Public Policy Polling, surveying for EMILY’s List, an organization supporting new Iowa Democratic US Senate nominee Theresa Greenfield, released a post-primary flash poll that found Sen. Joni Ernst (R) trailing her new opponent by two percentage points. According to the PPP study (6/3-4; 963 IA registered voters), Ms. Greenfield edges Sen. Ernst, 45-43%.
Often, PPP asks push questions on their polls for interest groups, but not on this survey. Therefore, it appears that partisan questions designed to influence a respondent did not alter this ballot test. Ms. Greenfield won the Democratic nomination last Tuesday with 47% of the vote against two opponents. Continued polling results such as these will clearly move this race into the top tier of challenge campaigns. A story in the June 6th Business Insider publication reports that mail voting was handled well in certain states for last Tuesday’s primary, and poorly in others. Getting good marks, according to the BI story, are Iowa, Michigan, and Montana. Doing poorly, where voters were not sent their ballots, receiving incorrect ballots for their districts, or facing crowded polling stations for those who chose to vote in person, were the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
With voter turnout being way down in Pennsylvania, for example (34% under 2016 Democratic primary participation totals and 55% for Republicans), a great deal of the reasoning for such a steep fall off could be that thousands of voters simply weren’t well enough informed that the April 28th election had been moved to June 2nd. We will be hearing much more about the all-mail experience while undoubtedly seeing calls for increasing mail options for this year’s general election. The big news here was the defeat of embattled Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) in the 4th District Republican primary. Mr. King becomes the second incumbent to be denied re-nomination in this election cycle, joining Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Western Springs) who lost his Democratic primary in March. Rep. King had become embroiled in controversy involving racial comments that led to his being stripped of his committee assignments. This opened the door for state Sen. Randy Feenstra (R-Hull/Sioux County) to win last night’s Republican primary with a 46-36% margin. Mr. Feenstra will now face 2018 Democratic nominee J.D. Scholten in the general election. The 4th is Iowa’s most Republican district, so Sen. Feenstra becomes the favorite to win in November.
Real Estate executive Theresa Greenfield won the Democratic US Senate primary but failed to reach the 50% mark against two opponents. She now opposes first-term Sen. Joni Ernst (R) in the general election that promises to become highly competitive. The other three congressional districts will also be competitive in the Fall. In the 1st CD, freshman Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Dubuque) will face a challenge from Cedar Rapids area state Representative and former television news anchor Ashley Hinson (R). In the open 2nd District to replace retiring Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa City), ex-state Senator and former Lt. Governor nominee Rita Hart will be favored over frequent congressional candidate Marianette Miller-Meeks (R), who is now a state Senator. The 3rd District features the expected re-match between Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Des Moines) and former Rep. David Young (R). This, too, will be a highly competitive general election contest. A total of 24 states will host nomination elections in June, ten of which are postponed from earlier dates. Tomorrow is the biggest day, with ten states holding elections. Eight will vote in their presidential primaries (Iowa and Idaho held their presidential nominating votes earlier in the year).
June 2nd hosts regular state primaries on their originally scheduled date in Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has postponed the presidential and state primary to July 7th, thus opting out of its traditional early June nomination date because of Coronavirus precautions. A presidential stand-alone event is occurring in Rhode Island tomorrow, necessary since their regular state primary is scheduled as one of the latest in the country on September 15th. Postponed state primaries from earlier in the year are happening in the District of Columbia, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The Democratic establishment is pushing businesswoman Theresa Greenfield as their candidate against Sen. Joni Ernst (R), but businessman Eddie Mauro, who has already spent over $4 million of his own money to promote his campaign, launched yet another stinging negative television attack against her this week.
To counter, the Greenfield campaign is bringing out the big names to help neutralize her primary opponent. Ms. Greenfield’s new campaign ad features former presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg, while also highlighting Iowa US Reps. Abby Finkenauer (D-Dubuque) and David Loebsack’s (D-Iowa City) support. Ms. Greenfield is still favored to win the party nomination, but Mr. Mauro is making things interesting. The American Future Fund organization sponsored a poll of Iowa’s 4th District Republican primary and found challenger Randy Feenstra now eclipsing Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) in their GOP nomination battle that will be settled on June 2nd.
Mr. Feenstra, a state Senator and former chairman of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, has been steadily moving upward in polling for the past several weeks. Now, the AFF’s Public Opinion Strategies survey (5/16-18; 500 IA-4 likely Republican primary voters) sees Feenstra topping the incumbent, 41-39%. Additionally, Sen. Feenstra had a huge 16:1 cash-on-hand advantage over Rep. King at the close of the 2nd quarter financial reporting period. American Viewpoint, polling for the Randy Feenstra for Congress campaign, is out with a new poll (5/7-8; 350 IA-4 likely Republican primary voters) that finds state Sen. Feenstra (R-Hull/Sioux County) continuing to gain ground in his Republican primary challenge to veteran Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron).
The new poll finds King’s lead dwindling to 39-36%. Two weeks ago, AV found Rep. King leading 41-34%. Originally behind 31 points in January, Sen. Feenstra clearly has strong momentum as the campaign makes its way toward the June 2nd primary election. The Democratic leadership has endorsed real estate executive Theresa Greenfield to oppose Sen. Joni Ernst (R) in November who acts as a consensus candidate, but another competitor is not conceding the Democratic nomination. Self-funding businessman Eddie Mauro (D) just announced a $500,000 media and digital buy attacking Ms. Greenfield for “failing to take responsibility for her own business failing.” The Greenfield campaign responded by saying that “Wall Street corporate greed” was more responsible for the entity going out of business. Thus, the June 2nd primary is getting a touch more interesting.
Embattled nine-term Iowa incumbent Steve King (R-Kiron), who ran into major trouble when comments he made were associated with white supremacism that ultimately led to his being stripped of committee assignments, just received another blow. The US Chamber of Commerce announced their endorsement for Mr. King’s principle opponent, state Sen. Randy Feenstra (R-Hull/Sioux County). The Business-Industry PAC (BIPAC) endorsed Sen. Feenstra early in the year. Polling is suggesting a tightening race with the momentum clearly on the challenger’s side as the candidates swing toward the June 2nd primary election.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R) is on the ballot for a second term and this is a race the Democrats are working to move into the first tier. A new poll suggests a close contest emerging. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released their new Iowa figures (4/30-5/1; 1,222 IA likely general election voters via automated response device) that find Sen. Ernst topping Democrat Theresa Greenfield by only a 43-42% margin.
At the same time, President Trump leads former Vice President Joe Biden by a similarly close 48-46%. In terms of voting procedure, 70% of the respondents feel that everyone should be mailed an absentee ballot so they can vote from home. Iowa will prove itself as a key state throughout the 2020 election cycle at the presidential, US Senate and House levels. |
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