The field of Republican candidates seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate from Iowa has expanded to three.  At an event held Monday in Sioux City, Morningside professor and talk radio host Sam Clovis announced he is joining Matt Whitaker and David Young in the Republican primary.

The field is expected to become more crowded in coming weeks as Politico recently reported that State Senator Joni Ernst has hired a Texas-based political strategist.  Additionally word is spreading that a Libertarian candidate will also declare soon—later this week we will be discussing this in more detail.

Background and Bio

Though many in central and eastern Iowa are likely unfamiliar with him, Sam Clovis is fairly well known in the very Conservative north-western region of Iowa.  …

After several weeks of hinting he may join the U.S. Senate primary race, later today Sioux City based professor and radio host Sam Clovis will hold a press conference.

Though he was coy regarding the specifics, and refused to say it is even in regards to the Senate race, he told the Sioux City Journal, “I’ll be making an announcement that affects my future, and certainly my future on the radio, and it is a commitment for something down the road.”  Saying the announcement will affect his radio talk show job certainly suggests he is running—as once he has legally filed the FCC political broadcasting rules come into play and the station would be forced to give equal air-time to his opponents should they request …

The Following is a guest post written by Polk County GOP Co-Chair Chad Brown

County leadership is on the move all across the state of Iowa this year. The 2nd District Executive Committee became the third Iowa Congressional District to re-activate.

This meeting convened in Washington, Iowa, on the morning of June 8. Judy Davidson, Scott County Chair, was elected 2nd District Executive Committee Chairwoman with 18 votes, beating parliamentarian Don Racheter, who received 9 votes. The meeting lasted 1 hour 35 minutes and included the election of officers, approval of the proposed rules, discussion on the 2014 Caucuses, District Convention and State Convention, as well as discussing consistent statewide District rules and lastly organizational announcements.

“I thought we had great attendance,” said Davidson. “We …

Though the U.S. Senate race in Iowa is only in the pre-natal stage the Des Moines Register hasn’t wasted any time in displaying the partisan favoritism it has become infamous for—an impressive feat given the race is only a few months old and has only a combined three candidates declared.

The Evidence

In the last month they have run two stories solely based on Democratic talking points, a practice they have failed to reciprocate for the other side, and flat-out offered no coverage of a significant Republican event.

The first instance occurred almost a month ago when, days after candidate Matt Whitaker announced on The Simon Conway Show, the Register’s Jennifer Jacobs published verbatim a full press-release from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacking Whitaker …

Two days after Chuck Grassley’s chief-of-staff David Young filed his paperwork, Ankeny native Matt Whitaker has officially joined the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

With around 50 supporters and media members in attendance at Accumold—an Ankeny plastics manufacturer—Whitaker took to the podium to spell out why he is campaigning to replace Democrat Tom Harkin as one of Iowa’s two voices in the Senate.

The speech

After introducing his wife Marci, he spoke of his days growing up in Ankeny and playing football at The University of Iowa—then he turned to the concerning direction he views our country heading in.  When looking at the current happenings in Washington D.C. he sees a “government that is stealing from our future”.  He then made the point personal by adding, …

Well, another class of high school graduates are killing time until they begin their college experience. In four, five, or six years, many of them will graduate from college, and move to Dallas County so they can work as temps at Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, town squares across Iowa are emptying out. I’ve spent some time exploring small towns in rural Iowa, and there are common threads that threaten to further damage the prospects of the young, and may even threaten the existence of many towns across the state.

And so it goes; young people leave to try and buy jobs that don’t matter (and often don’t exist in large numbers), buildings stand unused, and eventually the towns just collapse into stagnant malaise.

What Muscatine Has …

The Washington D.C. based organization tasked with electing Republicans to the United States Senate–the National Republican Senatorial Committee–is taking a new and proactive approach in achieving their mission this cycle.  Part of this strategy has included reaching out early to various political writers and thinkers in Senatorial battleground states–and you guessed it we qualify–to form relationships based on our shared cause.

Another element of this strategy is being visible early and often with what has become a hallmark of modern political messaging–the web ad.  Below is an exclusive first look at what I’m being told will be a continuing series of web ads making the case for Republican principles.  It is very well put together and offers some insight into what kinds of narratives we …

The potential field of candidates for Iowa’s open U.S Senate seat has further narrowed as current Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz has bowed out.

Tuesday he took to twitter to make the announcement and also sent an exclusive statement to The Iowa Republican.com–who have made a habit lately of further diminishing the Des Moines Register by breaking stories.  The statement reads as follows:

Over the past few weeks I have been truly humbled by the encouragement I have received from Iowans to run for the U.S. Senate.

After many conversations with my family and friends about the U.S. Senate race, I keep coming back to the fact that I love serving Iowans as their Secretary of State.

In my first two years as

Soon after the final votes of the Iowa legislative session were taken late last week, many legislators from both Parties took to multiple media platforms trumpeting the “historic” and “sweeping” positive reforms they had just passed.  I would love to fully concur—and if I happened to be a Democrat I certainly would—but as a Conservative Republican I am less than impressed with some of these “achievements”.

Of the three major compromises reached I believe, at the most, Conservatives should be “somewhat satisfied” by the understandable terms reached on tax reform and health insurance coverage.  However, I am deeply disappointed by what has passed as “reform” in Iowa’s K-12 education system.  The following will focus on education reform and later in the week we will deal …

There is one certainty about the pool of voters who will decide the impending Republican Senate Primary–they won’t necessarily be the “average” Iowan.  Some of the folks who show up to the polls on June 3rd, 2014 will surely be disaffected Independents (and some meddling Democrats), but the bulk of voters will be fairly hardcore Republicans and single issue activists.  This group will have a specific set of traits they are looking for in a candidate, so the question is what are they?

The focus here today will not be on issues, policy prescriptions, and deeply-held core beliefs–we will get into that down the road–but rather on the more admittedly surface level of broad characteristics.  I believe that the candidate who emerges will be …