Welcome to the Friday, July 12, episode of On Iowa Politics. This week on the podcast, the latest on disaster recovery efforts in Iowa, a surprise suspension of a statehouse re-election campaign, and Iowa Democrats' response to the calls for Biden to drop out.

This week:

Erin Murphy, the Des Moines Bureau Chief for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

Gazette Deputy Bureau Chief Tom Barton.

Lee Des Moines Bureau Chief Caleb McCullough.

Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times.

Jared McNett of the Sioux City Journal.

Hi and welcome to the Friday July 12 episode of

the On Iowa Politics Podcast. This week on the podcast latest

on disaster recovery efforts in Iowa. That's a surprise

suspension of a State House reelection campaign. And since

we're on the topic of candidates considering whether to end their

re election campaign Hello, everyone. I'm Erin Murphy, the

Des Moines chief Des Moines bureau chief, The Gazette in

Cedar Rapids. With me this week are because that Deputy bureau

chief Tom Barton Hello, Tom. Hello, Aaron. We have lead Des

Moines bureau chief Kayla McCullough. Hello, Caleb. Hello,

Aaron. Sarah Watts into the Quad City. Times joins us Hello,

Sara. Hello, Erin. And lastly, but not leastly we have Jared MC

net of the Sioux City Journal. Greetings, Jared.

Hey, happy long legs day, Erin.

I'm not familiar with that one.

So new movie, starring Nicolas Cage as a

serial killer.

I usually I see those trailers or something for

that. I haven't seen that

one. It looks absolutely terrifying here.

To note, good. No, by the way,

I'll blink twice, okay.

All right. Okay, so let's start with some election

news here. A candidate this week surprisingly, and at a very

unusual time decided to end his campaign for this fall's

election. No, not that candidate. More on that later.

I'm talking about right now Republican Iowa State Senator

Waylon Brown of Osage brown this week announced that he no longer

will seek reelection in senate district 30 in North Iowa, that

announcement on its own is not necessarily unusual. What is

unusual is the timing. Brown stayed in the election through a

competitive Republican primary, which he won obviously, just

more than a month ago. And now after that he's decided against

running in this fall's general election, jailed. Let me put

this to you to start. I'm gonna be honest, this one surprised

me. I didn't see this coming. And again, not that brown

deciding against the running for reelection. That's not

surprising. But when he made this decision, am I wrong? Did

this surprise you?

Yeah, absolutely. You're not wrong. It was a

shock. For many reasons. I mean, he, as you said, you know, went

through that really competitive kind of hard fought primary. It

was the most spent on a legislative race in the entire

state. For primary that's,

I forgot that that was one of the most expensive

races to Yeah,

yeah. And he raised, you know, over $100,000

spent probably close to that, on ads on mailers, that kind of

thing. His opponents campaign was was less, less expensive. He

didn't spend as much money, but it was it was still, you know, a

fair amount of, of campaigning. And he came within about six

points of beating him. And the big issue in this race was

around the carbon capture pipelines, and specifically the

Senate pipe summit pipeline that runs through each of the

counties in that district. And Wayland Brown has kind of become

a little bit of public enemy number one for the the people

that anti pipeline activists. He was the chair of the Commerce

Committee in the Senate, and a lot of the bills that would have

restricted carbon capture pipelines went through that

committee. And those bills never saw much of a hearing in that

they never saw a single hearing at the committee level. There

was maybe one hearing of the subcommittee level where the

bill was killed. And Brian was not on that on that

subcommittee. But, you know, he was considered to be holding up

those those bills in the Senate. So you know, that was very

interesting. And then yeah, as far as the timing goes, you

know, it the having won the primary that kind of leaves the

district with no, no candidate, and so the district needs to go

through a convention process to nominate a new candidate.

whether, you know, there's plenty of conspiracy theories

going around as far as what motivated that decision. I don't

have any information on that. But

and to this point, sorry, real quick. And to that

point, Caleb, Senator Brown did not give a reason. In the

statement he issued.

