Iowa Down Ballot

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Professional political analysts discuss Iowa politics with refreshing, in-depth conversations. iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com

  1. 2d ago

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/25/26

    Kathie’s team at Iowa Capital Dispatch broke a story on a 119-page study the Reynolds administration commissioned on letting community colleges offer four-year degrees, then sat on for months. The findings: Iowa doesn’t really have “education deserts,” and the brain drain problem is more about low wages than higher ed. Community colleges are already pushing back on the report’s methodology, and expect this fight back at the legislature next year. Read Brooklyn Draisey’s reporting here. We also got an update on the libertarian ballot cases. Marco Battalia (running under a name that isn’t legally his) and Rick Stewart both had name-based challenges heard in court this week, with rulings expected soon. The tougher case, over Jules Cutler’s affidavit for lieutenant governor, is headed to the Iowa Supreme Court either way. Last up, a Dave Muhlbauer campaign stop for the Rob Sand campaign at Ember Recovery turned into a real, unscripted moment when YSS president Andrew Allen raised concerns about legalizing marijuana and its effect on kids. Good discussion, and a reminder that this issue deserves more nuance than it usually gets. We’re off next week, back in two weeks as the fall campaign heats up. Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:20.189 Dave Price: Hi everybody, welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, as we get toward the end of July, and my son’s 16th birthday, so kind of a fun… a fun day in my household. How are you, ladies? 33 00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:22.580 Kathie Obradovich: Doing great, how are you? 34 00:02:22.720 --> 00:02:35.560 Dave Price: Kathie, I’m gonna call you out, but just to show how I do think women are genetically superior at this, which is probably sexist toward men, but it is what it is. Right before we open this podcast. 35 00:02:35.720 --> 00:02:51.300 Dave Price: Kathie, as she’s getting ready to do this show, is texting as part of her editor duties at the Iowa Capital Dispatch. So, you know, it just shows how she can break that brain up into multi… little multi-chunks. 36 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:54.400 Kathie Obradovich: I would never get anything done otherwise. 37 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:56.780 Laura Belin: Women… women are good at multitasking, Dan. 38 00:02:56.780 --> 00:02:58.130 Dave Price: Honestly, I… 39 00:02:58.130 --> 00:03:22.950 Dave Price: I am… I learn that every year, year after year. Anyway. Alright, we have a bunch to talk about. Kathie, can you lead off today? Because on… late on Thursday night, Iowa Capital Dispatch had a story that posted about something that you all have been chasing down, really, for a number of months. And to catch us up on this, this was something that came up 40 00:03:22.950 --> 00:03:41.270 Dave Price: during the past legislative session, where there was talk about community colleges offering four-year degrees, to lay this out generically. And it faced some pushback from the regents, obviously, it faced some pushback, especially from some of the private colleges and universities. 41 00:03:41.270 --> 00:03:54.570 Dave Price: But your staff found out that there had been this study commissioned to look at this concept. Can you walk us through the journey to actually get ahold of this study? 42 00:03:54.570 --> 00:03:59.399 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so it’s interesting. It’s probably been more accurate to say it’s been weeks, as… Okay. 43 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:01.190 Dave Price: It’s better to say months. 44 00:04:01.190 --> 00:04:17.640 Kathie Obradovich: But, it’s been 8 months, anyway. So, yeah, we covered during the legislative session, the push from community colleges to establish baccalaureate degrees at community colleges, which is, you know, really. 45 00:04:17.640 --> 00:04:42.300 Kathie Obradovich: something that has never been done in Iowa. Community colleges, have four-year or two-year associate certificates, and they also have programs where their students can transfer to a private college or one of the region’s universities to get a four-year degree. And that was a hotly contested issue at the legislature, the private colleges especially 46 00:04:42.380 --> 00:04:59.869 Kathie Obradovich: were up in arms over that, saying it would really help them. And really, one of the, the arguments behind it, on the community college side was that there are, higher education deserts in Iowa, that the community colleges could help fill, because 47 00:05:00.030 --> 00:05:02.319 Kathie Obradovich: You know, there are places where 48 00:05:02.320 --> 00:05:27.220 Kathie Obradovich: Especially adult students who may be, trying to go back to school to upgrade their skills and get a better job, that they, you know, might not be able to access those, courses, you know, either they’re too far away, or they are too expensive. So, okay, that was the… that was the big driving argument. The bill didn’t pass. And at some point during the process. 49 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:40.530 Kathie Obradovich: the Reynolds administration commissioned a study from a consultant. Never told anyone this study was going on, but some of the stakeholders participated in the study, so they knew about it. 50 00:05:40.530 --> 00:05:47.780 Kathie Obradovich: And then the study, was received by Department of Education, in June. 51 00:05:47.780 --> 00:06:03.389 Kathie Obradovich: At some point, the study actually was dated in March, which is while the legislative session was going on. The Department of Education says they received it in June, but it was never released. And so… 52 00:06:03.650 --> 00:06:28.649 Kathie Obradovich: We put in a Freedom of Information Act request, and after being handed around, you know, various departments, we finally got a copy of it yesterday morning. And it was really interesting, because the study basically said, you know, that there really isn’t education deserts in Iowa. That, they, you know, people can 53 00:06:28.650 --> 00:06:45.830 Kathie Obradovich: access higher education, either through, you know, within an hour’s drive or online, and that there’s plenty of access, etc. And, also, and this is maybe even the more interesting part, they said that 54 00:06:45.930 --> 00:07:07.509 Kathie Obradovich: Iowa’s workforce woes, you know, the concerns about the brain drain are really due to the business climate, and not how higher education is performing in the state, which I thought was pretty interesting. So, you know, we can use our imaginations about why the governor’s office wasn’t in a big hurry to release this study. 55 00:07:07.510 --> 00:07:12.470 Kathie Obradovich: But, you know, the community colleges are still pushing back. They’re saying that the 56 00:07:12.470 --> 00:07:20.779 Kathie Obradovich: Their definition of an education desert was flawed, or at least different from what the community colleges are using. 57 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:44.820 Kathie Obradovich: community colleges say a 30-minute drive is, is really more practical for people. And, you know, I think they have a point there. But also arguing that, you know, online, doesn’t serve the bill. So they’re pushing back, essentially, especially at the education desert part of that. And, you know, I think that there were some recommendations that the private colleges don’t like as well, including 58 00:07:44.820 --> 00:07:54.319 Kathie Obradovich: putting, more, you know, kind of putting more conditions on the Iowa Tuition grant, which is taxpayer money that private colleges get. 59 00:07:54.320 --> 00:08:10.820 Kathie Obradovich: For student scholarships. So, anyway, this is a… just an interesting point, with actual research that’s gone into this issue. I would expect it to come back again next year, and we’ll see how this study plays into the discussion. 60 00:08:10.910 --> 00:08:15.010 Dave Price: Was there any context on when they talked… Yeah, for sure. Sorry, Laura. 61 00:08:15.700 --> 00:08:19.929 Laura Belin: Yo, I didn’t even know about this report, so very nice work in finding out. 62 00:08:19.930 --> 00:08:22.249 Kathie Obradovich: I’m Brooklyn, Drazy’s part. 63 00:08:22.250 --> 00:08:31.739 Dave Price: Multitasking, here we go. Exhibit A. Hey, did they have… was there any context when you mentioned that the challenge is the business climate? Was there any contact with that? 64 00:08:31.960 --> 00:08:56.399 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and we did post the report, so, you know, you might want to dig into the details there, but, you know, they’re essentially talking about, you know, the fact that, Iowa has lower wages, than surrounding states, people leaving for, for lower wages, or for higher wages elsewhere, etc. 65 00:08:56.490 --> 00:09:05.670 Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, that they’re saying that there’s enough graduates to fill the jobs, it’s just that they’re getting… they’re getting out of Dodge when they… when they. 66 00:09:05.670 --> 00:09:07.020 Dave Price: Better opportunities elsewhere. 67 00:09:07.020 --> 00:09:08.210 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, yeah. 68 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.549 Laura Belin: I’m sure the bill will come back next year, but the… 69 00:09:12.550 --> 00:09:35.410 Laura Belin: chair of the Iowa Senate Education Committee,

