Iowa Democratic Party leader feeling 'nauseously optimistic' as election night begins

With Election night just underway, Rita Hart was feeling “nauseously optimistic.”

“There’s a lot of butterflies going on,” the Iowa Democratic Party Chair said as CNN blared the first of many “Key Race Alerts” to come. “We’re feeling positive, but we never know until the counting is done.”

Hart, who voted early in Clinton County, spent much of Tuesday deploying teams to last-minute door knocks, phone banks and emergency responses at polling places. As someone who by six votes when she ran for Congress in 2020, she understands the importance of getting out every single vote.

“We've got two races right here, these congressional races, that could come down to as close as that again,” Hart said of the 3rd Congressional District race between Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn and Democrat Lanon Baccam, and the 1st Congressional District race in which incumbent U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is facing challenger Democrat Christina Bohannan.

“We've known from the beginning that we could have national races that are really going to be tight," she said.

“The control of the House comes right here, through these congressional seats in Iowa, and that is so important.”

Since Saturday's Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a 3 percentage-point lead over former President Donald Trump, Democratic Party leaders in Iowa have been riding a new wave of adrenaline.

The results, which marked the first time a Democrat led a Republican in the presidential race in an Iowa Poll this cycle, may have sent shockwaves through the world of political pundits ― but the numbers matched the mood volunteers were feeling at voters’ doors, said Jennifer Konfrst, the Iowa Statehouse minority leader.

“We knew things felt good on the ground up until the Iowa Poll; the Iowa Poll just reflected what we've been hearing,” Konfrst said. “It was even better news than we expected, but we still felt like things are heading our way in this state.”

As the election drew closer, Konfrst targeted her voter outreach to “persuasion voters,” registered Independents and “people that need convincing,” she said. Over and over, she said she heard from those voters that reproductive freedom was a top issue and that Iowa’s six-week abortion ban “went too far.”

“I heard a phrase at the door so many times this year, which was: ‘This isn’t the Iowa I grew up in,’” she said.

“They're frustrated. They hate politics. I don't blame them,” she said. “I get it, and I'm not saying that they're in love with Democrats or Republicans. What I'm saying is that they're ready for a change, and they see opportunities to do that and to send a message on reproductive freedom.”

“There's one Venn diagram that everybody on every level of the ticket is talking about, and that's abortion,” she added.

With the White House up for grabs, the presidential election naturally takes up much of the attention, but local leaders said they have been just as focused on securing victories in key congressional races as well as tight Statehouse contests.

“We are reminding people that Kamala Harris is amazing, and I hope she's president,” Konfrst said. “But if you really want to make change to school vouchers or AEAs, you got to vote in your state legislative races, because that's where those things get decided.”

Though Iowa’s two Statehouse chambers are controlled by Republicans and the state has swung toward President Donald Trump twice, Konfrst believes “Iowa is not a lost cause when it comes to bringing balance back.”

“Tonight feels like a crossroads election where the pendulum has swung too far to the right and Iowans are going to try to begin the process of correcting, whether that means huge, huge wins tonight or just progress,” she said.

“I think that we need to recognize, and national folks need to recognize that Iowa is in play.”

Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. She covered the Iowa Democratic Party watch party on election night . Reach her at [email protected] or 515-284-8360.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Democratic Party leaders hopeful and optimistic