That's correct. Yeah. He didn't say anything

about why he was dropping out. He did say I look forward to my

next chapter. The best is yet to come. So we're not sure you know

if he's going to stay in the public, if he's going to what

kind of he's going to do after this, but Uh, yeah, he did not

give a specific reason. But I do know that the Republican who

challenged him, Doug Campbell has, I think that he is going to

seek he's going to try to get to become the nominee from the

districts. So we'll see how that plays out. So yeah, it's a very

interesting situation. Yeah,

shout out to Jeff Stein at Kx, CL radio in

Waterloo, he passed along to me earlier this week, he had Mr.

Campbell on his show and interviewed him on it. And

Campbell very clearly planning to work the delegates and hopes

to be the nominee. But it's for those of you unfamiliar with the

process, this is now in the hands of the local party

delegates. So it's, it's it doesn't go back to another kind

of election, it's the local party activists that will

essentially decide who this nominee is, they'll vote on it

at an upcoming state party will set a nominating convention, and

that whoever is chosen there by those delegates will be the

nominee in this fall's election.

And another piece to mention, and I was told by

somebody who's worked in that district that the handle had

there, I don't know if he was organizing it, but there was at

least some movement around writing campaign for Doug

Campbell after he lost the primary. And that's it, you

know, if that got enough traction, that could very easily

have split the Republican vote and led to a democratic win in

that district. If there were enough Republicans on board with

that with that writing campaign. So what I don't know if that was

part of the consideration, but it is something that was that is

going on. So I'm

just gonna say that sounds Sorry. Go ahead, sir.

Oh, sorry, did Waylon Brown like say, Oh, I

endorse somebody as a successor like, no,

no, he is not no.

No, that would make things too easy.

And less intriguing, though, too. So

yeah, we get something out of it.

This is a very narrow, like, search that I'm

asking for Erin. But can you think of the last time that a

legislator dropped out after a primary, especially an

incumbent?

I mean, the short answer is not off the top of my

head. And and I mean, that seems like the kind of thing that one

would remember, on this beat, like if it happened, you know

that that's not so I forget a lot of things. It seems like it

would be really hard to forget something like that, because

that was just so unusual to go through the primary and then

drop out at competitive primary. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, there probably have been instances

where that's happened. But I think in those cases, I think

it's probably a situation where the person dropped out, either

because of health issues or family reasons or, you know,

they they got a new job and moved out of the district.

Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting question, though.

I wonder if there's ones that were just not thinking of I may.

Now the events that I like that question, let me shoot an email

up to like the house clerk and Senate secretary, see if they

can remember anything like that. I guess the Secretary of State's

office, maybe

that's well, and especially someone with some

pretty prominent, like duties, right.

Yeah, exactly. You know, a committee leader, a

prominent member of the caucus been around add a little bit of

tenure under him. Yeah, this is highly unusual. And in so many,

he was essentially

the third ranking Republican in the Senate. Right.

He's the whip. If I'm thinking of my order it so

forthright president, Majority Leader and

President Pro Tem,

okay. Yeah, yep. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, fascinating stuff. And

obviously, we'll keep an eye on who gets nominated. And then

it'll be interesting to see. I think that's a pretty safe

Republican district. Right when we get to the general election.

I don't think that's a super competitive. One. That's

probably a safe Republican win for whomever they nominate, but

one that will obviously keep an eye on. Speaking of candidates

thinking about ending their reelection bids at odd times.

The pressure continues to mount on President Joe Biden to

rethink his reelection bid. And after a troubling showing at the

first presidential debate a couple of weeks ago, some

Democrats are calling on buying to step aside and make room for

another presumably younger Democrat to run against Donald

Trump this fall. I'm Tom Caleb's. have already written

about this, Sarah, as we sit here on Thursday afternoon.

You're literally about to write about this when we get off the

podcast. So maybe I'll actually start a few if you don't mind.

You give us the brand newest information on Iowa Democrats

weighing in on President Biden The campaign literally as we

started, before we hit the record button what happens

there?

