Iowa’s political year in 2018 saw voters make history by electing Kim Reynolds as the first woman to serve as the state’s governor:
OC……..what an honor :03
A record number of women were elected to serve in the Iowa house and senate too….one of them, Democrat Jackie Smith, defeated Republican incumbent Rick Bertrand:
OC………in Des Moines. ;09
Republican Jim Carlin retained his state senate seat.
Democrats Chris Hall and Tim Kacena and Republican Jacob Bossman returned to the Iowa House.
The race that drew the most attention was at the Congressional level.
Republican Steve King won his 9th term in the U.S. House, holding off a tough challenge from Democrat J.D. Scholten, who was running for political office for the first time.
Scholten traveled the district in his RV holding several town halls and outraised King in campaign dollars by millions.
He couldn’t get King to debate though, and even offered an alternative challenge:
OC…………in your court. :04
Congressman King was taken to task often over the past year for comments on twitter and elsewhere and was called racist and anti-Semitic.
King though, has a solid pro-Israel voting record, and was responsible for lining up the flight to bring the injured Tanzanian “miracle children” from Africa to Sioux City for medical treatment:
OC…………worn it out completely. :18
South Dakota also elected a woman as governor. Republican Kristi Noem leaves Congress to take over as chief executive of the state.
In Nebraska, Pete Ricketts was elected to a second term as governor, defeating Democratic challenger Bob Krist.
Krist left the GOP to run first as an independent against Ricketts, and then won the Democratic nomination.
