Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website.
MIDWEST: Political Note #445 Liz Mathis Iowa 01, Political Note #411 Christina Bohannan IA 02, Political Note #428 Inc Cynthia Axne IA 03, Political Note #376 Inc Lauren Underwood IL 14, Political Note #412 Inc Sharice Davids KS 03, Political Note #378 Inc Elissa Slotkin MI 08, Political Note #357 Inc Haley Stevens MI 11, Political Note #355 Inc Angie Craig MN 02, Political Note #430 Inc Marcy Kaptur OH 09, Political Note #393 Allison Russo OH 15, Political Note #418 Brad Pfaff WI 03
NORTHEAST: Political Note #406 Inc Jared Golden ME 02, Political Note #385 Inc Chris Pappas NH 01, Political Note #363 Inc Tom Malinowski NJ 07, Political Note #394 Inc Susan Wild PA 07, Political Note #397 Eugene DePasquale PA 10
SOUTHEAST: Political Note #410 Charles Evans NC 08, Political Note #416 Stewart Navarre VA 01, Political Note #388 Inc Elaine Luria VA 02
SOUTHWEST: Political Note #389 Inc Tom O’Halleran AZ 01 (now AZ 02), Political Note #375 Inc Steven Horsford NV 04, Political Note #356 Inc Susie Lee NV 03, Political Note #382 Inc Melanie Stansbury NM 01, Political Note #423 Gabe Vasquez NM 02, Political Note #417 Abby Broyles OK 05, Political Note #377 Inc Lizzie Fletcher TX 07, Political Note #362 Inc Vicente Gonzalez TX 15 (now TX 34), Political Note #424 John Lira TX 23, Political Note #399 Inc Colin Allred TX 32
WEST: Political Note #422 Christy Smith CA 25 (now CA 27), Political Note #405 Jay Chen CA 39 (now CA 45), Political Note #390 Inc Kim Schrier WA 08,
Note links: Political Note links are to Lenspoliticalnotes. Links with names are to candidates’ websites.
021022 Political Note #445 Liz Mathis Iowa 02
2022 General Election
During World War I, they sang: “How Ya Going to Keep ‘em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)?” The question doesn’t sound the same when asked about Iowa City. Liz Mathis was a farmer’s daughter, not uncommon in Iowa. Her life changed direction when she went away to the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She met her husband and never went back to the farm. They are still married and live in Hiawatha, a suburb of Cedar Rapids. Their two children are grown. He runs a marketing and advertising agency and she has had a career.
Liz Mathis majored in journalism at the University of Iowa. Out of college, she worked at a radio station. At age 23, she got the job she wanted. She became co-anchor of local news for KWWL. All told, she was a journalist for twenty-two years – the last nine as anchor for KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids. In that role she won a fistful of awards – many of them about how influential she was.
From journalism, she moved on to Working for Horizons and then Four Oaks, in charge of community relations for agencies that support children and adults in need of mental health services, housing, and more. A principal attraction was flexibility allowing her to also be the principal care giver for her children.
With her kids a little older, she was ready to say yes to people who asked her to run for office. She won a special election in 2011 to the Iowa State Senate that temporarily kept the Democrats in control of the Senate. Liz Mathis has been a state senator for more than a decade. If she is elected to Congress, at age 64, it will be the capstone of her career. She would be as effective in Congress as she has been as a journalist and in the Iowa legislature.
In the state senate, Liz Mathis was a moderate Democrat – a supporter of Medicaid and social service programs, an advocate for reduced property taxes, an opponent of increased gasoline taxes. Voterly described her as favoring gun safety, leaning toward being tough on crime, and pretty much in favor of the status quo on issues of voter access.
You could make a 1950s movie about her life – farm girl to television anchor to politician. Except in the 1950s, not so many women became television anchors or politicians in Iowa or elsewhere in America. In the current political climate, you have to raise money. Liz Mathis has done a pretty good job of that. Beginning 2022, she could report $930,000 available to spend. That’s not as much as the incumbent, who reported $1.6 million available. But it is enough to compete.