Yeah, so um, so Christina Bohannan, who's the

candidate for Congress in the south and southeast Iowa, the

first congressional district, she's calling on Biden to and

his reelection campaign. She cites that she's hearing from

Iowans across the state that she, that people have concerns

that, quote, he seems, it seems he is not up to the task of a

strong vibrant campaign that will provide a compelling vision

for our future. Unquote. So So yeah, so that was I was a little

surprised by that. But also, Christina Bohannan is kind of a

candidate that likes to go against the grain on some things

like she, when she was running for the State House, she ran

against a really long time Democrat who was in that was

Vicki Lindsay, and I believe she ran in that primary to get in

the state legislature, and that was kind of poo pooed a little

bit in Iowa City circles when that happened. Or I just say

Iowa City Democratic circles when that happened, but then

like breaking unwritten rules, right, like you

don't primary a long time, incumbent like that kind of

thing. Yeah,

yeah. And so I, you know, I think that she's

kind of gone against the grain gonna answer party a couple

times in that way. So, um, so I was I was a little surprised,

but then, you know, thinking about some of those things. It's

it. It is interesting, for sure. Well,

and she's in a competitive district, right in

the election. She's in one of certainly one of the more

competitive ones in the state. So maybe that's the this is an

example of a candidate trying to show some moderate middle of the

road tendencies top. Tom, you've done some previous reporting on

this. Where does Christina Bohannan fit in, among other

Iowa Democrats who have weighed in on this?

Yeah, so Christina Bohannan. Right now is kind of

the first big Iowa name are prominent Democrat in the state,

who is campaigning are actively calling on Biden to step down,

you know, up until this point, and Josiah Democrats expressed

deep concern for President Joe Biden's candidacy after last

month's stumbling debate performance on CNN against

former President Donald Trump, but stopped short of calling for

Biden to end his candidacy. In release his delegates, they said

that they didn't feel that they're in a position to call on

Biden to exit the race. But, you know, we did hear some harsh

words from Tom Harkin and Iowa Democrat who served 30 years in

the US Senate. And, you know, wrote in a private message to

friends, that was later published publicly, with his

approval, you know, kind of this rating of Biden and his

performance, calling it a disaster from which Biden cannot

recover, you know, said that Biden stood there with his mouth

hanging open, had bowed much of the time and, you know, looked

like, you know, someone who just wasn't up to the job, that, you

know, his responses were mainly incoherent and, and said that,

you know, his answers were meandering and gobbly gook. or,

excuse me. He said that I'm sorry, that that he should have

went after Donald Trump more in and kind of his meandering

gobbly gook responses that he claimed were full of lies, and

said that Biden should release his delegates and allow the

party to choose new nominee at convention. Can

I just jump on there and observe the state of

affairs we're in where you had a brief moment in confusion and

had to clarify which of our two main presidential candidates was

being talked about when when they're discussing meandering

and gobbledygook? I just like the blank, that depressing

little note for us all and please proceed. Yeah,

no, I appreciate that. Whereas other time, Democrats in

the state, wrote off the debate as a bad night and refocused

attention on Trump. I would Democratic Party chair read a

heart in a statement, you know, talks about how In her view,

President Biden is the only candidate who's defeated Donald

Trump calling him a self serving convicted felon and and a threat

to democracy and Iowans freedom. You know, as you can imagine,

Iowa Republicans seized on Biden's poor performance last

week calling on top Democrats to say whether they support the

president as as the party's nominee. Sarah Corkery, a

Democrat who's running in eastern Iowa, second

congressional district against Republican incumbent Ashley

Henson acknowledged Biden's weak showing but so that she still

stood behind the president. You know, she said I don't think any

Iowa Democrat was encouraged by the bait performance that

President Biden gave. In added that she didn't feel that

Biden's campaign should have let him debate if he was feeling

ill. Purportedly, allegedly, Biden campaign aides said that

the President had been battling a cold, although I don't know if

that was ever confirmed or refuted or whatever, by by the

White House or the Biden campaign anyway. You know, she

said the one good thing to come from the debate is that panic

over Biden's performance has lighted a fire under Iowa

Democrats. She said that, you know, they've they've woken up

and are paying attention. And that's, you know, step one to re

engaging all Democrats, especially Democrats in Iowa to

get to the polls this far. But, again, I wouldn't say whether

Biden should drop out of the race said that it's a decision

that he and his family need to make. That that Sarah Corkery.

