Republican Party of Iowa Chair Matt Strawn attributed this week's big Republican wins at the statewide, legislative, and county levels to the party's focusing on independent voters - just like President Barack Obama did with his win in 2008 - and a clear, consistent message.
"We did it with unprecedented coordination, and we did it by targeting independent voters," Strawn said two days after the election in which Republicans wrested control of the governor's office and the Iowa House from Democrats. "One thing that we had learned in the past is Republicans spend a lot of time talking to Republican voters, but they hadn't reached out to independent voters in this state."
Strawn said that's what the Obama campaign did very effectively in 2008. So Republicans began identifying and targeting those independent voters in fall 2009, finding out what issues they cared about.
"And overwhelmingly it was jobs, it was the economy, it was the overspending, and it was the debt that they saw here in Des Moines," Strawn said. "And over the course of the year, we continued to talk to those voters, and going into the final weekend of the election we had actually identified 100,000 Iowans - independent voting Iowans - who had identified with the Republican ticket and were part of our turnout operation."
Republicans' voter program showed that a successful statewide candidate would have to net 100,000 to 120,000 new votes. Former Governor Terry Branstad won the gubernatorial election Tuesday by just under 125,000 votes. In addition, House Republican candidates received 200,000 more votes than House Democratic candidates - roughly 606,000 for Republicans to less than 400,000 for Democrats.
Republicans this year increased their major-donor revenue about 30 percent compared to last election cycle and saw a "volunteer surge" at the end of the campaign that allowed them to shift volunteers' focus in the last 48 hours of the campaign to targeted legislative races. Republicans put volunteers to work contacting voters in those key races, and ended up winning in five out of six targeted Senate districts and eight out of 10 targeted House districts.
Strawn also attributed Republicans' success this year to its candidates using a consistent message since January 2009.
"Republicans had a clear, unified message about what one-party Democrat rule was doing in Des Moines," Strawn said. "So you had all the Republican leaders in Des Moines speaking with a clear, consistent message, and it clearly penetrated with the voters all the way down to those local legislative levels."
Strawn rejected the notion that Republican wins in Iowa came as part of a national Republican wave or anti-incumbent sentiment.
"I don't think it was an anti-incumbent mood; I think it was an anti-one-party-Democrat-majority wave," Strawn said. "Tuesday was a clear rejection of the Culver/Gronstal/Murphy policies coming out of Des Moines. And Senator Gronstal has got to recognize that Iowans rejected the one-party rule that they had seen out of Des Moines."
Branstad Sees Potential Positions for Defeated Candidates
Governor-elect Branstad said Thursday that he sees potential positions in his administration for former attorney-general candidate Brenna Findley, state-treasurer candidate Dave Jamison, gubernatorial candidate Rod Roberts, and even Democratic Secretary of State Michael Mauro, who lost to Republican Matt Schultz on Tuesday.
"Yes, I think there's a possibility for them," Branstad said. "I think there's also a possibility for Mike Mauro. I think he was a very good secretary of state. I called Mike to offer my condolences, and I think he's a very capable individual that I certainly want to consider as well."
As for former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, Branstad said he hasn't spoken to him about a position in the administration. "I don't know that he has an interest in serving in the administration," Branstad said. "I think he's got other things that he's taken on."
Branstad said he expects all state-government department directors to submit a letter of resignation to him when he enters office in January. He will then interview them and go from there.
Branstad said he expects to decide before he takes office on a new director of economic development, a department he has said he wants to move to a public/private partnership.
As for other state-government workers, Branstad said he's going to ask for "reasonableness" from those representing state employees during negotiations for new contracts for state workers. He also said he wants that process to be open to the public.
State employees should contribute to their health insurance, Branstad said. The governor elect has said he wants to cut the budget 15 percent over five years, something that would likely require major concessions from representatives of state employees.
"I want to treat employees fairly," Branstad said. "We have a lot of dedicated people that work for state government, I want to assure them that I'm going to work with them, and I want to treat them fairly. But I also want to treat the taxpayers fairly, and we are facing some big budget problems, and we have to make thoughtful decisions in terms of our level of spending."
Appointment of Three New Justices Key Issue in Transition of Governors
Iowa's rejection of three Iowa Supreme Court justices this week is a first since the state adopted its merit-selection system for judges in 1962, and the job of appointing three new justices to the state's highest court is expected to become a hot political issue in the transition between current Governor Chet Culver and Branstad.
"This has never happened before," said Steve Boeckman, a spokesperson for the Iowa State Bar Association.
Boeckman said the justices would return to their jobs this week, but their terms end December 31. He said the justices could decide to resign prior to their terms ending, given this week's vote. Courts spokesperson Steve Davis said the court will meet next week to discuss how to handle the transition.
Branstad said it would be a mistake for Culver to rush to appoint three new Iowa Supreme Court justices before his term ends.
