Money in Key Legislative Races

A flurry of finance reports

It's information overload time for political numbers junkies, and Iowa's state candidates had campaign finance reports due today. Here's a quick look at some of the more interesting legislative races.

A LOT of qualifiers here. The parties are at the most brutal stage of their triage process, deciding which races to take seriously and which ones to let go. There's a lot of unopposed or barely opposed incumbents that you don't see here. Their money tends to go to parties, who then spend it on the critical races.

There's a few gaps that I swear I'll fill in later (the biggest being Kent Sorensen in Senate District 37, challenging Staci Appel - now updated and Appel is waaay ahead). A few of the old-timers are grandfathered in and still get to submit hand-written reports instead of using the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board's online system; this is the last election cycle they get to do that. Those get scanned and that delays the posting. Here's the link so you can check out the races I skipped.

(And kudos to Charlie Smithson and the IECDB folks for improvements the past few years, making it easier to find all this stuff.)

I haven't looked at every single race and haven't included every race I looked at. My cutoff was about the five figure mark for challengers, plus races that both sides are mentioning. There's a few sleepers on this list and a few duds. Who'd have figured former Waterloo mayor John Rooff, running for Kerry Burt's open seat as a Republican, with only $629 on hand after a lame primary, vs. more than $10,000 in the bank for 20something Democrat Anesa Kajtazovic?

Figures are cash on hand unless noted.

Senate 1 (Open D, Steve Warnstadt)
Rick Mullin (D) $20,749.15
Rick Bertrand (R) $7887.17, but $17,749 in outstanding loans dating back to his 2008 House race.

Senate 5
Rich Olive (D, incumbent) $40,107.28
Rob Bacon (R) $3,476.94

Senate 9
Bill Heckroth (D, incumbent) $18,444.50
Bill Dix (R) $100,529.61, which is the biggest number I saw.

Senate 13 (Open D, Roger Stewart)
Tod Bowman (D) $3,669.42 with $1000 outstanding loan, after winning a four-way primary.
Andrew Naeve (R) $16,063.55

Senate 27 (Open R, Ron Weick)
Marty Pottebaum (D) $4,772.78
Bill Anderson (R) $28,045.73

Senate 37
Staci Appel (D, incumbent) $78,231.36
Kent Sorensen (R) $16,943.10

Senate 45
Becky Schmitz (D, incumbent) $33,101.84
Sandy Greiner (R) $13,345.59, which includes a $10,000 self-loan

House 1 (Open D, Wes Whitead)
Dave Dawson (D) $15,741.19
Jeremy Taylor (R) $6,217.57

House 2 (Open D, Roger Wendt)
Chris Hall (D) $23,078.90
Cate Bryan (R) $5.59. You read that right. But there's a VERY important qualifier; she spent $15,000 on her close enough for a recount primary.

House 7 (Open D, Marcella Frevert)
John Wittneben (D) $10,033.26
Lannie Miller (R) $5,189.63

House 8 (Open D, Dolores Mertz)
Susan Bangert (D) $5,560.04
Tom Shaw (R) $2,252 after a hotly contested primary

House 9
McKinley Bailey (D, incumbent) $22,768.74
Stewart Iverson (R) $16,039.48

House 10
Selden Spencer (D) $25,699.77
Dave Deyoe (R, incumbent) $25,990.77

House 13
Sharon Steckman (D, incumbent) $9,776.87
Brian Randall (R) $7,318.01

House 14 (open D, Mark Kuhn)
Kurt Meyer (D) $15,064.21
Josh Byrnes (R) $1,641.98 after contested primary

House 19
Bob Kressig (D, incumbent) $11,762.53
Darin Beck (R) $33,846.67

House 20
Doris Kelley (D, incumbent) $52,349.13
Walt Rogers (R) $7,081.16

House 21 (open D seat, Kerry Burt)
Anesa Kajtazovic (D) $10,139.98
John Rooff (R) $629.20 following a modestly contested primary

House 23
Gene Ficken (D, incumbent) $7,570.34
Dan Rasmussen (R) $12,546.91

House 26 (Open D, Polly Bukta)
Mary Wolfe (D) $3,639.79
David Rose (R) $21,234.04

House 29
Nate Willems (D, incumbent) $30,670.24
Shawn Graham (R) $1,617.09

House 31
Ray Zirkelbach (D, incumbent) $2,717.77
Lee Hein (R) $16,315.28

House 37
Mark Seidl (D) $6,326.74
Renee Schulte (R, incumbent) $18,029.45

House 48
Donovan Olson (D, incumbent) $6,422.42
Chip Baltimore (R) $19,925.43

House 54 (Open R, Christopher Rants)
Carlos Venable-Ridley (D) $5,000.34
Ron Jorgensen (R) $43,817.55

House 74 (Open R, Kent Sorensen)
Scott Ourth (D) $38,621.92
Glen Massie (R) $3,339.70

House 75
Eric Palmer (D, incumbent) $10,014.58
Guy Vander Linden (R) $19,656.42

House 80
Nathan Reichert (D, incumbent) $13,327.58
Mark Lofgren (R) $21,032.92

House 84 (Open D, Elesha Gayman)
Shari Carnahan (D) $27,101.01
Ross Paustian (R) $19,512.94

House 89
Larry Marek (D, incumbent) $33,073.00
Jarad Klein (R) $3210.18 after a 80-20 primary win

House 90
Curt Hanson (D, incumbent) $7,121.76
Stephen Burgmeier (R) $7,994.61

House 95
Mike Reasoner (D, incumbent)
Joel Fry (R) $8,194.75

House 99 (open R, Doug Struyk)
Kurt Hubler (D) $5,303.36
Mary Ann Hanusa (R) $3,633.34