Sorry to interrupt, but I have some some

breaking news on the on the live podcast coverage here. Sarah

Corkery has changed that opinion. Or tweeted about 10

minutes ago, Sarah Corkery has now called for button down. So I

think, I think Bohannan kind of like it's a Yeah,

I mean, the the polling for congressional Democratic

candidates in Iowa was already not great before Biden's

disastrous campaign performance. And if I'm a candidate running,

I'm really worried about Biden being a drag on me in November.

I mean, there's

that was the case before all this? Yeah,

absolutely.

And, you know, even because it's gotten so much

worse. There's been reporting the candidates in competitive

New York districts are worried. So if they're worried it's not

any better in a place like Iowa, where as a Democrat, you

basically need every single thing to break right to even

have a chance. Yeah.

Thinking. thinking the same thing when when Bohannan outs

there's, there's really zero downside for her or any other

Democrat Congress in Iowa Congress, congressional

candidate to I mean, it's what is it 60 70% of Democrats agree

with her so not really.

And and any Democrat who was gonna vote for

Sarah Corkery, or Christina Bohannan is not going to not

vote for them this fall. If they say this about Joe Biden, you're

right. That's a good point. Oh, sorry.

I was gonna say, and these are all people that

aren't currently in Congress that don't even have to

necessarily worry about, you know, upsetting, you know,

certain people and other people.

Yeah. Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, they don't

have like relationships, really, with Biden or his staff members,

unless, you know, maybe during the 2020 campaign, but Joe Biden

did very poorly in the Iowa caucuses. I don't think he's

revered in Iowa. Yeah forth. And and obviously not well liked, at

least, across all spectrums, according to the Des Moines

Register's recent polling, so yeah, it definitely and you

know, Joe Biden's not gonna listen to two Democratic

candidates from Iowa, who he doesn't know. So, yeah, I agree

with you, Caleb, it seems like there's not there's not really a

downside. And it also gets them just more attention. Like,

they'll probably get mentioned in news articles and other

things get a little more traction on their campaign if

they don't have a lot of, you know, things going on.

Well, they certainly will get mentioned in

news articles in Iowa. We know that for sure. And we gotta get

this podcast done so we can get those news articles written.

That's we don't think by the way that

we also got to get this done before the other two

candidates make statements

and we're gonna have to have a funny edit and

the YouTube version and also Ryan Melton. Yeah, things

changing right before I saw about that, well The news cycle.

All right. Well, obviously something, another one that

monitors as we move forward and see if more and more. I mean,

you know, this is an interesting thing to think about nationally

to like if they're starting to move here. Like, I wonder how

many more Democrats will see in making this call. And then then

the big question is, are there enough of these that Biden,

who's in the campaign have seemed pretty defiant so far?

Will that change now? And the one thing I should note, as a

programming notice, he has that news conference scheduled for

Thursday night. So what you are listening to right now? Is us

talking on Thursday afternoon. So if anything big happens

Thursday night, we apologize for that not being part of our

discussion here. But that will take place after we're well and

done with this podcast. All right, let's finish up this week

and take a little small step off the political trail. And I think

we've learned that at this point, and talk about the latest

flood recovery efforts in Iowa. Governor Kim Reynolds has been

busy this week, again, touring the various northwest Iowa

communities that have been ravaged by flooding. Again, it's

Thursday afternoon. I just came from earlier this morning.

Reynolds in number I lost count. I think it was eight or nine

state agency directors all participated in a news

conference where they all gave a kind of a debriefing on the

latest efforts by the state and the agencies in cooperation with

federal government. But Jared described the latest year in the

area that was hardest hit by the flooding. What's what's sort of

latest headlines in northwest Iowa?

Um, yeah, so we are still very much in recovery

mode or like up at the Iowa great lakes, the water levels

are so higher than they should be at this time of year.

Numerous people in Sioux City and Spencer and Cherokee and

elsewhere are still unable to get back into their homes. In

correction Ville, which is just down the road from Sioux City.

There were at least 152 homes that were damaged by

floodwaters. And there's only a couple of 100 homes in the town.

