. 169 00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:47.060 Dave Price: system. 170 00:31:47.060 --> 00:31:48.050 Laura Belin: That he wants to have. 171 00:31:48.620 --> 00:32:12.270 Laura Belin: That’s a newer proposal, but I think that he’s been open to that. I forgot to say, to pick up on something that you were talking about earlier, that the Zach Lahn wealth maybe makes it difficult for Republicans to campaign against Rob San. Zach Lahn, in his victory speech on Tuesday, tried to thread that needle by saying, kind of a Trumpian line of, I’m my own biggest donor, and therefore, I can’t be bought. 172 00:32:12.540 --> 00:32:29.460 Laura Belin: But Rob Sand is putting Iowa on the auction block because he’s taken money from these billionaires and also his wife’s family, so kind of… and glossing over the fact that Rob Sand has raised millions of dollars from thousands of donors, and 173 00:32:29.460 --> 00:32:42.970 Laura Belin: Zach Lahn has very few small grassroots donors by comparison, but in any case, they’re going to try to differentiate it that way, but I do think that it makes it complicated, that message is complicated, by Zach Lahn. 174 00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:49.790 Dave Price: All right, well, we will have much to discuss in the months ahead, and we are going to continue 175 00:32:49.990 --> 00:32:57.459 Dave Price: our weekly podcast. We may take a break, late summer, for everybody to get a little time off, but we’re gonna keep this sucker going. 176 00:32:57.570 --> 00:33:15.990 Dave Price: Can you seriously imagine what this year is going to be? We didn’t even really deep dive into the U.S. Senate race, which we will do in the weeks ahead, but the Hinson-Turek matchup is gonna be so fascinating, Sand and Lahn fascinating. We’re gonna have… 177 00:33:17.070 --> 00:33:19.000 Dave Price: 2, maybe 3? 178 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:20.160 Laura Belin: 3… 179 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:38.359 Dave Price: competitive congressional races, plus, I mean, you know, they’re always… I feel like the legislative races are always interesting on their own, you know, maybe they’re more hyper-local, I suppose, but seriously, though, for a non-presidential year, this is gonna be something else, right? 180 00:33:38.670 --> 00:33:41.170 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, oh, I think so. 181 00:33:41.170 --> 00:34:04.800 Kathie Obradovich: I’ve referred to this before as it’s basically a generational opportunity for change in Iowa. You know, considering that it’s the first time we’ve had both an open governor and simultaneously U.S. Senate… open U.S. Senate race in 58 years, that is longer than almost everyone has even been able to vote. 182 00:34:04.800 --> 00:34:27.040 Kathie Obradovich: Let alone, you know, a lot of voters weren’t alive the last time that, that we had this wide open of a race. So, so yeah, and, you know, of course, it trickles all the way down the ballot. So, so this is a really big opportunity for change. Somebody also asked me, you know, could Iowa go back into the purple state category? 183 00:34:27.489 --> 00:34:31.960 Kathie Obradovich: And it’s like, well, if it can, this is the year, you know? 184 00:34:32.350 --> 00:34:33.300 Kathie Obradovich: It’s gonna be the year. 185 00:34:33.469 --> 00:34:51.839 Laura Belin: And, yeah, absolutely. I’m a believer in that second congressional district in Northeast Iowa. That is in play, definitely, in addition to the first and third, and we haven’t even talked about the Attorney General, Secretary of Agriculture race. Those are both going to be very interesting. So, I think it’s the most exciting Iowa election cycle I’ve ever covered. 186 00:34:52.260 --> 00:34:56.600 Dave Price: This… our Writers Collaborative features a lot of… 187 00:34:56.699 --> 00:35:14.080 Dave Price: different perspectives on things. For my personal standpoint, I don’t, I don’t go partisan either way, I’m neutral, I don’t take part in primaries. But may I just say, the most unsettling part of 2026? Do you know what that is for me personally? 188 00:35:15.620 --> 00:35:19.239 Dave Price: Regardless of which candidate 189 00:35:19.720 --> 00:35:32.140 Dave Price: becomes our next governor, regardless of which candidate becomes our next United States senator, I am guaranteed that I will be older than both of those winners. 190 00:35:32.450 --> 00:35:35.539 Dave Price: And I don’t know how to come to terms with this. 191 00:35:36.810 --> 00:35:53.990 Kathie Obradovich: This would be a first time for me, as well, so I… I would, yeah, you start to feel old when your, when your doctors, your priests, and your, you know, your governor are… are actually younger than you, so… 192 00:35:53.990 --> 00:36:05.049 Dave Price: I noticed that this was the first cycle where, like, especially talking to friends, I more frequently found myself referring to people, by their first names. 193 00:36:05.500 --> 00:36:12.849 Dave Price: And I don’t think that it was a sign of disrespect for anybody, I think it was the fact that some of these people are well younger than I am. 194 00:36:13.390 --> 00:36:15.600 Dave Price: It’s just what came out, so I… 195 00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:18.940 Dave Price: This is how it’s always going to be now, and I need to… 196 00:36:19.630 --> 00:36:22.470 Dave Price: Sit down in a quiet place and come to terms with this. 197 00:36:24.680 --> 00:36:38.019 Dave Price: Oh, that’s definitely a good place to wrap this sucker. Thank you to all of you who have joined us for all of our conversations about the Iowa legislative session. Let’s see if there’s going to be a special session, by the way. 198 00:36:38.500 --> 00:36:40.410 Dave Price: just… I’m just gonna throw that one out there. 199 00:36:40.410 --> 00:36:41.370 Kathie Obradovich: Probably not, but… 200 00:36:41.370 --> 00:37:06.129 Dave Price: You know, that’s still gonna… we’re gonna… those rumors will percolate occasionally. Anyway, for sticking with us on the long legislative session, getting through the primary election, now that we look ahead to the general election, we very much appreciate your support. We don’t do ads on this. We very much appreciate all of you who have made contributions to keep this going week after week after week, and we are committed to continue doing these throughout the general 201 00:37:06.130 --> 00:37:11.350 Dave Price: election, and the more support we can get from the community, the more 202 00:37:11.350 --> 00:37:19.470 Dave Price: that allows us to keep this going. So we very much appreciate all of you who have helped us do that, and if you’re thinking about doing it and haven’t yet. 203 00:37:19.470 --> 00:37:36.070 Dave Price: This would be a great time to get on there and do it. I’m gonna sound like those, fundraising drives on Iowa Public TV or Iowa Public Radio, but if you’re able to do it, we’d very much appreciate it. Thank you to Kathie and Laura. Ladies, have a great weekend, and we’ll talk to you next week. We will talk to everybody next week. Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe [https://iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

6. juni 202637 min

Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/4/26

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