Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Fri. Sep. 25, 2026

Iowa in the Spotlight.

I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

We often note that Iowa is in the center of the political spotlight, thanks to our first-in-the-nation presidential precinct caucuses.

Iowa is apparently in the national spotlight lately, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

This past Wednesday, Todd Starrn sent me a midday text asking if things were as rough for Republicans in Iowa as he had heard.

I said they were and we then discussed it on his national radio show.

Then yesterday during a live interview on KXEL, Bill O'Reilly said he could not understand what was happening in Iowa this election season and that perhaps I could explain it to him.

Now granted, those are two observers of the political scene who pay a lot of attention to a lot of things.

But when both of them separately heard through their own sources that the GOP was in trouble in Iowa, well that's worthy of note.

While many have portrayed Iowa as a ruby red state, it's really more of a purple state overall.

Yes, the GOP has had recent success statewide and in sweeping the seats in Congress,

But it has not been that long since Democrats controlled a slice of the state capital, whether it be a chamber of the legislature or the governor's office.

And many statewide or congressional races are close, certainly closer than similar races in other states.

The bottom line of how hard it is to predict this election in Iowa is that registered independents far outnumber Democrats, with Republicans having the most registered voters of all.

That simply means those independents are not as motivated to vote because they don't identify with either party.

And because they are not party-driven, you cannot easily predict how they'll vote in a certain race.

With the utter lack of independent polling now in the state, election night is once again turning into a we'll have to wait and see how the votes come in sort of thing, which I frankly like.

And being in the spotlight means as the final five weeks before the election take place, the light will get brighter, the ads will become more plentiful, and the arm twisting will get more aggressive.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Friday, September 25.

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I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.