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/25/26

  2. Jul 19

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/19/26

    Firstly, Kathie is on the road and fighting off some wildfire smoke in Chicago, which set the tone for a conversation about just how bad conditions got in the Midwest last week. Then it was on to the big events: Democrats’ Liberty and Justice dinner drew Pete Buttigieg and, by Laura’s read, a noticeably more energized crowd than in 2025. Rita Hart’s talk of two dozen-plus field offices and 65 hired field organizers (many former Rob Sand campaign staffers) suggests Democrats are finally taking a real statewide ground game seriously, something we debated the roots of going all the way back to Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy. On the other side, the Family Leadership Summit brought Kim Reynolds, Zach Lahn, Ashley Hinson, and Speaker Mike Johnson to Des Moines. Johnson’s speech leaned hard into warnings about socialism and communism taking over Washington, a rhetorical strategy Laura, who’s actually lived in post-communist Czech Republic and studied in the Soviet Union, called out as more base-rallying than accurate. We also got into Attorney General Brenna Bird’s new Medicaid Fraud Elimination Task Force, with Kathie raising concerns that “fraud prevention” efforts often turn into red tape that hurts people who legitimately qualify for services, and Laura noting the task force isn’t looking at the flip side: people being wrongly denied home-based care. We closed with a fun bit of trivia from Laura on Steve King’s surprising 2010 role, plus one of Dave’s stranger childhood stories (you’ll have to listen for that one). Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:16.010 --> 00:00:24.799 Dave Price: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. 4 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:36.679 Dave Price: on a Saturday, back-to-back weeks, we are testing the flexibility of these to find journalists, because we’re trying to… we’ve had too much stuff happening on Friday, so… 5 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:52.640 Dave Price: So we’ll be dropping this on Sunday, and for those of you who consume at different times, you’re like, what the heck are you talking about, dude? But, we really wanted to work some stuff in for Friday. So, let me start as we begin on this Saturday morning with, good morning, how are you both? 6 00:00:54.020 --> 00:01:09.900 Kathie Obradovich: Good. I’m going to apologize in advance. I’m a little froggy this morning, so I’m going to try not to cough in your ears, but a little bit, a little. I had a cold and then went and spent a couple days in the Chicago smoke or Canada smoke in Chicago, maybe so. 7 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:14.740 Dave Price: Yeah, how bad, I mean, clearly we’ve seen national stories on that. How bad is that? 8 00:01:14.740 --> 00:01:39.400 Kathie Obradovich: It’s bad. It’s really bad. I mean, so we were in the Chicago suburbs, southwest suburbs and you know, clearly, literally a haze just over everything. And you know, it’s not too bad going in from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building, et cetera. But, and I do too much of that and my eyes were starting to burn and yeah, it’s, it is not good. Some other 9 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:56.810 Kathie Obradovich: friends of ours were going to go up to northern Minnesota and came back a day early, because it’s just, you know, literally in the red zone. One day that we were there, both Chicago and Detroit were claiming to have the worst air quality in the entire world. 10 00:01:56.810 --> 00:01:59.610 Dave Price: I heard a story on the radio. 11 00:02:00.270 --> 00:02:17.990 Dave Price: Yeah, Friday morning, I think it was. And, the report was that it’s so thick and bad that even if you don’t generally have any kind of respiratory issues, it’s still not a good idea to be outside. 12 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.409 Dave Price: Yeah. Like, it’s seriously at that level. 13 00:02:20.660 --> 00:02:35.499 Kathie Obradovich: I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time outside. My nephew was supposed to play a softball game on Thursday night, that got canceled, so there was a lot of outdoor activities being canceled, all around the Chicago metro, so… 14 00:02:36.260 --> 00:03:01.200 Dave Price: Speaking of activities, we’ve had a bunch of kind of high profile ones. The Democrats on Sunday had their Liberty and Justice dinner. The Republicans the Friday before, so a little bit more than a week ago, had the annual Lincoln dinner, and then the family leader had the annual Family Leadership Summit. We had all of those kind of jammed one after another, but we had a couple of 15 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:05.850 Dave Price: IPs, Headlining it for the Democrats, you had Pete Buttigieg 16 00:03:05.890 --> 00:03:10.250 Dave Price: which his thing was Sunday, so we didn’t really get to talk about this, but 17 00:03:10.250 --> 00:03:33.520 Dave Price: I thought it was interesting that early on in his remarks before the group he made a little comment about the 2020 Democratic caucuses, and how they’re still waiting on some of the results from a few of the precincts, you know, and I think for the most part, I think people laughed. If Troy Price, the former chair of the party, was watching online, he’s probably like 18 00:03:33.700 --> 00:03:53.160 Dave Price: But, and then Buttigieg was asked about it in the gaggle afterwards with reporters and, you know, has he let bygones be bygones or whatever? And I forget, he kind of playfully handled the question. But Laura, I saw you in the, obviously we were both there at Prairie Meadows when they had this thing. 19 00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:55.970 Dave Price: what’d you think about… 20 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:13.870 Dave Price: I’m always curious about, like, who’s in the audience, you know what I mean? So this is, like, a late afternoon event on a Sunday. It was an older crowd, I felt like. A decent amount of empty seats, and I don’t know if that matters or not matters. People probably bought tickets and then didn’t show. 21 00:04:14.390 --> 00:04:15.959 Laura Belin: They set it up for more people. 22 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:25.769 Laura Belin: There were definitely more people attending than the last few years, but because they’d set up the room in rows instead of having tables with chairs around it. 23 00:04:25.770 --> 00:04:26.210 Dave Price: Mhmm. 24 00:04:26.210 --> 00:04:29.640 Laura Belin: It ended up looking like there were some empty seats, but… 25 00:04:29.730 --> 00:04:53.450 Laura Belin: I would describe the crowd as kind of the usual suspects. I mean, I saw a lot of people who are activists in certain counties, and they’ve been involved for a long time, or they’re involved in county Democratic leadership. But I was really struck by the upbeat mood in the crowd. I mean, in twenty twenty five, when I was around at Democratic events, I mean, Democrats were just struggling to pick themselves up off the floor, basically. 26 00:04:53.690 --> 00:04:57.600 Laura Belin: And I think that people feel very… 27 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:22.529 Laura Belin: They feel like they have a strong chance to win some of these races. Rita Hart talked about the ground game that the party is building, that they already have more than two dozen field offices open. And I talked to some people from different counties who said, oh, yeah, they have there’s an office and people are out every weekend. They have volunteers out knocking on doors. I mean, we haven’t seen anything like that level of ground game since Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in twenty twelve. 28 00:05:22.530 --> 00:05:23.799 Laura Belin: On the Democratic side. 29 00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:28.590 Dave Price: And I think, are you the one who asked Rita about that in the gaggle? 30 00:05:28.590 --> 00:05:28.950 Laura Belin: after the. 31 00:05:28.950 --> 00:05:46.000 Dave Price: Yes. About the organizational side, and you know, you’re the, you’re one of the few nerdy types that really looks into that kind of deep level stuff, but it, and that doesn’t get a lot of reportage statewide, I don’t think, because it’s sort of inside baseball so much, but as you know. 32 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:51.010 Dave Price: That could reflect a number of things, right? Enthusiasm. 33 00:05:51.010 --> 00:06:12.969 Dave Price: greater fundraising, and then maybe even just a broader view of instead of isolating to a couple of pockets that some Democrats have believed they should go to kind of maximize turnout where they know they have a bunch of people. This might reflect a little more emphasis to do, maybe not truly statewide, but more of a statewide focus than they’ve done recently. Is that fair? 34 00:06:12.970 --> 00:06:37.389 Laura Belin: Definitely, and the fundraising is crucial, and I think that the largest chunk of it is coming from Rob Sand’s campaign to support this field effort, because a number of the field organizers, Rita Hart said there are about 65 field organizers who have already been hired, and a number of them were working on Rob Sand’s campaign initially, and now they’re technically working for, I guess they call it Iowa Forward, so they’re employees of the Iowa Democratic Party right now, but 35 00:06:37.490 --> 00:07:02.470 Laura Belin: They have people out everywhere. I talk

