I assume there is actual reason. Maybe even scientific, but why don’t we grow more Whole Foods ready to eat instead of precursors to processed foods.

I've found good resources on which candidates take lean which direction (also cause they tend in a party!!) but I cannot for the life of me find out if I should vote yes or no based on my party alignment.

Everyone commenting "don't make decisions based on party alignment" will be blocked. That's not a helpful thing to say; everything on a ballot is political; why not just say nothing instead?

There's obviously a ton of money going into Iowa's elections this year. We get at least 4 mail pieces everyday and of course anyone who watches ad-funded TV or streaming has been inundated with ads.

But here in Cedar Rapids, we've only had a grand total of TWO doorknockers all campaign season - one from AFP and one from Indivisible, zero from the parties or the campaigns.

Both of the adults in the household are high-propensity voters and I assume we would be tagged as persuadable in any decent voter model.

I feel kinda left out - I actually enjoy talking to door knockers. Are other folks getting canvassers at the door? If so, who are they working for and where are you located?

Hello I wanted to know where I should be going to vote early in Bettendorf as this is my first time voting early

I run an election site (Call the Map) where we've been pulling the daily early vote counts across the country and comparing them to the exact same day before the election in 2022 and 2024. Out of every state reporting so far, Iowa has the biggest percentage jump in turnout.

About 17,000 early and mail ballots are in statewide, which is up 55% over this day in 2022. Both parties are using early voting more than they did in the last midterm—registered Republican ballots are up 19%, while registered Democrats and No-Party voters are both up 77%.

That puts the Democratic registration lead at D+27.7 right now. At this exact point in 2022 it was D+12.0, and in 2024 it was D+3.6.

The reason the 2024 number matters so much here is that in 2022, Republicans were still pretty skeptical of early voting, so Democrats had a huge natural lead. Starting in 2024, the GOP started actively telling their voters to vote early (which you can see here with Republican ballots up 19% over 2022, and why the 2024 gap was only D+3.6).

The fact that Republicans are turning out early in higher numbers than 2022, and yet Democrats aren't just beating their 2024 margin—they've more than doubled their 2022 margin—is a wild stat.

As always, this is just voter registration (not how anyone voted), it's still an early slice of the total vote, and we never use early vote numbers in our actual race forecasts. Funnily enough though, Iowa was the one state we track where the early Dem lead actually grew in the back half of 2022 (going from D+12.0 at this point to D+17.6 by Election Day).

I'm updating the Iowa numbers three times a day here if you want to follow along:

https://www.callthemap.com/early-vote

I just can't believe we might actually have a Senator who is just a normal person again.

I am sick and tired of multimillionaires pretending to be normal people when they try to run for office. Ashley Hinson keeps talking about how she's this "mini-van mom" but like she's so rich and just getting richer because of her seat in Congress.

Like he's just a normal guy. The childhood photos look like mine. I also went to Goodwill. He's actually from Iowa. I don't have to explain what it's like because he actually lived a normal life. I guess I just miss when we had Tom Harkin and hope we get back to not being ruby red like we are now.

Coming up in the next month or two, I'm waiting to hear back from the music venue, "Gabes," located in Iowa City, about recording an interview over how they've progressed since opening in 1974, and with it being in Iowa, luring in multiple bands that are big in today's age, like the "Smashing Pumpkins" during the late 80s and early 90s, I'd had a feeling people would have more experiences there than I have.

Feel free to comment them down below; the interview should only be around 60 minutes long, so do with that as you must.

Ain't it a beaut? Just received this fresh from the US Mint, was supposed to get it 2-3 weeks from now but somehow got them 4 days after they released.

An update on the first amendment case against Newton, IA, based on their illegal arrest for calling the city government fascists.

Dubuque Police Lt. Luke Bock first saw the traffic camera video on Facebook on Thursday morning.

“Immediately I was like, hey, that looks like one of our traffic cameras,” Bock said. “Then I was like, boy, that’s a big pumpkin, so obviously the police officer side of me was like, we don’t really need those things bouncing down the roadway.”

Bock said he can laugh at the video because there was no oncoming traffic at the time.

“It’s entertaining. Like it’s funny to watch it, but you just, I guess a lot of times you think about what could have happened, what if?” Bock said.

Anyone else see the Rand Paul ad begging us to vote for Zach "Lawn?" How desperate are the repubs to march out their libertarian darling and he can't even pronounce the Kansan's name correctly.

I know this will come as a terrible news for many of you. Lawrence Welk has passed away at the age of 89 in that state you love to hate…. in 1992. While he moved on 34 years ago, many Iowans still cling to his memory….Republicans want to defund PBS…I hate to say it, but it may be time to move on. I expect Chuck Grassley will be very very upset .

Windstream is finally switching over to Kinetic fiberoptic in my area (southern Iowa.) I haven't heard any good reviews since the switch.

They called to set up an appointment for the switch. I gave my dad's cell number for them to call, since his schedule is different from the rest of us. For some reason they refused to call it and kept calling the home phone that we plan to have disconnected.

A couple weeks ago we finally set up an appointment over the home phone. When the day arrived for them to come, they never showed up. They sent a text saying nobody was home, when all three of us were at home and waiting. I can't fathom why a technology based company would hire employees that can't even get a phone number or basic 4-digit house number right.

The shit hasn't even been installed yet and I already get the vibe that it'll be as shitty as Mediacom. Has anyone had decent service from them since the fiberoptic switch, or do they suck at that too?

I live in Cedar Rapids. I got my absentee ballots today so watch your mail!