So that's a staggering number to be damaged. In Spencer, which

was one of the hardest hit, at least 40% of the homes in the

town were impacted by floodwaters. So you know, that's

a lot of upheaval, and shock and displacement. And so, you know,

to counteract that FEMA and other response agencies have

been setting up recovery centers and cities such as Spencer and

rock Valley and rock rapids and Sioux City. And as you

mentioned, Aaron, Governor Reynolds has been visiting the

various communities often with FEMA agents. When I was in

Cherokee, she had a FEMA agent with her to survey damage and

see how their response was going. And she's been to a few

places including Spencer and rock Valley multiple times now

including today. She sells in officially been to Sioux City

yet, and that's actually caused some consternation. Journal

reporter, Delhi. Butz reported that residents at the weekly

City Council meeting on Monday question why Reynolds hasn't

visited their homes and wondered when FEMA will be coming. And

Sue city's mayor Bob Scott said, I believe that will be a good

question for you to ask the Governor, I expressed my concern

that when I watched the news, and the D O T is cleaning up one

town and the guards in another town and I get no help here. The

governor is well aware of my feeling I can tell you that. Um,

so that's that's the latest on the response front and on the

politics from his pose as they go.

And to your point about the housing that was I

mentioned the news conference that was out this morning. That

was the major focus of a couple of new programs that they've

been set up. You mentioned FEMA is kind of responsible for the

temporary or emergency shelter housing efforts. And the state

is trying to find some ways to think about transitional and

into long term more permanent housing and coming up with some

new grant programs. And one of the ones that was actually

genuinely interesting is that you mentioned the female agent

that travels around with Governor Reynolds and she she

described it as during one of our conversations, the agent

just kind of have happened to mention this program that is

used in hurricane states, and that Iowa is trying to now adapt

and get federal approval for to use for for these flooding

events. as just another tool in the toolbox for helping these

communities recover. I had hoped to ask the governor about Sioux

City and I didn't get a chance to it was a chock full of press

conference. And I didn't get my question snuck in. But that is

interesting that you got local leaders actually talking about

it.

Yeah, and there are definitely going to be,

they're definitely going to need as many tools in the toolbox as

possible. Because, you know, as is the case, in a lot of places,

there is a housing shortage in a number of communities around

here. So when you take a bunch of houses off the market, and

those people need to find new places to live, that that's a

real uphill battle to be fighting.

Yeah. And I think this is what you're saying there

was a housing shortage before all of this happened. Yep. Yep.

And now it's obviously just exacerbate Zehra when last week

cast pod, you had said that the projections showed the

Mississippi River would rise in the Quad Cities but not flood

that. Do I remember that? Right. And is that what happened? Um,

well, it wouldn't. Um, it'd be like an ordinary

flood, if that makes sense. Okay, like a disastrous Sioux

City level, lead. And it has, I should have been outside during

the podcast from our parking lot, because we can see the

river in our parking lot. So it has gone up a little bit higher

than what was initially predicted. Initially, it was

about an 18 foot flood, it actually is crest at about 20

feet. And so that causes some disruptions with bird travel. So

river drive out in front of our office is closed. And there are

some the Salvation Army set up a few spots where people can pick

up bottled water who may be on private wells. So if that water

rises above their private wells, they won't be able to access

that or it could be contaminated. So so they do have

some some measures in place to help people out. But this is not

a record breaking flood. And residents are kind of just

rolling with it.

Okay, yeah. Obviously, always concerning,

but not to the degree of what we're seeing in the other areas

of the state.

Correct? Yeah. Yeah. The the, so it's about 20

across about 20.1 feet, and the record is 22.7. So,

yeah, okay. All right. Um, that should wrap it

up. It was another meaty News Week and Newsday, didn't have

time to get to some other interesting things, including

more oral arguments on the hemp products, law, the child labor,

legal battle continues on it, never shortage of stuff to talk

about it. So we'll get to those things as soon as we can in

future episodes. But that's it for this episode about

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Lastly, don't forget that the work of everyone you heard here

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Courier, Mason City Globe Gazette, Council Bluffs Daily

Daily Nonpareil and the Sioux City Journal for Tom Barton,

Caleb McCullough, Sarah Watson, Jared McNutt, Todd Dorman, and

our special guests producer Liz Kennedy. I'm Erin Murphy. Thank

you for joining us.