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/19/26

  3. Jul 12

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/12/26

    This week’s episode got recorded Saturday morning instead of our usual Friday because there was just too much news going on Friday to keep up with, and a lot of it needed to be in the show. Laura broke down two big court stories: the Trump/Selzer poll lawsuit hearing (ruling expected in a few weeks, but headed to the Iowa Supreme Court either way) and the tangled Libertarian ballot fights over Marco Battaglia and Rick Stewart’s names. We also recapped the Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner, where Kim Reynolds let loose dancing and reminiscing about a Journey concert, Zach Lahn announced Trump’s endorsement, and Ashley Hinson took aim at Josh Turek over missed legislative votes. Kathie closed things out with a plug for Iowa Capital Dispatch’s benefit concert Sunday (today) in Ankeny, supporting local news. More information on that can be found at the top of the page at iowacapitaldispatch.com. Speaking of, big shoutout to those of you who subscribe, share, and discuss this show with friends and family. We continue to grow in terms of downloads, subscribers (both paid and free), and donations. None of that is possible without you. Thank you! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:19.220 --> 00:00:27.249 Dave Price: Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. 5 00:00:27.330 --> 00:00:39.199 Dave Price: If we can peel back the curtains a little bit. If you’re a regular here, you know we usually, the three of us, assemble on a Friday, yak it up about what’s going on, kind of dig into some stuff. 6 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:52.359 Dave Price: And then the new podcast episode drops on a Saturday morning, if you really care how the sausage is made. There were 500 million things that happened on Friday, and so our typical flurry of emails back and forth. 7 00:00:52.390 --> 00:00:57.879 Dave Price: Probably should have had, like, the emoji with hands up in the air, like, how in the heck are we gonna do this? 8 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:05.940 Dave Price: And there was… there was no way to do it, so we are recording on a Saturday morning. It’s gonna have a whole different vibe here, right? 9 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:08.010 Kathie Obradovich: For sure. 10 00:01:09.800 --> 00:01:27.109 Dave Price: I don’t know how that was gonna matter. But we sort of need… there were so many things yesterday, my partner at the Bureau for TV, when I laid out our coverage plans and stuff, I told her, I’m like, look, there are, like, 5 things on Friday, we literally can’t do all these things, so we’re gonna have to prioritize a few of them, and… 11 00:01:27.130 --> 00:01:32.300 Dave Price: to play catch-up on the other ones. Laura, coincidentally, you happened to go to… 12 00:01:32.300 --> 00:01:47.480 Dave Price: two of the things that we were not able to do. And of course, this gets into your sweet spot because it involves the courts. But how about do your morning first, Friday morning, the Ann Selzer. 13 00:01:47.480 --> 00:01:52.739 Dave Price: Lawsuit that’s been… this is… When did this even get filed? When was it? Last year or. 14 00:01:52.740 --> 00:02:07.089 Laura Belin: This was, well, the original lawsuit was filed in December of 2024, but this was related to the lawsuit that was filed, the kind of replacement lawsuit filed on June 30th, 2025, which is important because it was one day before. 15 00:02:07.090 --> 00:02:07.549 Dave Price: the devil. 16 00:02:07.550 --> 00:02:32.550 Laura Belin: Iowa’s anti-SLAPP law went into effect, which would have made it easier to get a suit like this dismissed. But we’re more than a year into proceedings on this, and this was a big hearing over whether the case should be allowed to move forward or whether it should be dismissed. So Donald Trump, joined by Marionette Miller Meeks and the former state senator Brad Zahn, are suing the Des Moines Register Gannett Corporation 17 00:02:32.550 --> 00:02:42.990 Laura Belin: and the former longtime pollster for the Register, Ann Selzer. And the defendants have two different lawyers, Ann Selzer is being represented pro bono. 18 00:02:42.990 --> 00:03:03.970 Laura Belin: by Robert Corn Revere of the nonprofit group Fire, which is a free speech oriented nonprofit. And then the Gannett Corporation and Des Moines Register have their own local council. And both had filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit on very, on similar grounds, but they were arguing differently. So it was a really long hearing. It went for more than two hours. 19 00:03:03.970 --> 00:03:15.859 Laura Belin: where the judge first heard from both sets of defendants on all their arguments to dismiss the lawsuit, then there was a short break, then Alan Ostergren, the attorney for Trump and the other plaintiffs. 20 00:03:15.860 --> 00:03:40.839 Laura Belin: made his best case for why the court should allow this suit to go forward, and then both of the defendants got time for rebuttal. So the judge said there are so many legal issues here. It’s gonna take him a few weeks to rule, but he’s gonna be deciding whether to dismiss the case right now for lack of any valid legal claims or whether to allow the it to go forward, which would mean that the plaintiffs can pursue discovery. They 21 00:03:40.840 --> 00:04:04.090 Laura Belin: They could try to seek to obtain internal emails from the register, from Gannett, from Ann Selzer. But either way this decision goes, it’s going to be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court. So we have a long way to go. But just all that is to say that this hearing was not about the substance of the claims, like was the poll fraudulent or not? This was just about how is there even enough of a legal argument here? 22 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:09.010 Laura Belin: that the case should be allowed to go forward under Iowa’s consumer fraud statute. 23 00:04:09.150 --> 00:04:33.900 Kathie Obradovich: And just to circle back, because I don’t think you actually said it, that this is over a pre-election poll that was run right before the general election in 2024. The poll showed that Kamala Harris was actually leading by like 3 percentage points, something like that. And then Trump ended up winning Iowa by 13 points. And so his argument is that the 24 00:04:33.900 --> 00:04:48.029 Kathie Obradovich: and it’s… it’s… they even said in court that this was a novel effort under this law. They… they’re actually suing under the Consumer Fraud Act and claiming that the poll was fraudulent, and that, 25 00:04:48.210 --> 00:04:56.740 Kathie Obradovich: you know, they even sort of implied that there was actually no poll, that the, that the, that the, the results were just made up. And, 26 00:04:56.750 --> 00:05:20.249 Kathie Obradovich: And so it’s super interesting. One, he’s not trying this under a defamation. This is the typical type of lawsuit a politician might file. The Consumer Fraud Act has different rules, et cetera. And one of the things that was really interesting to me was that they admitted in court, Ostergren admitted in court, they have no evidence that this was fraud. 27 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:33.650 Kathie Obradovich: And part of their argument was, this case should not be thrown out because we have no evidence. We need to… you need to continue it so we can go through discovery and find the evidence that this was fraudulent. And so… 28 00:05:33.670 --> 00:05:47.629 Kathie Obradovich: So I thought that was really, really interesting. And then, of course, the lawyer for Ann Selzer, made, made, I think, you know, a pretty stark case that. 29 00:05:47.630 --> 00:06:12.560 Kathie Obradovich: Even if everything that the Trump side says is true, like all of their facts, such as they are, are actually true, that this case still can’t go forward under the law. That a newspaper poll, one, is not a consumer product that, you know, if the product is defective, there’s no, you know, you haven’t relied on it or 30 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:37.560 Kathie Obradovich: acted on it in any way. Trump said he didn’t believe it from the very first, so he didn’t rely on it or act on it in any way. And hello, violation of the First Amendment all over the place. And the judge really did seem to be thinking about that. He made several comments about, you know, isn’t this a chilling effect on the First Amendment? Those types of comments. So 31 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:45.110 Kathie Obradovich: I think that at the very least, the First Amendment argument was penetrating with this judge. 32 00:06:45.110 --> 00:07:08.810 Laura Belin: I think the judge seemed receptive to a lot of the arguments, including the First Amendment argument. But as you say, the attorneys were saying, even if you believe all of the conspiracy theories that this was just a fake poll concocted, it still fails because this wasn’t a consumer transaction. There’s no evidence that Donald Trump or the other plaintiffs ever relied on the poll. There’s no evidence that they bought the newspaper because of the poll. 33 00:07:08.810 --> 00:07:17.590 Laura Belin: They’re, they’re talking about money that the campaign spent in those last few days before the election responding to the poll, but Iowa’s consumer fraud. 34 00:07:17.640 --> 00:07:18.390 Laura Belin: Act. 35 00:07:18.390 --> 00:07:43.310 Laura Belin: allows consumers to get back the money that they spent on some there was some kind of fraudulent act or practice or transaction. It’s not something that some unrelated, some other entity spent. There’s no evidence that that the plaintiffs in this case were economically harmed at all. So it fails on that level too. And then just generally, they’re trying to say a poll is commercial speech, but the definition of commercial 36 00:07:43.310 --> 00:08:00.860 Laura Belin: commercial speech is more like an advertisement, that it has no purpose other than to facilitate some kind of co

