This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 12th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level.

This is the mid­dle of the coun­try. Most of this ter­ri­tory is deeply Repub­li­can, though Iowa and Mis­souri are more closely bal­anced. Of these six states, Kansas and Nebraska have noth­ing of par­tic­u­lar inter­est going on in Novem­ber. The other four are described below the fold, with sig­nif­i­cant help from a cou­ple of our reg­u­lar com­menters.

Iowa

Editor’s note: Thanks to mclever for writ­ing this section.

Due to redis­trict­ing, Iowa now has four dis­tricts instead of five, and the new dis­tricts are all more bal­anced. Accord­ing to Roll Call and Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics, all four con­gres­sional races in Iowa are com­pet­i­tive this year:

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1 con­sists of the north­east quad­rant of the state and is the least likely to change hands. Dis­trict 1 may seem safe for incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bruce Bra­ley (D-​​Waterloo) with a PVI of D+5, but the dis­trict added nine Repub­li­can coun­ties and gave up three Demo­c­ra­tic coun­ties, which poten­tially gives Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ben Lange (R-​​Independence) a chance in the rematch of 2010. Inde­pen­dent Repub­li­can groups are already spend­ing about $350,000 in adver­tis­ing in the hopes that they might steal a long-​​shot here, but Bra­ley has out­raised Lange by over a hun­dred­fold, is well-​​liked by his con­stituents, and is there­fore likely to keep his seat. Larry Sabato’s Crys­tal Ball calls this seat “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic”, while Roll Call and The New York Times con­sid­ers it “Likely Democratic”.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2 con­sists of the south­east quad­rant of the state where the incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dave Loeb­sack (D-​​Iowa City) is fac­ing a solid chal­lenge from John Deere attor­ney John Archer (R-​​Bettendorf) in this allegedly PVI D+7 dis­trict. Con­sid­er­ing that cur­rent voter reg­is­tra­tion num­bers sug­gest only a slight Demo­c­ra­tic advan­tage, this race could be much closer. Loeb­sack lost his home turf in Linn County to redis­trict­ing, which also added Archer’s home turf in Scott and Clin­ton coun­ties along with another seven Repub­li­can coun­ties. Repub­li­can PACs are run­ning ads on Archer’s behalf that mimic many of the pro-​​Romney ads. How­ever, with John­son County in his pocket, and a three-​​to-​​one fundrais­ing mar­gin, the edge in this race goes to Loeb­sack. Roll Call and Sabato con­sider this “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic”, while The New York Times calls it “Likely Democratic”.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 3 fea­tures a high-​​powered show­down between two long-​​time incum­bents: eight-​​term Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Leonard Boswell (D-​​Des Moines) vs. nine-​​term Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tom Latham (R-​​Des Moines). Both can­di­dates are rel­a­tively mod­er­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tives of their respec­tive par­ties, so nei­ther has a dis­tinct par­ti­san advan­tage. After redis­trict­ing, Boswell retains only a sin­gle county from his orig­i­nal con­stituency. How­ever, Latham had to move south from Dis­trict 4 to avoid a Repub­li­can vs. Repub­li­can matchup against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve King (R-​​Odebolt), so the south­west­ern Dis­trict 3 isn’t his nat­ural turf, either. Both can­di­dates are adver­tis­ing heav­ily and neg­a­tively, though Latham has twice as much money to spend. In this PVI D+1 dis­trict with slightly Republican-​​leaning reg­is­tra­tion num­bers, the win­ner of Dis­trict 3 is anyone’s guess. Roll Call and Sabato look at this dis­trict as “Leans Repub­li­can”; The New York Times thinks it’s a tossup.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 4 promises fire­works between out­spo­ken incum­bent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve King (R-​​Odebolt), and beloved Iowa native, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Christie Vil­sack (D-​​Ames) in the mostly rural north­west quad­rant of the state. King is a staunch, Tea Party con­ser­v­a­tive and fre­quent Fox con­trib­u­tor who gained recent noto­ri­ety for his remarks com­par­ing immi­grants to dogs. Vil­sack is the wife of for­mer Iowa Gov­er­nor Tom Vil­sack. She is a life­long teacher, an advo­cate of tech­nol­ogy and lit­er­acy pro­grams, and the exec­u­tive direc­tor of a women’s health research orga­ni­za­tion. In any other Iowa dis­trict, Vil­sack would prob­a­bly win eas­ily, but the Iowa Sec­re­tary of State cur­rently shows Dis­trict 4 with a sub­stan­tial Repub­li­can voter reg­is­tra­tion advan­tage of 180,000 to 125,000 with 170,000 inde­pen­dents. Both can­di­dates have raised about the same amount of money. On bal­ance, King is likely to keep his seat; Roll Call, Sabato, and The New York Times all con­sider this seat “Leans Repub­li­can”. Nonethe­less, if any Demo­c­rat can win in this dis­trict, it’s Vilsack.

