A longtime Democrat-held Iowa state House District has reportedly fallen to Republican candidate Jon Dunwell, who won roughly 60% of the vote in a special election.
The seat, which has been held by Democrats for decades, will now be filled by a Republican for the first time since 1992, a flip which could signal disaster is coming for the Democrats in 2022.
The seat became open when the incumbent Democrat representative left for a job with the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, and Governor Kim Reynolds announced a special election.
“Community engagement is very important to me. Being out and among people is very important to me. Giving everyone a seat at the table is very important to me,” said Dunwell, a former pastor, according to the Newton Daily News.
The margin of Dunwell’s victory marks a major departure from the 2018 election which saw Democrat Wes Breckenridge taking 58.7% of the vote to the Republican candidate’s 41.2%.
The Hill reported that Dunwell’s victory marked the second instance of a Republican flipping a state office since Biden took office. The other instance was a state Senate seat in Connecticut.
Analysts have pointed to Dunwell’s comfortable victory as an indication that there is a growing shift to the right in Iowa politics.
In November 2020, then-President Trump won roughly 60% of Jasper County, the best turnout for a Republican candidate in the county since 1928. By contrast, then-President Barack Obama won 56% of the vote in Jasper County in 2012.
Joe Biden’s utterly disastrous presidency has raised concerns for Democrats at both the national and the state level regarding the upcoming elections.
In the Virginia gubernatorial race, now just weeks away, Democrat candidate and former Governor Terry McAuliffe said in a recent video call that his campaign needed to work through difficult “headwinds from Washington” stemming from Biden’s unpopularity.
Other Democrat strategists have also voiced fears about the 2022 midterm elections. Historically, the party of the incumbent president does not perform well in these elections and Biden’s tragic approval numbers could help contribute to a large swing in the House and a potential loss of the Senate.
Douglas Schoen, a former consultant to President Bill Clinton and adviser to Mike Bloomberg during his 2020 run said that Democrats are on pace to “lose big” if the party’s current path remained unchanged.
He wrote in an essay last month, “If the Biden administration continues to push unnecessarily big government spending initiatives and tax increases, along with weak immigration policies and an incoherent foreign policy strategy, Democrats could suffer the most substantial midterm loss of any party in recent history.”
To make matters worse for the Democrats, President Biden is now responsible for the highest inflation rate in 13 years. In September inflation was up 5.4% year over year – a concerning number which certainly wont help the public’s image of the Democratic party.
The president’s approval rating has also hit a dangerously low level, sinking to 38%.
Author: Fredrick Jones
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