The incumbent, Ashley Hinson, and Liz Mathis know each other. Hinson, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Des Moines and left for the University of Southern California. Now she lives about 10 miles from Liz Mathis. They worked at KCRG-TV at the same time. While Liz Mathis anchored the evening news, Hinson anchored the morning news. They worked in the legislature at the same time, too. For the little bit of the time that Ashley Hinson was a state rep, her district was within Liz Mathis’s Senate District.
Hinson’s knowledge of Liz Mathis appears to have led her to feel the need for harsh campaign tactics. The Hinson campaign has called her Liz Mathis Liberal Liz. They claim she was hand-picked by Nancy Pelosi. They developed alliterative accusations: “Liberal Liz has never met a tax hike she doesn’t like” and “Liberal Liz supports lockdowns…”. If the two women were friendly when they worked together, that friendship has not lasted. There’s more. Republicans erroneously claimed that Liz Mathis’s legislative leadership engineering tax credits for Linn County’s Prospect Meadows sports complex was a corrupt deal to get tax breaks for herself. Locals call the sports compklex a “League of Dreams” echoing the Field of Dreams from the movie Liz Mathis created community good will in her leadership on behalf of the sports complex, not tax breaks for her family business.
So far, Liz Mathis has avoided attacking Hinson. Instead, she says she wants to define herself. She emphasizes her experience in working with Republicans and Democrats. She says her first priority is improving access to health care, especially in rural areas. She says she wants to preserve family farms like the one she grew up on. She wants to help middle class people living from paycheck to paycheck.
When Liz Mathis is ready to work on defining her opponent, she has lots to use. Hinson voted against creating the independent and bipartisan commission to examine the January 6 insurrection – based on a nonsense claim that the independent commission would interfere with the work of the FBI and the Justice Department. Like the vast majority of Republicans, Hinson opposed the infrastructure bill explaining at one point that she wanted the already whittled down bill to be smaller and explaining at another point that she opposed the infrastructure bill because it was a form of socialism. Regardless of her infrastructure vote, when Iowa was awarded a project under the infrastructure law, Hinson got herself out front. She announced “We secured $829 million in federal funding to upgrade locks & dams along the Upper Mississippi River.” Liz Mathis might remind Hinson that if she had gotten her way and defeated the infrastructure bill there would have been no socialist improved locks and dams.
Liz Mathis https://lizmathis.com has the accomplishments, the energy, and a good start on the resources to defeat the incumbent. Help Liz Mathis with that resource issue. Donate some money. Flip this district back to the Democrats.
Some organizations that are not part of the national establishment to support:
Fair Fight https://fairfight.com Stacey Abrams organization to support fair elections
The New Georgia Project https://newgeorgiaproject.org A non-profit registering voters.
The New North Carolina Project https://newnorthcarolinaproject.org A non-profit registering voters. I had a great conversation with their Executive Director
The New Pennsylvania Project https://www.newpaproject.org A non-profit registering voters.
The Lincoln Project https://lincolnproject.us. Ex Republicans with tough messaging.
.
Some Democratic Party Establishment Organizations to support
The Democratic National Committee (DNC). https://democrats.org
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) https://www.dscc.org
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) https://dccc.org
The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) https://democraticgovernors.org
The Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) https://dems.ag
The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State (DASS) https://demsofstate.org
The Democratic (State) Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) https://dlcc.org
National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NRDC) https://democraticredistricting.com Led by Eric Holder
Three Cautions while donating through Act Blue (most Democratic candidates use Act Blue for online donations)
- Take care to hit the donate button only once. If you hit it a second time, you could be charged for two donations instead of one.
- Take care to watch for an already clicked recurring donation. You can unclick it and donate only once if that is your intent.
- Watch for your receipt. If the receipt indicates a donation different from your intention, reply to Act Blue via the receipt right away. They will fix your donation. They want you to donate only what you intend to donate.
