Trump's Iowa rally is off, then on again. Will Republicans keep the governor's job?
Iowa elects a new governor on 3 November. A New York Times and Siena poll had Democrat Rob Sand ahead of Republican Zach Lahn by 52% to 41%.
What happened
Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Iowa was cancelled on Thursday . On Friday the White House said it was back on.
Donald Trump’s rally in Iowa is back on. On Thursday the Republican National Committee said Trump would no longer hold weekend rallies in Dubuque, Iowa, and Salina, Kansas, and would speak to voters in phone rallies instead. On Friday the White House said both rallies were back on, one after the other on Sunday, along with nearly 20 phone rallies.
Officials had given this reason for the change: “With Republicans in a strong position in Kansas and Iowa, previously planned in-person rallies in those states will no longer take place as scheduled”. Joe Gruters, who leads the Republican National Committee, called the last days a “72-hour sprint”. The phone rallies reach nearly 20 states, Iowa among them.
Iowa chooses a new governor on . Republican Governor Kim Reynolds is not running again. Republicans have run Iowa for the past decade, and no Democrat has won the governor’s job since 2006. In June farmer Zach Lahn won the Republican vote with 38%, ahead of Randy Feenstra, who had Trump’s support, with 37.2%. Democrat Rob Sand, the state auditor, had no rival in his party.
A New York Times and Siena poll, taken from late September to early October, had Sand at 52% and Lahn at 41% among likely voters. Both men say Iowa’s cancer rate, the second highest in the US, is a main issue, and on The New York Times called the race competitive.
The general election shall be held throughout the state on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of each even-numbered year.
Iowa Code, section 39.1
Sources: The Guardian (2, 3), The Independent (2), Al Jazeera, The New York Times
The Pattern
We looked for cases where a US state chose a governor halfway through a president’s term, the governor was leaving, the president’s party had run the state for ten years and the other party had not won it for twenty, and a Senate seat was also open that day. We found ten such elections, from 1914 to 1994. None was in Iowa. Each time voters chose on the day, and the winner took office in January.
Show the other 8 cases
The Read
Nine of ten times, the president’s party kept an open governor’s job in a state it had long run. This year the poll points the other way. Sand led by 11 points, the largest lead of four states where a Democrat was ahead, and other polls point to possible Republican losses across the US. Sand already holds a job elected by the whole state, and in nine of the ten past elections the other party’s candidate did not.
There are reasons for doubt. The newest of the ten elections was in 1994, and that was the one time the party lost. Three were in Alabama and two in Pennsylvania, and five came before polls existed. The poll is a month old. On The New York Times still called the race competitive, and The Guardian wrote that Democrats have a small edge in it. Republicans say polls have been wrong before.
Sources: The Independent, The Guardian (2), US Census Bureau, Alabama Official Register, Vermont Secretary of State, The New York Times
Disclaimer
Hunch works only from sources that are publicly available, and publishes on the basis of analysis of that material. We do not form an editorial opinion or take sides, we give a simpler and wider view of news that already exists. If information in a source we used was inaccurate, distorted, or later disputed but had already entered our analysis, Hunch accepts no liability for that. Predictions are not advice. Phase 1 markets use Hunch Points, not money.
Published by Hunch under the Editorial Code. Complaints and corrections: /contact/.