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/12/26

  4. Jul 4

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/4/26

    Happy Independence Day! We start with a federal court ruling striking down Iowa’s SNAP food restrictions this week, so candy and soda are back on the table. Kathie and Laura break down just how confusing those old rules were, and note the SunBucks summer program will keep going with the pre-waiver food list. We also cover Cami Koons’ reporting for Iowa Capital Dispatch on USDA staffing cuts hitting Iowa’s county offices, including Polk County losing in-person help most days of the week. Farmers are feeling it on top of already tough market conditions. We close with the numbers: a new Fox News poll shows Josh Turek up 4 on Ashley Hinson and Rob Sand up 9 on Zach Lahn, while the Times/Siena poll has both races much tighter. To support our work financially you can click on the link above to become a paid subscriber, or the link below for a one time donation to the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative that helps fund our costs. Thanks so much to those of you who already have. Have a safe and happy 4th! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:30.670 --> 00:00:31.739 Dave Price: Okay, here we go. 4 00:00:35.430 --> 00:00:47.119 Dave Price: Welcome, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast on this first episode of July 2026. I’m Dave Price, joined by my Iowa Writers Collaborative 5 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:56.860 Dave Price: That’s not even any good. I’m, like, stumbling all over Spencer, how about we don’t count that one? Plus, I felt like I had a thing in my throat the whole time. Take two, take two, take two. 6 00:00:56.860 --> 00:00:58.149 Laura Belin: Alright, okay, hang on. 7 00:00:59.830 --> 00:01:01.679 Dave Price: Sorry, Spencer. 8 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:23.049 Dave Price: Hi everybody, welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by my fellow collaborators from the Iowa Writers Collaborative, Laura Belin and Kathie O’Brijovich, for our first show in July of 2026. How are you? 9 00:01:23.830 --> 00:01:25.980 Kathie Obradovich: Doing great. Happy 4th of July. 10 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:27.600 Dave Price: Nepsi, 4th of July. 11 00:01:28.050 --> 00:01:35.920 Dave Price: And indeed. Kathie and I were talking about right before we started this, we both have pets who are not all that thrilled with fireworks. 12 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:40.639 Dave Price: Unfortunately, our pet left a present in the corner of, 13 00:01:40.970 --> 00:01:49.530 Dave Price: my basement office here, while we were gone last night, I think, which I didn’t even notice, or it happened overnight. I’m not really sure when that happened, and she, like, never does that, so… 14 00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:52.940 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah. 15 00:01:52.940 --> 00:01:53.750 Dave Price: Oh, I can’t wait. 16 00:01:53.750 --> 00:01:57.719 Kathie Obradovich: Mine just hides, luckily. Yeah, that’s what… My cat just hides. 17 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:02.860 Dave Price: That’s what our dog usually does. There’s a corner she goes to all the time, but she doesn’t usually have… 18 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:07.580 Dave Price: Accidents, those are really rare, so something must have really spooked her overnight, I guess. 19 00:02:08.820 --> 00:02:13.709 Dave Price: Okay, well, that was not how I meant to begin this week’s show. 20 00:02:13.970 --> 00:02:26.200 Dave Price: But it is… it is what it is. All right, there is, there’s a bunch we want to talk about. We’ll see how much we can squeeze in this week, but, Kathie, props to the Iowa Capital Dispatch staff. 21 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:28.749 Dave Price: First of all, 22 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:40.270 Dave Price: You have a couple of significant pieces here over the last couple of days, but let’s talk about, one, this follow-up, really, to this federal court ruling, and it impacts the Iowa law. 23 00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:58.569 Dave Price: when it comes to people who receive the SNAP benefits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal benefits that come through there. And Iowa Republicans, like Republican counterparts in other states across the country, put restrictions on this to limit 24 00:02:58.730 --> 00:03:13.730 Dave Price: what types of food you can buy. Now, from the get-go, I remember working on these stories. Some of it’s confusing, right? Even for the people who are up at the State House 24-7, it seems like, like, granola bars, like, is… 25 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:30.669 Dave Price: Is that a yes, is that a no? And certain things… certain foods that are kind of already… I don’t know what the right word is, but sort of already made, that you can go pick up. I know nationally there was this thing about rotisserie chicken or something, like, if you go buy it from the gas station. What’s your take on… 26 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:35.909 Dave Price: the federal ruling, and now what Iowa has to do because of it. 27 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:58.819 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so because of the federal ruling, basically the Fed said, sorry, you states that have these waivers, your… this… this rule does not comply with the federal definition of food in the law. So, essentially, it’s saying to all these states, you can’t do this waiver because it doesn’t… it does not… 28 00:03:58.820 --> 00:04:22.320 Kathie Obradovich: conform with the law. So, what happened yesterday was basically the notification from Iowa Department of Health and Human Services that basically that waiver is now void. So, you know, things like soda and candy and, stuff like that that was banned under the waiver. 29 00:04:22.320 --> 00:04:45.409 Kathie Obradovich: you can now buy again with SNAP. And, you know, it didn’t surprise me. I figured they would have to do this eventually anyway. But also, they said that the SunBucks program, which is the summer, we call it… well, sometimes we call it summer EBT, electronic benefits transfer. You basically get a… families with kids that, are already on SNAP get an extra 40 bucks a month. 30 00:04:45.410 --> 00:05:00.170 Kathie Obradovich: To cover meals over the summer. And Iowa had stopped doing it for a couple years, because Kim Reynolds said it wasn’t healthy. You can get healthy food. So… 31 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:22.760 Kathie Obradovich: But they started doing it this year because of the waiver. And, I… you know, they even talked about, in the legislature, dropping the program if that waiver did not continue. You know, if kids could buy candy with SNAP dollars, they didn’t want to do it. And, in fact, HHS announced yesterday that SunBucks will continue. 32 00:05:22.760 --> 00:05:45.750 Kathie Obradovich: With the food list from before the waiver. So, you can buy candy now with the… with the Sunbucks as well as Snap. I think, you know, this… this sort of abrupt seesawing may cause problems for some, you know, retailers, grocery stores. It was confusing anyway, because it was based on… it was kind of based on sales tax. 33 00:05:45.750 --> 00:05:59.869 Kathie Obradovich: And so, you mentioned the thing with granola, it’s like, you know, if you pay sales tax for it, then, you can’t get it with SNAP, and so that includes, like, prepared food, but now people are making the point, you know, a cup of fruit. 34 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:13.839 Kathie Obradovich: cut up fruit. You know, you… you can’t get that, but you can get a granola bar that’s full of fat and sugar. So, it was definitely an imperfect program. I… the governor vowed to continue to try to 35 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:23.179 Kathie Obradovich: you know, make Iowa’s program, conform with her idea of what’s healthy. So, I think we haven’t heard the last of this. 36 00:06:24.060 --> 00:06:43.019 Laura Belin: Well, the whole thing is so weird, because I thought, and I’m gonna have to go back and read this bill again, but I thought that under one of the laws Governor Reynolds signed this year, Iowa cannot continue in that summer meals program if they don’t have a waiver from the USDA, so I was very confused. 37 00:06:43.020 --> 00:07:08.020 Laura Belin: by the press release, and the summer meals, or sun bucks, whatever you want to call it, it covers a lot of people who aren’t on SNAP. It’s any family who has a child on… eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch. So it’s about 240,000 kids where they’re getting an extra 40 bucks a month for the three months of the summer. So it’s significant for people’s budgets. But these rules, the Iowa Hunger Coalition had really good coverage 38 00:07:08.020 --> 00:07:30.909 Laura Belin: earlier this year about how confusing the rules are, because things with flour and dairy are not taxable, but other kinds of candy are, so you get these things like, you can’t buy a Snickers bar, but you could buy a frozen Snickers bar, because it has ice cream, which is dairy, which means it’s not taxable. So the idea that this waiver was 39 00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:35.390 Laura Belin: Stopping people from buying unhealthy foods is a little bit of a canard. 40 00:07:36.690 --> 00:07:59.889 Dave Price: The whole… this makes me think of this entire… the entire Maha movement, and what is the best way, at the end of the day, to help people eat healthier and to get healthier. And we are seeing different approaches about it, and it now, following this court ruling for the questions that we were facing for months, wondering how this was all going to shake out. 41 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:09.489 Dave Price: it shows that it was not gonna all shake out. There were gonna be problems with this, which is some of the questions we were asking for months, because some of the stuff 42 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:19.420 Dave Price: as you mentioned, Laura, with the Iowa Hunger Coalition, it is hard to logically explain, you know, like, for us, as reporters, you… 43 00:08:19.490 --> 00:08:37.350 Dave Price: get all this information, and then you have to spit it out in some form so the public can

