Election Profile: Iowa's 5th Congressional District

By Eric Ostermeier on October 29, 2010

Smart Politics is running a series of election profiles of Upper Midwestern congressional races leading up to the November 2nd elections. The series will culminate with Smart Politics' official projections. The fifth profile in the series is Iowa's 5th Congressional District race.

Candidates:
Republican: Steve King (4-term incumbent)
Democrat: Matthew Campbell
Nominated by Petition: Martin James Monroe

District Geography:
Iowa's 5th Congressional District comprises thirty-two counties across the western wing of the state: Adair, Adams, Audubon, Buena Vista, Carroll, Cass, Cherokee, Clarke, Clay, Crawford, Decatur, Dickinson, Fremont, Guthrie, Harrison, Ida, Lyon, Mills, Monona, Montgomery, O'Brien, Osceola, Page, Plymouth, Pottawattamie, Ringgold, Sac, Shelby, Sioux, Taylor, Union, and Woodbury.

History:
King handily won the inaugural race of the newly drawn 5th Congressional District in 2002, beating Democratic nominee Paul Shomshor by 24.3 points. King then defeated Democrat Joyce Schulte in back-to-back elections: by 26.7 and 22.9 points in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

King, a former state senator, serves on the House Committee on Agriculture, the House Committee on Small Business, and the House Committee on the Judiciary. The four-term Congressman has been one of the most outspoken opponents of illegal immigration in the GOP caucus over the last few election cycles.

In this year's election, King will face Democrat Matthew Campbell, who has the unenviable task of running for a seat in which Democrats have averaged just 36.9 percent of the vote against King this decade.

Martin James Monroe will also appear on the ballot (nominated by petition). No third party or independent candidate has receive five percent of the vote in an Iowa U.S. House race since 1934, when Farmer-Laborite John Wirds received 6.4 percent in IA-03.

Outlook:
Western Iowa hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. House since Berkley Bedell won 7-straight terms from 1974 through 1986. King represents the most conservative and reliably Republican district in the Hawkeye State: John McCain carried the 5th by 11 points in 2008 and George W. Bush won it by 21 points in 2004. Overall, the district has a +9 GOP Partisan Voting Index tilt, and ranks as the 118th most Republican district in the nation.

The reelection of King and fellow GOPer Tom Latham from the state's 4th CD means Iowa will continue its streak of sending at least one Republican to the U.S. House in every election cycle since 1856.

Follow Smart Politics on Twitter.

Leave a comment

Name

Email Address

URL

Remember personal info?

Comments (You may use HTML tags for style)

Curse of the '4'?

May 22, 2013

Big-name Republicans are not coming out of the woodwork yet to challenge Al Franken in Minnesota's 2014 U.S. Senate race, and there is not much chatter of the GOP picking off one of the five DFL-held U.S. House seats either. Over the last century, Minnesota Republican U.S. House candidates have not fared all that well in cycles ending in '4' - losing seats in five of these cycles (1914, 1924, 1944, 1954, 1974), holding serve in four others (1964, 1984, 1994, 2004), and gaining seats just one time (1934, after redistricting had been delayed one cycle with all nine seats voted at-large in 1932). Perhaps the Republican Party's best chance for a pick up in the Gopher State in 2014 is if 12-term Democrat Collin Peterson retires after nearly a quarter century on Capitol Hill. The 7th CD has the second largest GOP lean in the state.

Seasoned Senators in Wisconsin

May 2, 2013

Of the 15 men and women that have served in the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin since popular vote elections were introduced a century ago, Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin rank among the oldest upon first entering the chamber. Johnson began his tenure at the age of 55 years, 8 months, and 26 days in January 2011, which is the oldest of any elected Wisconsin Senator during this popular vote era. The next oldest, Alexander Wiley, was more than one year younger when he took his seat in 1939 (54 years, 7 months, 8 days). Tammy Baldwin comes in at #6 being 50 years, 10 months, and 23 days when she took office in January of this year. The youngest elected Senator from the Badger State was Robert La Follette, Jr. at 30 years, 7 months, and 24 days (1925) when he took the seat of his legendary deceased father.