The groundwork was laid in 2021.
Here comes 2022; it’s going to be a big one in Iowa politics.
It’s an election year again, and there will be some big races on Iowans’ ballots this fall. And it starts right at the top of the ballot, with the state’s races for governor and U.S. Senate.
While she has not yet officially announced, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds is expected to seek re-election for a second full term. She was promoted to governor in 2017 when former Gov. Terry Branstad resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China, then won a full, four-year term in 2018.
While Reynolds goes into her latest campaign with an edge — she has the benefits of incumbency, including fundraising — her re-election is far from a foregone conclusion. Remember that she won in 2018 by a narrow margin: just shy of three percentage points. And that was before Reynolds, like all other governors, was thrust onto the tip of the spear as the leader of the state’s response to a global pandemic.
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Iowa’s gubernatorial election will have significant consequences. This year will be Iowa Republicans’ sixth with complete control of the state lawmaking process. With their large majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature — a 10-seat advantage in the House and 12-seat advantage in the Senate — the Democrats likely are multiple cycles from winning back a majority in either. So Democrats’ best hope to create split-control government is to win back Terrace Hill, which the party has not occupied for more than a decade.
There was not exactly a rush to flood the Democratic primary in 2021. Two of the best-known names took a pass and decided to stay where they are and run for re-election: U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne and State Auditor Rob Sand. The lack of interest in the race could suggest that Democrats do not like their chances of unseating Reynolds; were she considered more vulnerable, surely there would have been more sharks in the water.
The best-known names in the Democratic field as 2022 begins are Deidre DeJear, a Des Moines businesswoman who ran for Iowa Secretary of State in 2018; and Ras Smith, a state legislator from Waterloo. DeJear ran a statewide race four years ago, and Smith has been active even in the minority party, including his work on racial justice legislation passed in 2020. Kim West, an attorney from Des Moines, has also announced his candidacy.
Another big choice for Iowa voters in 2022 will not feature any political candidates; it will be a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution.
Iowa Republicans have proposed adding gun ownership rights to the Iowa Constitution. But it is not a simple reproduction of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states Americans’ right to bear arms. What Iowa Republicans have proposed goes a step further, declaring that any gun regulations must be subject to "strict scrutiny," a legal term that applies the highest level of judicial scrutiny to any law.
That is a proposal with significant ramifications to Iowa, and an argument could be made that the proposed constitutional amendment could have a larger impact than the outcome of Iowa’s gubernatorial or U.S. Senate elections, given the virtual permanency of constitutional amendments.
Those are some significant elections on the ballot in 2022. For Iowa voters, with a new year comes critical new choices.
Some personal news
Speaking of big things happening in 2022, this will be my final political column as the Des Moines Bureau Chief for Lee Enterprises. On Jan. 3, I assume the same position — Des Moines Bureau Chief — for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids.
With a new job comes new responsibilities. And while I will continue to report on the same political arenas for The Gazette — the Iowa Legislature, Iowa state and federal government, and the Iowa caucuses — I will no longer be writing a weekly political column.
Readers of Lee newspapers will continue to see my byline because of the news sharing agreement between Lee and The Gazette. So if you need to contact me for any reason, I will not be far away.
Thank-you to everyone who read my work in this space, and for your engaging emails. I have appreciated it all.