IA-SEN 2022: Grassley vs Franken

[Hope For A New Era]

We'll have to see what 2022's environment looks like. But it will lack Trump-only voters, so Ds will at least have that on their side. Insert comment about 2018 and the 75% D delegation here.

Starting at Lean R, but making predictions two years out is a little silly.

Crossing my fingers for Steve King running. McCaskill strategy might work.

[Hope For A New Era]

Forget Fink winning outright, I'm happy if she keeps it within R+7 and consequently one of the congressional districts flip. Grassley or not the R-gains with WWC independents in the state is just too high and it's not WI/MI where Ds have made inroads to offset those losses.

The Iowa problem is an interesting one, because the suburbs were already pretty blue even before Trump. There's just not much space to gain.

On the other hand, urban cores weren't much bluer than the suburbs at that time either. Iowa circa 2012 really had a remarkable lack of geographic polarization.

[Hope For A New Era]

Do you think Franken could narrow the massive GOP edge in the area just a little bit?

No, not really, unfortunately.

I mean, Scholten did. I guess that was purely anti-King though?

[Hope For A New Era]

Franken actually seems to have a really solid campaign now that I've looked properly. He won't win this year, but I could definitely see him having a future in state politics. The one thing I'd change in his current campaign is: I'd change him from not attacking Grassley much to almost not attacking him at all - go full Peltola. No attacks except the occasional vague "it's time for a new generation to represent Iowa/time for something new/etc" kind of stuff, which is so indirect that it only barely even counts as an attack, and wouldn't count at all if not for Grassley's age. Somehow attacking Grassley directly feels "tasteless" even in our hyperpolarized times, and I suspect Iowa voters are more sensitive to that sort of thing than most.

Thoughts from our resident Atlas Iowans?