The race in Iowa’s third congressional district is one of just two in the country that feature two incumbents battling to return for another term in the U.S. House. Republican Tom Latham was first elected to congress in 1994. Democrat Leonard Boswell first won his seat in congress back in 1996. Iowa has had five congressmen for the past decade, but after the 2010 Census, the district lines were redrawn — and divided into just four districts. “Losing a congressional district sort of really re-rolled the dice,” says Creighton university political science professor Richard Witmer. The two congressmen are running to represent Iowa’s new third district. It covers 16 southwest Iowa counties and includes the cities of Des Moines and Council Bluffs.

Witmer says both men have had to use some of their campaign cash to build up their name I.D. in the district. “Sort of stating that opening case and introducing themselves to new voters, which is not something you would expect an incumbent to do,” Witmer says. The battle between these two congressmen has been characterized by attack ads as well as some intense verbal jousting during their six debates. Republicans hold a voter registration edge in the district of about nine-thousand. There are more than 150-thousand independent or “no party” voters in the third district compared to nearly 158-thousand Democrats and about 167-thousand Republicans.

(O.Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)

The 2012 contest in Iowa’s fourth congressional district pits a five-term Republican congressman against a former Iowa first lady.
Republican Congressman Steve King and his Democratic challenger, former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, are running in what is geographically the largest of Iowa’s four congressional districts. The new fourth district has 39 counties, with Mason City and Ames along the east side and Denison and Sioux City to the west. The fourth district is also the most heavily-Republican area in the state, with 50-thousand more registered Republicans than Democrats.

John Schmaltz, a political science professor at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City, has been following this race. “You really have two vastly different candidates here,” Schmaltz says. “You have somebody who is really pretty liberal in Christie Vilsack and you have a very conservative candidate in Steve King and this has been identified even nationally by various conservative and liberal groups as one of those races that they want to win.” The intensity of the race has played out over the airwaves in a barrage of advertising and in the debates the two participated in this fall. King has not debated a Democratic opponent since his first congressional campaign, in 2002. King and Vilsack met in seven debates this year.

(O. Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)

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