Showing posts with label Iowa Senate District 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iowa Senate District 5. Show all posts

Friday, August 17, 2012

District Of The Day 3: Iowa Senate District 5, Iowa House District 9 & 10

Senate District 5
Registration: D 11692, R 12667, N 14557, total 38946, R +975
Incumbent: Daryl Beall, D-Ft. Dodge; holdover seat

Beall won a third term in 2010 in old district 25 with 54% and holds over. Beall loses about 900 Democrats and gets a slightly Republican district that votes on the lower turnout gubernatorial cycle. The new seat keeps Ft. Dodge and Calhoun County but loses Greene County to the south and instead goes north into Pocahontas and Humboldt.

House District 9
Registration: D 7150, R 5140, N 6458, total 18764, D +2010
Incumbent: Helen Miller, D-Ft. Dodge; rematch of 2010 race

Miller keeps her entire old district, which she's held since 2002, and adds three townships to balance the population and maintain roughly the same Democratic edge. The city of Ft. Dodge is almost the whole district here, in a phenomenon I call "the district draws itself." The redistricting law required cities and counties to be kept whole where possible, and so if one is just below district size there's not much to decide.

Miller's first tough race was in 2010. Matt Alcazar, a tea partier who had started out running as an independent before switching to the GOP line, came out of nowhere, and held Miller to 52%. Alcazar is running again, but 2010 was probably a fluke. Republicans don't seem to be targeting this seat, and Miller has received loads of positive publicity for her recent induction into Iowa's African American Hall of Fame.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Committee to Re-Elect Helen Miller, Alcazar for State Representative Miller has a solid $12,139.69 in the bank vs. Alcazar's $1,469.98.

House District 10
Registration: D 4542, R 7527, N 8099, total 20182, R +2985
Incumbent: Tom Shaw, R-Laurens, unopposed

Shaw easily (65-35%) defeated primary challenger Maison Bleam, a recent UIowa grad who was student government president. The unusual thing about this primary challenge was that unlike the others, the challenger was the moderate and the incumbent was the hard-right candidate. The primary was marked by personal attacks and whisper campaigns about Bleam.

Shaw replaced conservaDem Dolores Mertz, who barely won in 2008 and retired in 2010. He got paired up with five-term leadership favorite Dave Tjepkes, who didn't announce his retirement till January 10, one of the last paired legislators to make plans public. No love lost there, as Tjepkes endorsed Bleam.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Committee to Elect Tom Shaw

Senate District 5, House District 9 & 10: District of the Day 1 - 4/29/2011 | District of the Day 2 - 3/16/2012

Friday, March 16, 2012

District Of The Day Reboot: Iowa Senate District 5, Iowa House District 9 & 10

Senate District 5
Registration: D 12757, R 13356, N 16515, total 42659, R +599
Incumbent: Daryl Beall, D-Ft. Dodge; holdover seat

Beall won a third term in 2010 in old district 25 with 54%. Beall loses about 900 Democrats and gets a slightly Republican district that votes on the lower turnout gubernatorial cycle. The new seat keeps Ft. Dodge and Calhoun County but loses Greene County to the south and instead goes north into Pocahontas and Humboldt. Beall has till 2014 to get to know
those new constituents.

People for Beall finance reports

The Senate district is polarized between a Democratic half and an equally GOP part.

House District 9
Registration: D 7645, R 5535, N 7081, total 20278, D +2110
Incumbent: Helen Miller, D-Ft. Dodge; rematch of 2010 race

This is what I call The District Draws Itself: Iowa law requires that cities and counties be kept whole whenever possible. An ideal House District size is 30,538, and when you have a city or county just short of that size, it dominates whatever else is combined with it. The Ft. Dodge census population is 25,206, so that pretty much settles things. Miller keeps her entire old district, which she's held since 2002, and adds three townships to balance the population and maintain roughly the same Democratic edge.

Miller won with a surprisingly close 52% last time in one of those Some Dude near-miss races that was on nobody's radar. Miller had won easily since her first win in 2002, with a typical 60% in 2008. Yet Matt Alcazar, a tea partier who had started out running as an independent before switching to the GOP line, almost pulled it off in the zeitgeist that was 2010.

With a more than 2000 registration edge for the Democrats, this isn't completely out of reach but Alcazar's 2010 performance is probably close to the high water mark.

House District 10
Registration: D 5112, R 7821, N 9434, total 22381, R +2709
Incumbents: Tom Shaw, R-Laurens (Dave Tjepkes, R-Gowrie, retiring); Primary challenge

Tea partier Tom Shaw, who first announced his 2010 run as an independent, won an epic primary and beat Stephen Richards, the main-chance doctor who had fallen only 42 votes short of conservaDem Dolores Mertz in 2008. Shaw then took over with ease in the general as Mertz retired.

