The Battleground State Report, airing Fridays at 8 a.m. CST with Michael Patrick Leahy and Doug Kellett – is a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of national weekend syndication rollout. With Kellett out of the studio, Michael Patrick Leahy discussed the recent debacle of the Iowa caucus.
During the show, Leahy gave his commentary on whether Iowa would be continuing to caucus in 2024 and how the past week of non-stop news has left people exhausted. He went on to explain why he did not see Iowa as a presidential battleground state but more as a battleground state for Senate seats.
Leahy continued…
The question is, will the Iowa Democratic caucuses continue in 2024? Who knows. One thing I have to say, the pace of news this past week has been exhausting. I mean, think about this, on Sunday night we had the Superbowl, right? On Monday we had the Iowa caucuses and the closing arguments on impeachment.
On Tuesday night we had no results coming in. And then the State of the Union and what’s going on in Iowa. Wednesday we had the impeachment acquittal vote. Meanwhile, Iowa is still coming in and they’re now going to New Hampshire. Then we had on Thursday night 97% reported from Iowa state, finally.
The Democratic National Committee chairman says, “Oh, we need to do a re-canvas.” And the Iowa folks say, “No we’re not going to do a re-canvas unless they ask for it.” So there’s that going on. Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg declares victory and Bernie Sanders declares victory. Just utter rapid movement chaos. Then Friday night we had the debate in New Hampshire. And then upcoming this week on Tuesday, we will have the New Hampshire primary results. (Chuckles) Holy cow! Give me a break from this ongoing onslaught of news!
I think people are getting exhausted by it. I want to close off here on the discussion that is Iowa is a battleground state in the 2020 presidential election? Tim Alberta writing in Politico last week said no it’s not. He says that the Democrats have given up on Iowa because, if you remember in 2012 Barack Obama, there are only six electoral college votes. You need 260 to win the presidency. Six in Iowa.
In 2012 Barack Obama won Iowa by 10 points. In 2016 Donald Trump won Iowa by 10 points. According to Tim Alberta, one of the best political reporters in the country, Democrats have given up on Iowa. I don’t think the debacle of the reporting on the Iowa caucuses by the Democratic Party does little to add to the possibility that it would be competitive.
So I agree with Tim Alberta. I think it’s going to be a Trump win in Iowa at the presidential level. However, why does Iowa matter? I’ll tell you why. It’s still a battleground in this regard. We’ve got a senate race, Republican Joni Ernst is up for re-election. So that’s going to matter a lot! The Republicans have a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate.
If they take the Senate over, there will be different and if they hold onto the House they’ll impeach President Trump again and it will go to trial in the Senate and it will last forever with Chuck Schumer running things. The other aspect of this, in Iowa, there are four Congressional districts.
One is represented by a Republican named Steve King in the Northwest part of it. The other three, all of whom beat Republicans who were incumbents in those districts in 2018 they are all in very marginal districts.
I think all three of them are districts where President Trump won in those districts and the Democratic candidate beat the Republican. Those three House seats are going to be up for grabs in 2020. So Iowa is not going to be a battleground state at the presidential level, but it’s going to be a very important battleground state at the Senate level and for those three critical House seats.
Listen to the full show here:
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Tune in every Friday morning and listen to The Battleground State Report with Michael Patrick Leahy and Doug Kellett.
Background Photo “Iowa State Fair” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