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 7/4/26

  5. Jun 27

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/27/26

    Audio has leaked of RFK Jr. calling Libertarian candidate Rick Stewart, pushing him to drop out of the 2nd District race without ever making a concrete offer. That’s part of a bigger pattern of Republicans working to push Libertarians off the ballot, both through direct calls like this one and through legal challenges. Marco Battalia got disqualified over a name issue, and the Libertarian governor and lieutenant governor candidates are now fighting their own disqualification in court. We also revisited Governor Reynolds’ use of CARES Act money to pay 21 staffers back in 2020, a story Laura broke at the time and Rob Sand has criticized for nearly six years. This week the Trump Treasury sent a letter saying the spending was fine, and Sand pushed back, standing by his original finding. You can read Laura’s original stories on the topic here, here, and here. Finally, we covered the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s likely to knock out hundreds of Roundup cancer lawsuits, since there’s no federal cancer warning requirement on glyphosate. Both gubernatorial candidates oppose the ruling, and we noted the awkward spot it puts Zach Lahn in given his MAHA messaging and RFK Jr.’s silence on the issue. To become or paid (or free) subscriber go ahead and click that button above. If you’d like to make a one-time donation to help us here at Iowa Down Ballot and everyone with the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative please click the button below. Have a great weekend! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:20.510 --> 00:00:32.439 Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, our weekly conversation about all things in Iowa politics, and then maybe some other stuff that impacts Iowa politics. 4 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:41.690 Dave Price: I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, two of my colleagues from the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Happy Friday, ladies! 5 00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:43.519 Kathie Obradovich: Happy Friday! 6 00:00:43.670 --> 00:00:45.110 Laura Belin: Good Friday to you. 7 00:00:45.110 --> 00:01:05.009 Dave Price: And we say that, obviously, for those of you who may be new to this conversation. We usually record on Fridays, and this podcast drops on Saturdays. It’s a little CYA maneuver in case something really, really big happens on a Friday night. So you might be thinking, why did these fools not talk about it? Well, that’s why, because you have to record this at some point. 8 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:07.689 Dave Price: And so we do, usually, at some point on… 9 00:01:07.810 --> 00:01:15.550 Dave Price: on Fridays. Ladies, I was thinking about my life on Thursday night, and, you know, it’s sometimes 10 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:25.920 Dave Price: maybe this is just me because I’m weird, but sometimes I just have, like, these random thoughts about things we’ve done and experienced in our professional careers and stuff. 11 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:38.280 Dave Price: And, my family was all gone last night, and I was working on this RFK Jr. phone call to the Libertarian congressional candidate, Rick Stewart. 12 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:48.290 Dave Price: which, first of all, just that sentence that I just said is unique enough, right? So I’m finding myself… so we have the audio of this phone call. 13 00:01:48.420 --> 00:02:01.060 Dave Price: And, you know, for our purposes, we’ve got to do some editing to it, we have to put their pictures up every time they talk, there are audio issues with the whole thing, there’s this weird… in the recording we got from the Libertarian Party, there’s a… 14 00:02:01.100 --> 00:02:19.099 Dave Price: little gap in the audio, so I was trying to figure out what the heck that means. Plus, at the end of the conversation, or end of the recording, it just sort of stops. So, you know, you gotta look at this thing and try to vet it and be like, alright, is this thing real? Like, what the heck’s going on? Plus, Rick Stewart’s voice is like this, and RFK is, like… 15 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:20.040 Kathie Obradovich: Great. 16 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:27.540 Dave Price: It talks anyway, but it’s, like, not very loud, so I’m trying to figure out, do I want to alter the video so that people can hear it better? 17 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:35.180 Dave Price: But then, you know, I don’t want a 60 minutes moment here of anybody accusing me of, you know, putting this stuff together differently, but… 18 00:02:35.440 --> 00:02:40.450 Dave Price: First of all, forget the journalism side of this, and the relevance to politics and all this stuff. 19 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:52.120 Dave Price: I mean, it was one of those days, I’m like, I am literally listening to a phone call from RFK Jr. with a guy who’s a libertarian, who’s run for office a ton of different times over the years. 20 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:56.849 Dave Price: And RFK Jr. is trying to get him to drop out of the race. Like, what a… 21 00:02:57.290 --> 00:02:58.910 Dave Price: What a unique story. 22 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:03.130 Kathie Obradovich: You hear about those things happening in politics. 23 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:12.960 Kathie Obradovich: know, and but so, it is so rare, one, that there’s actual audio of the call. I don’t know why more candidates… 24 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:23.470 Kathie Obradovich: Especially those who come back and accuse their opponents of doing such things, why more of them don’t record. Because in Iowa, it is legal. I mean, some states, you can’t… 25 00:03:23.470 --> 00:03:36.189 Kathie Obradovich: record a call, if… unless all parties know. In Iowa, you can record the call as long as one party, you know, like yourself, knows. 26 00:03:36.190 --> 00:03:44.020 Kathie Obradovich: That the recording is happening. So, in some states, there’s wiretap laws that wouldn’t even allow that, but… and I wonder why… 27 00:03:44.240 --> 00:04:08.710 Kathie Obradovich: you know, I was thinking about why RFK Jr. would, you know, call somebody on the phone and, you know, try to get them to drop out of the race, and, you know, in the age when, you know, you can easily make a recording of a phone call, and it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t realize that you could do that in Iowa legally without announcing it. Anyway, but yeah, it’s unusual to have an audio of the call, and secondly. 28 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:31.970 Kathie Obradovich: unusual that somebody so high profile is involved, you know? I mean, usually these things are handled through intermediaries, right? If it’s… if we can say that such a thing is usual. So… so yeah, that was… it was kind of an eye-popping thing, and I, you know, I… I believed Marco Battalia when he said, you know, he raised this, you know, as part of the state objection panel. 29 00:04:31.970 --> 00:04:34.680 Kathie Obradovich: Part of it when they were kicking him off the ballot. 30 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:57.219 Kathie Obradovich: He was in the 3rd District. They were trying to kick him off the ballot, and he talked about how RFK Jr. and, the Zach Nunn campaign had contacted him, trying to get him to drop out. And none of that is illegal unless they make promises, right? They… they try to bribe them to drop out with some sort of promise. 31 00:04:57.220 --> 00:05:03.900 Kathie Obradovich: But it is… it does seem, you know, unseemly, at the very least, so… 32 00:05:04.150 --> 00:05:11.610 Laura Belin: I had the same thought as Kathie, like, did RFK know he was being recorded? And absolute… by the way, yes, for everyone out there. 33 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:34.659 Laura Belin: Iowa is a one-party consent state, so if you’re ever getting a newsworthy call, and I always say this even if it’s just a political opinion poll, just record that call, in case you want to refer to it later. Anyway, but Marco Battalia did not record his conversation, but apparently it did come from the same phone number, according to the Washington Post. The phone number 34 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:40.060 Laura Belin: that Marco Battalia received a call from on his phone was a number that 35 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:42.769 Laura Belin: others can connect to RFK Jr. 36 00:05:43.650 --> 00:05:57.520 Dave Price: And, for those wondering what the heck, why is RFK Jr. calling? For those of us who’ve been around for a little while, and really, this isn’t that many years ago, but we remember 2020, 37 00:05:57.850 --> 00:06:08.999 Dave Price: In the 3rd Congressional District, there was a guy who ran by the name of Brian Jack Holder. He ran as a Libertarian then. He got just enough sliver of the vote. 38 00:06:09.380 --> 00:06:26.709 Dave Price: that David Young, who was the incumbent Republican running against the Democrat, Cindy Axne, they look at the margin there and say, hey, if he would not have run, that could have… that could have been the difference there, and then maybe… maybe the Republican could have… could have won in that case. 39 00:06:26.710 --> 00:06:31.269 Laura Belin: It happened twice. Both of Cindy Axne’s races that she won, in 2018 and 2018. 40 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:32.360 Dave Price: and 20 a.m. 41 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:57.359 Laura Belin: He won in with, like, 49-point-something percent of the vote, and it happened in the Northeast Iowa congressional district. I believe they were independent candidates, not libertarians, but in 2010, Bruce Braley had a really close call against Ben Lang, and there were two other candidates on the ballot, and they combined to get, like, 3 or 3.5% of the vote, something like that. But in any case, it was more than the difference between Braley 42 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:11.380 Laura Belin: and Ben Lang. So I can see why Republicans would be worried about Rick Stewart in the second district. Of course, there’s also another independent candidate, Dave Bashaw, who might pull votes away from the Democrat, Lindsey Jane. 43 00:07:14.770 -->

