District Of The Day 3: Iowa Senate District 35, Iowa House District 69 & 70

Senate District 35
Registration: D 14725, R 8504, N 13535, total 36801, D +6221
Incumbent: Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids; holdover seat

Just to calm you down after that Marion post, here's some dull southwest Cedar Rapids contests.

Horn is Iowa's senior legislator, elected to the House in 1972 and moving over to the Senate after a decade. Wally hasn't even seen an opponent since 1990, and the last excitement of any sort was in 1991 when he and fellow Democrat Rich Running were paired (Running made a Senate to House switch). Horn will hold over till 2014, when he'll be 80.

House District 69
Registration: D 6907, R 3651, N 6595, total 17171, D +3256
Incumbent: Kirsten Running-Marquardt, D-Cedar Rapids, unopposed

Running-Marquardt won this seat easily in a late 2009 special election when Dick Taylor resigned. Her father had served much of the same area in the House and Senate, and Kirsten had earned her own stripes with a decade in the trenches of campaign and labor staffing. She had a rematch with her special election opponent in the 2010 general, winning with over 63%.

Kirsten's old seat was virtually all in Cedar Rapids. The new district expands outward south and west to the Johnson and Benton County lines, taking in Fairfax and the Linn County piece of Walford. The lines move west through midtown. Kirsten loses the core of downtown, Coe, and the Czech Village area. The changes cut about 900 voters off of Running-Marquardt's Democratic registration edge, but this remains solid Democratic turf.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Iowans for Kirsten Running-Marquardt

House District 70
Registration: D 7818, R 4853, N 6940, total 19630, D +2965
Incumbent: Todd Taylor, D-Cedar Rapids

Todd Taylor was the younger but senior Taylor in the House when he served with Dick Taylor. Todd picked this seat in a 1995 special when Kirsten's dad Rich Running stepped down. Taylor's 58% in 2010 was probably the low mark for Democrats.

Sometimes Taylor gets an opponent and this is one of those times. Republicans called a late convention and chose business owner Lance Lefebure. His business produces high-end GPS equipment designed for ag use, and he seems like he might have been a decent candidate for a more rural seat.

Taylor's turf does stretch out into the county for the first time, but it's still essentially an urban Cedar Rapids seat. Taylor keeps the flood-ravaged Time Check area; the line between his district and Running-Marquardt's moves south and gets smoother, mostly following 16th Avenue SW. There's almost no change in the district's solid Democratic edge.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Taylor for Representative

Senate District 35, House District 69 & 70: District of the Day 1 - 6/10/2011 | District of the Day 2 - 3/16/2012

Shannon Chair Nominated in SD34

As expected - since no one else had thrown their hat in the ring - Linn County Republicans in Senate District 34 replaced neo-secessionist Randi-Kaye: Shannon on the ballot with her former campaign chair, Ryan Flood.

Shannon withdrew from the race against Senator Liz Mathis last month and announced she had been "selected" as "united States Senator in the Republic of the united States of America."

Flood, most recently reported as living and working in Texas, plead ignorance last night, telling Kevin Hall of TheIowaRepublican:

“I actually didn’t really know about that until it was on the news,” Flood said. “I was down in Texas and she asked me to come up and help her out. I knew she was trying to get some paperwork done at the last second, so it doesn’t surprise me that she put me on there.”

Though the district has a Republican registration advantage, "a victory by Flood in November is highly unlikely," Hall writes."There are well known Republicans in Senate District 34 who could have given Mathis a decent challenge this year. Despite efforts to recruit other candidates, both before the June primary and after Shannon’s mind-boggling departure, no one other than Ryan Flood was interested in the seat."

But at least  he's another Ron Paul/Campaign for Liberty type, which should make A.J. Spiker and the crowd running the state central committee happy. The GOP can also go back to bragging about having a candidate on the ballot in all 26 Senate races. (Democrats have left four Senate seats, all heavily Republican, unchallenged.)

Mathis, for her part, spent yesterday in Black Hawk County campaigning with Senate colleague Jeff Danielson. The newest legislator is a popular fund-raiser guest for other candidates, and she shouldn't have to slow down much on that as she swats away this challenge.

In the night's other convention, also in Linn County, Republicans picked business owner Lance Lefebure to challenge Rep. Todd Taylor in solidly Democratic House District 70. In contrast to Flood, Lefebure has left few political footprints and on paper looks like he might have been a decent candidate for a more rural district. His business produces high-end GPS equipment designed for ag use. Taylor's turf stretches out into the county, to Fairfax, for the first time, but is still essentially an urban Cedar Rapids seat.

Republicans have two more conventions scheduled this week. Thursday they meet in House District 90. No name has emerged to oppose incumbent Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport. Friday the GOP is expected to nominate Jim Steffen to oppose Rep. Jerry Kearns, D- Ft. Madison. Both seats are heavily Democratic.