Iowa Democrats have quickly elected a new state party chair after the resignation of Troy Price, who absolutely had to fall on his sword after the disastrous caucuses two weeks ago. Hopefully Iowa Dems can get things together with state House minority leader Mark Smith.
Iowa Democrats have a new state party chair: State Rep. Mark Smith of Marshalltown.
The party’s state central committee members gathered today in Des Moines and over the phone to elect Smith as the interim chair following Troy Price’s resignation over the fallout from the reporting breakdowns in the Iowa Caucus. Price announced on Wednesday that he was stepping down as state party chair, effective today once the new chair was determined.
“I know how to work. I know how to recruit. I know how to fundraise. I know how to organize. I know how to win,” Smith said. “The steps are to travel across the state, to listen to everyday Iowans and to excite volunteers.”
Smith served as the minority leader for the House Democrats for five years. During that time, he led the party’s efforts on House races, hiring and managing a full staff, heading up fundraising for the caucus, and planning strategy for swing seats. Under his leadership, Democrats picked up a net gain of five House seats in 2018, though they came short of winning the majority.
“I will lead Democrats to victory,” Smith told the committee.
Smith won handily over Joe Henry, Bob Krause and Gabriel de la Cerda, the three other candidates. All of them got started a day or two later than Smith for the hurry-up election. Henry serves on the national board of LULAC and has headed up many Latino voter registration/engagement efforts in Iowa in recent years.
Krause, a former candidate for Senate in 2016 who served in the Legislature in the 1970s, had unsuccessfully run for the party chair position before. De la Cerda, who has also organized Latino voters, had run before for the 3rd Congressional District.
Smith is the fourth Iowa Democratic Party chair in as many years. Andy McGuire led the party for the 2016 Iowa Caucus; Derek Eadon was elected afterward but resigned for health reasons; Price took over in the summer of 2017.
The election of Smith, of Marshalltown, marks the first time Iowa Democrats have had a chair who lived outside of Polk, Linn or Johnson counties since the early 2000s. Smith had strong backing from the labor community, which won a large number of SCC seats in 2018.
While many of the party activists and SCC members were pleased with the state party up until the reporting mess, Smith now has the challenge of rebuilding trust in the IDP to donors and national Democrats.
They’ll also have to quickly transition past the caucus situation to begin focusing on the U.S. Senate race with Joni Ernst, which will be one of the top Senate races in the country, and the four competitive congressional districts and state legislative races. While the future of the Iowa Caucus and the state’s place in the nominating calendar will eventually get discussed within the DNC, that likely won’t play out fully until after 2020 election.
We'll see what happens with the Iowa caucuses, hopefully they will be finally buried along with all state caucus nonsense. Smith is right however, at this point the top priority for Iowa Dems is taking down vulnerable GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, who has dug herself even more deeply into the hole she's in with audio surfacing of her saying major cuts to "out of control" Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security will be needed.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa told donors at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. last March that federal spending on non-discretionary programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is "out of control" and will require "changes" in the future.
That's according to a 55-second audio clip published Wednesday by Iowa Starting Line. In the recording, Ernst is asked by an attendee whether she is on board with Sen. David Perdue's (R-Ga.) call for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
"I think we all are because we understand that our non-discretionary spending is growing like this," replied Ernst, who is up for reelection in 2020. "Everyone focuses on discretionary spending because that is what we can control in Congress. The rest is on autopilot and is out of control. We have to figure out ways to honor the commitments that have been made, but make changes for the future. How we do that, I don't know."
Progressive advocacy group Social Security Works tweeted that "changes" is "code for massive cuts."
Ernst is already one of the least popular Senators in the US, and that was before this audio came out.
Iowa can be a great place for Midwest Dems to rebound against Trump and put him away in November, but getting rid of his enablers in the Senate is just as important. Hopefully Mark Smith is the person to help Iowa Dems do just that.
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