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/27/26

  6. Jun 20

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/20/26

    Kathie got caught up on Derek Wulf as Lahn’s pick for Lieutenant Governor, this time noting his Ag Committee chairmanship could ease some rural skepticism toward Lahn. Then Laura dropped the real news: court filings show close to a million dollars in foreclosure and judgment cases tied to Wulf’s farm, something his campaign chalks up to broader struggles facing family farmers. We also dug into Kim Reynolds’ legacy as Lieutenant Governor compared to how visible Branstad kept her, plus Laura’s own frustrating run-ins trying to get access during COVID. Read more on that here: Branstad determined to make Reynolds next governor and here: Reynolds hides Gregg And we have some interesting Libertarian news. Two of four candidates got bounced from the ballot, one over a name dispute, one over missing paperwork, with both heading to court. Laura also reported candidates say they got pressure calls from RFK Jr. and a visit from Zach Nunn’s camp urging them to drop out before the challenges hit. To continue to help us cover production costs for this incredibly informative podcast please consider becoming a paid subscriber by clicking the link above, or click the link below to make a one-time contribution that helps Julie Gammack and her work with the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative including Iowa Down Ballot. Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:10.280 --> 00:00:20.650 Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, our weekly confab with two collaborators from the Iowa Writers Collaborative. 4 00:00:20.650 --> 00:00:31.699 Dave Price: Usually two. Last week was one. Kathie Obradovich has returned by popular demand. Laura Bellin was here with us last week and returns as well. Hello, ladies. 5 00:00:31.700 --> 00:00:34.219 Kathie Obradovich: Hello! Happy Friday, happy Juneteenth. 6 00:00:34.460 --> 00:00:35.720 Laura Belin: Yeah, happy Juneteenth. 7 00:00:35.720 --> 00:00:39.310 Dave Price: Happy Friday slash Saturday, I’m gonna say, since this… we recorded 8 00:00:39.730 --> 00:00:43.230 Dave Price: drops on Saturday. Last week, we were… 9 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:52.399 Dave Price: not so artfully, behind the scenes trying to figure out a record time, because Kathie, despite the fact that she was supposed to be off. 10 00:00:52.710 --> 00:01:02.819 Dave Price: not working on Fridays so she could spend time with family, was still dedicated to try to do the podcast, and we were trying like crazy to make sure we knew the news about 11 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:14.430 Dave Price: Zach Lahn choosing State Representative Derek Wulf as his running mate, so we were trying to figure all that into our record time, and the math did not work, so we left Kathie 12 00:01:14.900 --> 00:01:22.729 Dave Price: Unfortunately, out of the conversation. So, should we do it like a PS on that, Kathie, since you didn’t get to weigh in? What’d you think of the choice? 13 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:38.769 Kathie Obradovich: You know, I think, that, I had predicted he would pick, you know, somebody with legislative experience, so that certainly, qualifies, and, you know, his choice of. 14 00:01:38.770 --> 00:01:55.810 Kathie Obradovich: of Derek Wulf as, you know, he’s the Ag Committee Chairman in the House. You know, I think, definitely plays up to rural interests that perhaps Zach Lahn may not be that close to, in the case of some of the big ag 15 00:01:55.810 --> 00:02:01.750 Kathie Obradovich: Manufacturers and producers who, you know, he’s had a kind of an anti-big-ag message. 16 00:02:01.750 --> 00:02:16.569 Kathie Obradovich: That, so I don’t know what the choice of Wulf signals there, that maybe he’s, you know, perhaps a… a little bit of a moderating force on that particular line of questioning. 17 00:02:16.570 --> 00:02:34.840 Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, I think, it seemed like, you know, despite the hiccup at the Republican state convention, where some of Adam Steen’s supporters tried to nominate him, you know, I think that that, you know, ultimately 18 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:41.370 Kathie Obradovich: Republicans probably felt fairly confident or comfortable with Wulf as a choice. 19 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:51.700 Dave Price: I always wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, and whether Rob Sands’ choice of Dave Mulbauer as his running mate, and of course, Dave is a farmer. 20 00:02:51.750 --> 00:03:04.969 Dave Price: Derek is a farmer. Did that have anything to do, you know, did that push Derek up the list to try to combat… combat this so we can go cattle rancher versus cattle rancher in this Lieutenant governor debate, where they both… 21 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:11.439 Dave Price: They both wear their hats, and maybe we do this debate out on a countryside or in a barn or something, in a different. 22 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:23.069 Kathie Obradovich: I was laughing, laughing at the hats. It’s like, you know, if somebody accidentally switched photos of these two guys, would anybody notice? 23 00:03:23.070 --> 00:03:25.249 Dave Price: They do look a little similar. Their wives would probably disagree. 24 00:03:25.630 --> 00:03:28.159 Dave Price: But they do look really similar when they’re in their heads. 