"The Judicial Nominating Commission is not balanced. You have 12 Democrats and only one Republican on it, so I think to really restore credibility to the court system it's important they not rush to judgment to get a nominee to a lame-duck governor," he said. "It should be I think done in the normal deliberative process."
Branstad said the Judicial Nominating Commission could be changed by legislation, and he sees that as the solution to politicizing the court.
"Looking to the future, I know there are many people concerned about it becoming a very political situation, and I think the best way to avoid that is have a more balanced system so you don't have one party dominating and controlling the process of who will be considered for appointment in the future," he said.
The 15-member commission has 10 days after an opening on the Supreme Court to call a meeting of the commissioners. Within 60 days, the commission must interview applicants and forward a list of three nominees to the governor for each vacancy. The governor then has 30 days to appoint one of those three individuals to serve on the Supreme Court.
Culver said Wednesday that he was reviewing the process for appointing new Iowa Supreme Court justices following Tuesday's vote against retention of Justices Marsha Ternus, Michael Streit, and David Baker.
"I am reviewing the matter carefully to ensure the judicial-selection process that is utilized now is consistent with the Iowa Constitution, with Iowa law, and with past practices used in the course of both Democratic and Republican administrations in instances when multiple vacancies in our appellate courts have been created simultaneously," Culver said.
Dvorsky Says Dems Will Lean from Mistakes
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sue Dvorsky said that she doesn't believe the party needs to change its message after suffering widespread losses across the state Tuesday, but she did say the party will have to tweak how it delivers that message.
Dvorsky said the party will be going through numbers precinct-by-precinct and district-by-district to better determine what happened on Election Day, but she also said she's not sure the party could have done much else.
"They had talked for a long time about this tsunami off the shore that was coming, and one of the things that we always knew is it was a midterm election and there's history on that, so we knew that nationally that was going to be tough," she said.
Dvorksy suggested that Iowa actually withstood the GOP wave fairly well, noting that Attorney General Tom Miller and U.S. Representatives Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack won re-election.
"We stood shoulder-to-shoulder as straight up and tall as we could to be the seawall there and I think we were in some sense successful," Dvorsky said. "I'm not sure about this, but I think Iowa was the only state in the country that re-elected all its Democratic incumbents" in Congress.
She said the party's efforts beginning in June to target people who typically don't vote in midterm elections was a big reason the three congressmen won Tuesday night.
"Would we have liked a different outcome? Sure, but I look around at some of the other state parties, and we held on to Tom Miller in an election that was unbelievable the money that was thrown at that," Dvorsky said.
But a particularly painful loss Tuesday night was the defeat of Mauro, Dvorksy said.
"I understood that he was slightly behind in the polls, but the loss of Secretary of State Mike Mauro to this state ... . I know it's a partisan seat and I know it's an election, but I have to say I believe that's a loss to all Iowans," Dvorksy said. "That office is tremendously important to the process, and Mike Mauro has run it with a level of professionalism, a level of commitment to openness and accessibility. I am terribly, terribly disappointed about that one."
Republicans Take Over House, Focus on Budget
Republicans not only took control of the Iowa House Tuesday but did so in dramatic style, appearing to have won 60 seats.
"They had a pretty big night," said House Speaker Pat Murphy (D-Dubuque). "We took a bath tonight; there's no question about that."
"We did everything we thought we could do to preserve the majority," Murphy said. "The undecideds - obviously most voted against us. ... We'll live to fight another day. Tonight, we have to give Republicans credit. They got control of the Iowa House."
With new power in hand, House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha) requested the day after the election that Culver instruct department directors to freeze all discretionary spending until the legislature convenes in January.
"In light of yesterday's election results and with the pending transition of leadership in the House and the executive branch, we are beginning the hard work of aligning ongoing expenditures with ongoing revenue," Paulsen wrote in a letter to Culver. "Due to the use of over $700 million of one-time funds to cover the FY2011 general-fund ongoing expenditures, we believe it is necessary to reduce the amount of general-fund expenditures."
Paulsen said that by freezing state spending, House Republicans will be able to review all spending for the Fiscal Year 2011 budget and identify specific spending reductions.
At the direction of Culver, Department of Management Director Dick Oshlo on Thursday rejected that request.
"As you know, discretionary spending is a very small part of the general-fund budget, and the aforementioned controls apply to discretionary spending," Oshlo wrote in a letter to Paulsen. "Governor Culver does not have the authority to freeze appropriations for programs unless there is a deficit, and there is no deficit projected for FY 2011. "
Meanwhile, a split legislature looks likely as Democrats appear to have held on to control in the Senate. Democrats won at least 25 seats and appear likely to take at least one more out of two seats with tight vote counts.
Already, Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has pledged to block any efforts to vote on a marriage amendment to the Iowa Constitution. He said he hopes the Senate can spend its time on job-creation and improving the economy, rather than spending time on same-sex marriage.
This weekly summary comes from IowaPolitics.com, an online government and politics news service. Reporter Andrew Duffelmeyer and other correspondents contributed to this report.
