Pre-election season always carries its share of exaggerations and name-calling - the claims that a contender lacks experience, changes positions for political expediency or doesn’t represent the real needs of district voters. But this year’s midterm primaries and caucuses carry a special sense of urgency. Donald Trump’s tumbling presidential approval ratings raise prospects for Democratic gains in Congress. That leaves GOP candidates to balance the wisdom of hitching their wagons to a President still embraced by much of the MAGA crowd — or creating some distance.
Last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting enforcement of parts of the Voting Rights Act means a loss of Black representation in how voting districts are drawn, which could trasnslate into a loss of Democratic votes. The ruling wasn’t supposed to take effect in time for the upcoming elections. But this week, the GOP-heavy court ruled to let it apply early enough to have an impact. Or, some might say, in time to repress Black voting power.
Further compounding the fears of voter disenfranchisement attempts, Iowa’s Secretary of State Paul Pate complied with a U.S. Justice Department demand for information on each of over 2 million registered Iowa voters. He turned over data as personal as voters’ home addresses, party affiliations, drivers’ license numbers, birth dates, and partial Social Security numbers. Some other states refused to.
This is all purportedly to ensure election integrity, though that’s supposed to be a state responsibility - something this administration has been touting. The information passed along will be available to a president who not only refused to acknowledge his own 2020 defeat, but as the Brennan Center for Justice put it, “invoked several false claims of widespread voter fraud to pressure (Georgia’s secretary of state) to reverse the state’s election results, ranging from lies about out-of-state and dead voters to conspiracy theories about drop box stuffing and compromised election equipment.”
This is also the administration that used code word searches linked to diversity, equity and inclusion to weed out and deny government grants. And Trump has issued an executive order demanding the post office not deliver absentee ballots to people who aren’t on these lists. Even Pate, a Republican, told The Des Moines Register he has serious concerns about that.
And far from Republicans trying to distance themselves from Trump, in Iowa candidates continue to ride on his coattails. There’s hardly a mention of this unpopular Iran war he and Israel started, or his almost daily change of messaging on when it will end. There’s no acknowledment of the resulting spike in gas prices or the chaotic cost-hiking tariffs and subsequent rulings against them.
Instead, Iowa’s Republican primaries are inspiring a tired rash of Red-baiting, immigrant-bashing, LGBT-fear mongering rhetoric. Vice President J.D. Vance came to town this week to endorse Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn for re-election in the third congressional district. Vance called this election “a contest between a party that wants to take all of your money and give it to illegal aliens.” He said Democrats would “further enrich the wealthy at the expense of low-income and working-class Americans.”
That’s rich. Iowans are suffering at the pump, at grocery store checkouts and in trying to get their kids a decently funded public education as public money is siphoned off ro private schools. But Vance and Nunn took jabs at Nunn’s Democratic opponent, Sarah Trone Garriott for, among other things, supporting the civil rights of transgender people.
If you’ve been following the Iowa governor’s campaign, the first thing you’ll hear from GOP primary candidate Randy Feenstra, a U.S. Representative, is that he’s a Trump Republican. And if you watch TV, you can't help but bump into the ads of primary candidate Zach Lahn, another of the five Republicans seeking the nomination. Lahn either harbors deep fears of communism and non-native Iowans or is dredging up those laughable tropes to appeal to Trump’s MAGA base. He just substitutes “Iowa First” for “America First” as his campaign refrain.
He promises to reform public education to “reclaim the curriculum from the Marxists who hijacked it.” Right, because Marx would have surely approved moving public money to private and religious schools. And this candidate doesn’t just rail against undocumented immigrants. He even goes after foreign professional H1B visa-holders. They’re sponsored by employers to come here legally for six years to fill in the gaps in skilled employees - in IT, engineering and health care. Think declining rural health centers. Think declining rural populations.
Is this putting Iowa First?
The real danger to America right now isn’t a threat of undocumented people voting or transgender people in sports. It’s the backslide of democracy, the quest to dominate the world whether by kidnapping a foreign leader, missiles or unilateral trade policies that send prices soaring. It’s the president’s efforts to silence media and prosecute officials who spoke or ruled against him, and to appoint to high office those beholden to him. It’s the nerve to charge U.S. taxpayers a billion dollars to fund a new White House ballroom no one asked for.
It’s the future of democracy.
So, to voters of either party who want better than this, who believe in playing by the rules and putting ego and personal lust for power aside, now is the time to speak up. Raise these issues when you go to candidate events. Register new voters by convincing them why their votes are needed. Take action against efforts to make voting harder.
This is our America too. And right now, it needs our pushback.
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