25 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:46.550 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, no, I mean, ultimately, I don’t think the choice of lieutenant Governor really makes that much difference, to voters. I mean, unless it turns out to be a terrible choice, and that, you know, the Lieutenant Governor candidate becomes, you know, something of a target. But… 26 00:03:46.790 --> 00:04:06.369 Kathie Obradovich: you know, where it does matter, I think, is whether the governor and lieutenant governor can be a team and work together. That is something that Terry Bransted always lived by, that he, you know, ultimately what was more important to him was picking somebody that he could actually trust and work with. 27 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:20.969 Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, obviously somebody who could be prepared to take over if the worst should happen. So, I think those are the things that are important. I don’t think that otherwise the Lieutenant Governor Choice really brings that much to the ticket, you know, in terms of trying to get elected. 28 00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:33.180 Laura Belin: Dave, one thing we didn’t talk about last week, because it was so new and I hadn’t had time to look into it, but last weekend, I was looking on Iowa Courts Online and going through some of the filings. There are a lot of 29 00:04:33.180 --> 00:04:38.400 Laura Belin: Legal cases, and a petition for foreclosure, and a few legal judgments. 30 00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:53.880 Laura Belin: against Derek Wulf or his farm, and so I feel like… I mean, that’s only what is available right now on Iowa Courts Online. I feel like if there are more legal issues that we don’t know about that may come out during the campaign, I feel like that’s a risk 31 00:04:53.940 --> 00:05:07.439 Laura Belin: that Zach Lahn didn’t necessarily need to take. Although the Lane campaign told me that this is just an example, a lot of farmers are having hard times, and that basically this is an example of why we need to work to help 32 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:25.670 Laura Belin: farm stay in family hands, and that they… they told me that Derek Wulf is working on some kind of refinancing, and that all of the debts are going to be paid. But it’s… if you add up all these cases together, it’s close to a million dollars in unpaid bills and other obligations. 33 00:05:25.850 --> 00:05:33.219 Dave Price: I find it fascinating that, you know, probably unintentionally, but on the Republican side. 34 00:05:33.870 --> 00:05:52.920 Dave Price: both of these guys, their private lives will be part of public discussion now, right? With Derek Wulf and his family, and the financial struggles they’ve had with their farming operations, and he’s… as he tries to refinance all of that to get on the right side of that. 35 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:57.769 Dave Price: Clearly, that if they choose to, that could be… that could, 36 00:05:57.770 --> 00:06:04.280 Dave Price: Provide an entry point to talk about how difficult life is for so many small farmers who live on the margins. 37 00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:20.649 Dave Price: And as they’ve been squeezed with higher input costs, and this whole trade uncertainty, and obviously now the… you’ve got two wars going on with Iran, and then the Russian-Ukraine thing that’s been going on forever, that has disrupted so many different things on the energy side and on the fertilizer side. 38 00:06:20.650 --> 00:06:23.489 Dave Price: If he’s willing to talk about this, and this could… 39 00:06:23.490 --> 00:06:38.869 Dave Price: Obviously, it’s very personal stuff, and his family may or may not want to talk about this stuff. And then we have Zach Lahn, who we’ve already discussed, but here’s a guy in his second marriage, and he has children in two different states, and so people may have different views of 40 00:06:39.190 --> 00:06:51.819 Dave Price: How he and his current wife and ex-wife, because his current wife also had a previous marriage where she had children as well, so they have kids together, they both have kids with other people. 41 00:06:51.830 --> 00:07:07.040 Dave Price: from their former marriages in Kansas, so that becomes a complicated situation, and I sat down with Lane and talked about that. He used the word complicated to talk about this, and I’m fascinated about how, especially on the Republican side. 42 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:19.499 Dave Price: These two are going to be willing, if they are, to address some of this personal stuff, because it does, if they want to, provide a kind of an opening into some pretty complicated measures. 43 00:07:20.200 --> 00:07:28.289 Kathie Obradovich: not that hypocrisy is a thing in politics anymore, but I can’t see all of these Trump vote

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/20/26

  7. Jun 13

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/13/26

    Zach Lahn named state rep Derek Wulf as his running mate, a cattle farmer and early Trump endorser, likely a move to shore up MAGA support after Lahn didn’t get Trump’s endorsement in the primary. Trump has since walked that back publicly, saying he got “bad info.” Rob Sand went with Dave Muhlbauer, a rural Democrat who’s held office in deep-red Crawford County. The pick sends a clear message that Sand isn’t writing off small-town Iowa. Both tickets are now set, several Libertarian candidates are fighting ballot challenges on paperwork technicalities, and debate talks are underway. Laura called this the most exciting Iowa election cycle she’s ever covered. Hard to disagree. Thanks for subscribing, we continue to grow! We reached 30k total audio downloads since we launched this show a little over a year ago. If you would like to support the shows production costs, please hit the subscribe button above. If you’d like to make a one-time donation please click the button below. Auto-generated transcript below: Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/13/26