Shaw got paired up with five-term leadership favorite Dave Tjepkes, who didn't announce his retirement till January 10. Shaw had a reputation for working across party lines that may have actually disadvantaged him; there were rumors of a primary challenge even before Map Day.

So he's gone, but there's still going to be a primary here. Former University of Iowa student government president Maison Bleam announced his candidacy as "a different style of principled constitutional conservative." That's a polite way of saying that Shaw's taken the hard-right approach along with fellow freshmen Glen Massie and Kim Pearson.

Bleam is also playing the age card; it's interesting to me that conservatives, at this level of office, have generally been more willing to vote for young people and that they generally do a far better job of subsidizing their young ones -- check those resume bullet points on Bleam -- than my team. Still, this race seems like a heavy lift against an incumbent who won two hard-fought 2010 races and held off Tjepkes.

Shaw keeps his native Pocahontas County and Humboldt, but loses the city of Algona and southern Kossuth. He picks up Calhoun and part of rural Webster from Tjepkes.

No Democratic names here yet; their best shot was probably with the open seat last cycle.

Campaign finance report: Committee to Elect Tom Shaw

Original post 4/29/2011 Statewide Map: Front | Back (with City Insets) | Old Senate, House

Friday, April 29, 2011

District of the Day: Senate District 5, House District 9 and 10

District of the Day: Senate District 5, House District 9 and 10



Senate District 5

Registration: D 12,744, R 12,705, N 15,365, total 40,846, D+ 39
Incumbent: Daryl Beall, D-Ft. Dodge

Beall won a third term last year in old district 25 with 54%. Beall loses about 900 Democrats and gets a dead-even district that votes on the lower turnout gubernatorial cycle. The new seat keeps Ft. Dodge and Calhoun County but loses Greene County to the south and instead goes go north into Pocahontas and Humboldt. Beall has till 2014 to get to know those new constituents.

The Senate district is polarized between a Democratic half and an equally GOP part.

House District 9

Registration: D 7625, R 5253, N 6484, total 19378, D+ 2372
Incumbent: Helen Miller, D-Ft. Dodge

Update September 11: Alcazar running again.

Very little change for Miller in the district she's held since 2002. She keeps her entire old district and adds three townships to maintain roughly the same Democratic edge. This is one of those ones where the district lines practically draw themselves. An ideal House district size is 30,538, and the Ft. Dodge census population is 25,206.

Miller won with a surprisingly close 52% last time against Matt Alcazar, a tea partier opponent who had started out running as an independent. Speaking of tea partiers who started out running as independents...

House District 10

Registration: D 5119, R 7452, N 8881, total 21468, R+ 2333
Incumbents: Tom Shaw, R-Laurens, and Dave Tjepkes, R-Gowrie January 10: Tjepkes retires.

Tom Shaw, who first announced his 2010 run as an independent, won an epic primary and then took over with ease in the general as conservaDem Dolores Mertz retired. Shaw, age 49, has taken the hard-right approach along with fellow freshmen Glen Massie and Kim Pearson: uber-purist on abortion, joining the late session Supreme Court impeachment effort. He keeps his native Pocahontas County and Humboldt, but loses the city of Algona and southern Kossuth.

Tjepkes, age 67, hails from Gowrie in rural Webster County. He first won old district 50 in the last year lines were redone, 2002. He keeps Calhoun County but loses all of Greene County, which instead goes with Boone County into freshman Republican Chip Baltimore's seat. Tjepkes was was a 64% winner in 2008 and unopposed in 2010.

Tjepkes took the opposite approach to Shaw on marriage equality, as one of four House Republicans who did not co-sponsor the constitutional amendment (though he, along with all Republicans and sadly three Democrats, ended up voting for it). This had some folks talking primary challenge even before the map came out.

The two paired incumbents are from opposite corners of the district. The new seat is more Republican than either of the old seats. With the Senate seat on the odd cycle, a run at Beall is only an option if one of the two House members stands down for two years. Tjepkes could go east into new 48, where technically Democrat Lisa Heddens lives (but she's expected to go with most of her voters in the open 46 in Ames), but there's very little overlap with the old Tjepkes turf and it's a swing seat.

Shaw could go north a couple miles into the open district 2, but there's no overlap at all with his old turf and, while it's a good GOP district, the new one he's in is better. Shaw didn't back down from a contested primary last time, and the tea party favorite beat Stephen Richards, the main-chance doctor who had fallen only 42 votes short of Mertz in 2008.

On Map Day, Tjepkes said he was inclined to run, while Shaw declined comment. desmoinesdem bets on party establishment support leading to a Tjepkes primary win, but in a GOP primary my money is always on the crazy.

New Map | New Map (Insets) | Old Map