At the start of the campaign season, Democrats and the left had high hopes of defeating Iowa Rep. Steve King. Few members of Congress spend more time under the left’s skin, making him something of a hero to us. Iowa has a real non-partisan redistricting commission, ensuring each Congressional seat is competitive. And, the Democrat got their dream candidate, Christie Vilsack, wife of former Governor and current Ag Secretary Tom Vilsak. But, with just days to go before the election, the Dem hopes seem dashed. King seems set for reelection.
Sources have confirmed to Breitbart News that all national third-party groups have pulled their advertising out of the race. The National Republican Campaign Committee pulled out of the race a few weeks ago. The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee pulled out late last week. Outside special interest groups followed the DCCC’s lead and also left the race.
The clear implication of the outside groups’ exit from the race is that both sides expect Rep. King to win reelection. Outside groups are an increasingly important factor in competitive races, usually spending far more than the underlying campaigns themselves.
Rep. King is a national conservative leader. If the left thought they had any chance to defeat him, they wouldn’t pull out of the race. This is the point in an election where you believe what candidates and interest groups do, not what they say. That they pulled out with over a week left is evidence that King is in a very strong position.
We can draw some inference from this to the overall state of the election. King’s district is designed to be competitive, and Iowa is a closely-fought battleground state. If anyone would be expected to benefit from an aggressive Obama campaign effort, it would be Vilsack. Her husband is a respected and generally popular former governor and serves in Obama’s cabinet.
Her campaign struggles do not bode well for Obama’s chances in the state. We shouldn’t, though, try to divine too much about the Presidential contest from Vilsack’s troubles. Individual contests have their own dynamics, separate from the national election. In the end, Rep. King is just a better fit for the district.
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