  8. Jun 6

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/6/26

    Two big results: Zach Lahn edged out Randy Feenstra in the Republican gubernatorial primary — a surprise upset fueled by a dominant Polk County performance and a late push from conservative commentator Steve Deace. On the Democratic side, Josh Turek won the U.S. Senate primary more comfortably than expected. Looking ahead, we talked about why Lahn is a trickier general election opponent for Rob Sand than Feenstra would have been — he’s a change candidate with no voting record to attack. With both the governor’s race and U.S. Senate seat open simultaneously for the first time in 58 years, Iowa’s general election is set to grab A LOT of attention. Thanks so much to those of you that have become paid subscribers or made a one time donation. Please click the subscribe button above or one-time donation button below to pitch in! Also, we reached #70 on Rising U.S. Politics on Substack this week. We wouldn’t have been there without your support. THANK YOU! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:17.360 --> 00:00:34.689 Dave Price: Welcome, everybody, to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, the post-primary election edition. I’m Dave Price, joined by Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin. Hello to both of you as we begin this first weekend past the primary. How are you? 3 00:00:35.230 --> 00:00:36.650 Kathie Obradovich: Fabulous. 4 00:00:36.650 --> 00:00:39.090 Laura Belin: I’m recovering. 5 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:40.039 Dave Price: We survived. 6 00:00:40.040 --> 00:00:40.920 Laura Belin: Nights, yes. 7 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:43.030 Dave Price: Yeah, but 8 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:52.269 Dave Price: All in all, to have primary night wrapped up by the time everything essentially was, was not bad. Kathie, what’s your headline? 9 00:00:53.330 --> 00:01:09.919 Kathie Obradovich: So, couple of surprises. One, I thought that this U.S. Senate Democratic primary, would be a lot closer than it was. It caught us off guard a little bit when AP called the race, excuse me, for Josh Turek. 10 00:01:10.070 --> 00:01:34.609 Kathie Obradovich: as early as they did, we thought it would go, go later and be a lot closer. And then secondly, you know, I think we saw that this could have been a possibility of Zach Lane edging out, Randy Feenster for the nomination. I mean, we saw the trend lines happening there. But again, you know, I sort of thought. 11 00:01:34.690 --> 00:01:58.689 Kathie Obradovich: you know, we were going to be going till 2AM on this race, or, you know, the potential for it to go to convention, and, the fact that, here’s the surprise, that Feenstra conceded, really, at the… at the… he was less than a percentage point behind Lane, and he conceded even before AP called the race. So, that surprised me as well. 12 00:01:59.650 --> 00:02:00.890 Dave Price: Laura, what was your headline? 13 00:02:02.310 --> 00:02:13.090 Laura Belin: Oh, I think the lane surge. I was kind of feeling the lane-mentum. I went to his rally in Ankeny on Sunday, and on Tuesday night, I started the evening at the Iowa Democratic Party’s 14 00:02:13.090 --> 00:02:36.220 Laura Belin: election night event, but when I saw the Polk County number come in really big for Zach Lahn, he had a margin of about 2,500 votes from Polk County, and Polk County tends to be one of the first to report, I scooted over to West Des Moines to go to the Lahn Victory Watch, because even though it was tight, he was hanging in there. I don’t think he ever gave up the lead at any point when they were 15 00:02:36.220 --> 00:02:41.810 Laura Belin: adding batches of votes. So, but my biggest surprise was not that Lahn won the primary, but 16 00:02:41.810 --> 00:02:52.570 Laura Belin: how many counties he carried. He carried 52 counties, and he actually carried most of the counties in Feenstra’s own congressional district, which I thought was amazing. He got 17 00:02:52.570 --> 00:03:16.439 Laura Belin: 40% of the vote in Sioux County, even. I mean, Feenstra carried Sioux County, but you would expect him to be absolutely dominating in his home county, so that did surprise me. I was also surprised in the second congressional district. Joe Mitchell won the… that was expected that he would win the nomination, but he only had, like, 62% of the vote or so. I thought he would do better against a very underfunded 18 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:23.530 Laura Belin: opponent. So, in general, there was a pretty big anti-establishment streak in those Republican primary results. 19 00:03:23.630 --> 00:03:24.149 Dave Price: We have… 20 00:03:24.150 --> 00:03:47.299 Kathie Obradovich: It was interesting to see… just a quick addition to what Laura said. It was interesting to see how dominant Lahn was in the third district. You know, that’s really where he won it. Feenstra, they were pretty close, in the first and second district. Feenstra carried his own home 4th district, but not, as Laura just said, not by very much. 21 00:03:47.300 --> 00:04:03.270 Kathie Obradovich: But I think where Lahn really won it, was in the 3rd District, Central Iowa, Polk County, and he, he was… he was quite a bit further ahead there. So, I was a little bit surprised by that. 22 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:20.019 Dave Price: I also was surprised that the Turek margin was as big as it was, although it really did feel like… I think we all sort of hinted at this the week before, that, it was… he looked like he had established himself as the… as the frontrunner with this. 23 00:04:20.029 --> 00:04:20.769 Laura Belin: It was… it was. 24 00:04:20.769 --> 00:04:22.189 Dave Price: The one thing that… 25 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:30.109 Laura Belin: I was… I’m sorry, the Vote Vets’ internal polling was showing him 20 to 25 points ahead, so it was pretty consistent with that. 26 00:04:30.110 --> 00:04:40.120 Dave Price: Yeah. The one thing I thought about is, I don’t remember exactly at what time lanes, numbers… 27 00:04:40.350 --> 00:04:56.269 Dave Price: jumped above Feenstra. I was standing behind, in front of this big monitor for our TV streaming broadcast that we did all night, and it would automatically refresh. And I remember looking, and all of a sudden, Lahn had jumped up, the early numbers had Feenstra up. 28 00:04:56.270 --> 00:05:06.809 Dave Price: But it just reminded me that this is not scientific by any means, but I talked about this a couple of weeks ago here on the podcast. Like, sometimes you can just feel some stuff. 29 00:05:07.330 --> 00:05:21.750 Dave Price: When you go out and witness some of these campaigns in action, and it doesn’t… what you… maybe what you feel as the reporter, at least for me, doesn’t necessarily match, maybe, my head. 30 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:28.829 Dave Price: So, like, when this campaign started, Feenster’s clearly the frontrunner, right? Most money, most well-known. 31 00:05:28.830 --> 00:05:45.580 Dave Price: a member of Congress, you know, whatever. And we have talked numerous times on this podcast about, boy, you know, it doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for this guy, whatever. Laura, you went to the Lahn event in Ankeny. I went to the one Friday night in West Des Moines right beforehand. 32 00:05:45.580 --> 00:06:10.110 Dave Price: Which, P.S, great point about Polk County, because they really leaned in hard to point… to Polk County and won handily. And that’s the margin right there, if you start looking at his overall numbers. But you could just feel the juice, and Friday night, I felt like you could still feel the juice in Lahn rally, even though hours before, they got the gut punch that the president had endorsed Feenstra. 33 00:06:10.590 --> 00:06:27.599 Dave Price: and, you know, changed his mind, or whatever happened behind the scenes, or somebody influenced him to get involved in the race. But it was just another indication to me about sometimes what the… I would say head and heart, but, I’m neutral here, so I don’t really have the heart involved in these things, but sort of heart and gut, maybe? 34 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:32.100 Dave Price: But Gut was telling me that Lahn was gonna surpass, and Head was telling me… 35 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:47.040 Dave Price: boy, Feenster should probably be able to hold on here, right? And then, boy, once that flip happened, and I was texting throughout the night with, Feenster supporters, and you could tell that there was angst almost from the get-go. 36 00:06:47.290 --> 00:06:56.230 Dave Price: And then desperation sort of set in, like, they were looking at Montgomery County numbers, which were late… later coming in, but that was sort of the Hail Mary… 37 00:06:57.220 --> 00:07:01.050 Dave Price: And, you know, there weren’t enough people there that were gonna make enough of a difference anyway. 38 00:07:01.890 --> 00:07:02.580 Kathie Obradovich: I was… 39 00:07:02.580 --> 00:07:25.600 Kathie Obradovich: You know, beforehand, we weren’t… didn’t really have a lot of information about what Lahn’s get-out-the-vote operation was going to be like. You know, I was sort of assuming that Feenstra and Steen might both have an advantage there, with Steen, you know, having his tried-and-true supporters from the family leader, etc. 40 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:50.180 Kathie Obradovich: But, yeah, the… either, you know, that organization is not quite as influential as it has been, or, there wasn’t enough difference between Steen and, Lahn and Feenstra in terms of how people felt as far as their, you know, religious, Christian conservative, values. 41 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:51.280 Kathie Obradovich: So… 42 00:07:51.280 --> 00:08:00.670 Laura Belin: Well, Steve Dace, who was an early Steen endorser and a big Steen endorser, came out on Saturday, the day after the Trump endorsement, and said. 43 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:07.269 Laura Belin: I’m still voting for Steen, but if you want to stop Randy Feenstra, who’s gonna lose to Rob Sand, you have 44 00:08:07.270 -

    Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/6/26
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Professional political analysts discuss Iowa politics with refreshing, in-depth conversations. iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com

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  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    62
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