District of the Day 3: Iowa Senate District 24, Iowa House Districts 47 and 48

Senate District 24
Registration: D 12086, R 13465, N 14553, total 40132, R +1379
Incumbent: Jerry Behn, R-Boone

Behn finds himself in a very different place than he was his last election cycle, both politically and geographically. Before his role in the Senate changed to party leader, his district got reconfigured so he loses more constituents than he keeps.

Behn keeps his Boone County base, in fact he now has the whole county. But the old lines went south to take in most of Dallas County, which now dominates TWO new districts.

Behn keeps none of that high-growth Dallas turf. Instead, he gets bits of Story and Webster and all of Hamilton and Greene. Losing Dallas County costs Behn about 3,000 registered Republicans and turns this into a swing district. Teacher Shelly Stotts is the Democratic candidate.

In 2008 in the old lines Behn fended off a comeback attempt from Al Sorensen, who he'd defeated to take the seat in 1996. The rematch was a solid 59% to 41% win.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Stotts for Senate, Behn for Senate Behn has $83,383.94 on hand, but he's responsible for more than himself and there's been grumbling he needs to do more. Stotts has $1,528.18.

on hand.
House District 47
Registration: D 6247, R 6514, N 7238, total 20013, R +267
Incumbent: Chip Baltimore, R-Boone; comeback attempt and rematch of 2010 race

A must win for both sides: one of two districts tied for #49 Democratic/#51 Republican.
Baltimore won one of 2010's biggest upsets and closest races, defeating Democrat Donovan Olson by just 23 votes in a seat with an 1100 Democratic registration edge. Olson is making a comeback attempt.

The line changes make this seat a little closer. It most of Boone County, including the city and everything west. It drops Perry in north Dallas county, an area that Olson won in 2010. Instead gets all of Greene County.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Baltimore for Iowa House, Olson for State Representative Committee Baltimore has been active, raising $12,737.55
during the June/July period on the report. Most of it's from conservative and business PACs. He has $31,164.23 on hand. So Olson, with $2,604.92 on hand. needs to step up his game (unless he has in the past 30 days).

House District 48
Registration: D 5839, R 6951, N 7315, total 20119, R +1112
No Incumbent

One of the odd features of Iowa Clean Redistricting is the Senate to House move. A Senator might call that a step down, but wouldn't say so to a House member. It's something you only see here and in term limits states, adding more truth to the notion that Clean Redistricting is our version of term limits.

Usually we see one or two of those a decade, and this seat is the only one. For a while it even looked like a 2010 Senate race would be re-played as a 2012 House race. Democrat Rich Olive, who lost the Senate race to Republican Rob Bacon, announced in June. In September, Bacon announced in that he was making the Senate to House move and moving here to get out of his pair-up with Bill Dix.

But in early October, Olive withdrew, and this race immediately became less interesting. Rural Ames Democrat Becky Perkovich joined the race just before the filing March deadline.

This is good Republican territory, but not great.  Hamilton County makes up about half of this district. That was home base for two-term Democrat McKinley Bailey, who lost to Stu Iverson in 2010.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Friends of Rob Bacon (Perkovich didn't raise enough to open a committee.)

Senate District 24, House District 47 & 48: District of the Day 1 - 5/26/2011 | District of the Day 2 - 3/16/2012