The personal drama and online cruelty of the June 2 primary is getting to me, and I am about to get a lot more busy, so I'm checking out of some things and doing some selective blocking. I don't want to live in a bubble but there's people who aren't worth the stress.
But before I back off I do want to address one race and an issue that I think is important. I spent five bucks on a document and reached out for a response, so I'm gonna write the post.
As we all remember, the 2020 congressional race in (a slightly different version of) this district was decided by a mere six votes - painful proof that every vote counts.
Yet despite that narrow margin, the narrowest in the nation in 40 years, 2026 congressional candidate Travis Terrell did not bother to vote in the 2022 or 2024 primary or general elections.
Records from the statewide voter system indicate that Terrell, who turns 41 a few days before the primary, first registered a few days after his 18th birthday, a good start, and cast his first vote in the 2004 presidential election.
Terrell moved a few times between then and now between Wapello, Muscatine and Johnson counties, nothing wrong with that, and through 2021 had a fairly typical voter record for a young person. He voted mostly in general elections in presidential and governor years (missing 2010) and in four non-general elections: one city election (2005), one school election (2013), one primary (2018), and one combined city and school election (2021; state law combined the two elections beginning in 2019).
But after voting in the 2021 West Liberty city and school board election, Terrell drops off the chart. There is no "voter initiated" activity on his record until the summer of 2025 when he re-registered in Johnson County, a few months after he announced his congressional candidacy and also well after the Johnson County Democrats elected him to the county central committee (at a monthly meeting, not at the caucus). He then voted in the 2025 election for Tiffin city council and Clear Creek Amana school board.
During those four years, there were five elections where anyone in the state was able to vote: the 2022 primary and general election, the 2023 city/school board election, and the 2024 primary and general election.
There were a lot of important things on those ballots. A US Senate race between Chuck Grassley and Mike Franken that at least briefly looked competitive. The opportunity to vote against Donald Trump - yes, I know the Selzer poll was way wrong, but for a moment we thought that was competitive, too. And of course the congressional seat, the one Terrell is running for now, the one that was decided by six votes in 2020.
There's still enough journalist left in me that I decided to reach out to the Terrell campaign and try to get an explanation. I did not hear from the candidate but, in something that seems to be a pattern from this campaign, heard back instead from campaign manager Eric Kusiak (who was also a surrogate speaker for Terrell and the 2nd District Democratic convention on May 2).
"Like so many, Travis has struggled to have faith in the electoral system. He's the kind of voter Democrats have lost in the millions. What's been happening has woken him up to the failures of this party, like so many who support him that we left behind. His opponent has shown up to vote but still can't bring herself to defend the people in her district most in need or stand up to the corruption of either political party."
Kusiak, in another pattern for the campaign, then offered several attacks on Christina Bohannan, Terrell's primary opponent and the Democratic nominee in the two general elections that Terrell skipped. He also argued that attendance at No Kings rallies is a more appropriate measure than a person's voting record.
Every vote matters. Voting rights are the right from which all other rights are enabled. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Travis Terrell does not appear to believe these things. Instead, his campaign manager excuses him for "losing faith" when there isn't a Bernie Bro candidate on the ballot, and the campaign's attacks on Bohannan are more vitriolic than the attacks on Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
At a time when voting rights are under bitter attack at the federal level, it is critical that our next member of Congress values those rights. Travis Terrell doesn't even value the right to vote enough to use it.
Disclaimer 1: As many people are aware, I work at the auditor's office. From time to time journalists, campaigns, and political researchers request voter records. Other people in our office do that work. I purchased Terrell's record under the same conditions and at the same rate as any other researcher and I have a receipt.
Disclaimer 2: I did not consult the Bohannan campaign about this post.
Disclaimer 3: I did not vote in the 1992 Iowa City school board election, which was uncontested. I regret missing that election. Other than that I have voted in every election in which I was eligible since moving to Iowa in August 1990.