There are no bal­lot mea­sures or Con­sti­tu­tional amend­ments up for vote in Iowa, but vot­ers do have an indi­rect method of influ­enc­ing pol­icy through reten­tion votes for the state Supreme Court jus­tices. In 2009, the seven jus­tices on the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unan­i­mously that deny­ing mar­riage licenses to gay cou­ples was uncon­sti­tu­tional. In 2010, three of those jus­tices were up for a reten­tion vote, and all three were nar­rowly rejected, becom­ing the first state Supreme Court jus­tices ever to lose their seats due to the vot­ers. This year, Jus­tice David Wig­gins faces a reten­tion vote, and con­ser­v­a­tive groups led by Bob Van­der Plaats are cam­paign­ing hard to pun­ish jus­tices who “leg­is­late from the bench.” The lib­eral group, Jus­tice Not Pol­i­tics, has also launched a “Yes on Reten­tion” cam­paign in hopes of sav­ing Wig­gins’ seat, but they face a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial disadvantage.

Mis­souri

The Gov­er­nor of Mis­souri is up for reëlec­tion this year. The incum­bent, Demo­c­ra­tic Gov­er­nor Jay Nixon, is being chal­lenged by Repub­li­can busi­ness­man Dave Spence. Nixon has con­sis­tently polled well above Spence, even when account­ing for house biases. While his reëlec­tion is hardly assured, this elec­tion leans pretty far in Nixon’s direction.

There are four mea­sures on the bal­lot. We already talked about Propo­si­tion E in the Bal­lot Watch on Oba­macare, and the Tobacco Tax Ini­tia­tive in the Bal­lot Watch on Taxes. The other two are:

Amend­ment 3 would change the cur­rent non­par­ti­san process for select­ing judges in the top state courts to a par­ti­san process. Repub­li­can state Sen­a­tor Jim Lem­bke spon­sored the bill to move the judi­cial branch of the state out of the hands of the élite judi­ciary to the hands of the highly par­ti­san state leg­isla­tive branch. I don’t care what party is in con­trol; I hate the idea of the judi­cial branch becom­ing increas­ingly par­ti­san, regard­less of the level of government.

The Mis­souri Munic­i­pal Police Amend­ment would allow for the City of Saint Louis to take con­trol of their munic­i­pal police force, which is cur­rently man­aged by a board dom­i­nated by Governor-​​appointed com­mis­sion­ers. The City has been try­ing to wrest con­trol from the Gov­er­nor for some time, and this would allow the City to exclude the Gov­er­nor entirely from the process.

Okla­homa

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2 has no incum­bent, as the mod­er­ate (DW-​​NOMINATE –0.118) Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan Boren (D-​​Muskogee) is retir­ing. Redis­trict­ing has added some con­ser­v­a­tive ter­ri­tory from Rogers County, and some lib­eral ter­ri­tory from Mar­shall County, lead­ing to a some­what unpre­dictable shift from the old district’s Cook PVI of R+14. Busi­ness­man Rob Wal­lace is rep­re­sent­ing Team Blue on the bal­lot, while plumber Mark­wayne Mullin rep­re­sents Team Red. Obvi­ously, this Dis­trict will cast its votes for Mitt Rom­ney, but in the local polit­i­cal arena, the out­come is far less clear. Mullin has out­raised Wal­lace by a three to two mar­gin. Prog­nos­ti­ca­tors are split on this one: The New York Times believes it’s “Likely Repub­li­can”, Roll Call and Sabato see this race as “Leans Repub­li­can”, but Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics con­sid­ers this race a tossup.

Texas

Editor’s note: Thanks to Max for writ­ing this section.

As was the case with most Con­gres­sional dis­tricts, Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 15 was redrawn after the 2010 Cen­sus. Guadalupe County, for­merly in Dis­trict 28, was relo­cated to Dis­trict 15, which stretches down to the Rio Grande. Iron­i­cally, the county is pre­dom­i­nately Repub­li­can and had lob­bied the Leg­is­la­ture to be realigned into Dis­trict 21, served by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lamar Smith (R-​​San Anto­nio). But with the new Dis­trict 35 ger­ry­man­dered to run from down­town San Anto­nio up the I-​​35 cor­ri­dor into the east­ern half of Austin, the pro­posed mar­riage was never to occur. Dis­trict 15 is served by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rubén Hino­josa (D-​​Mercedes), who has rep­re­sented the dis­trict since 1997. He defeated three chal­lengers in the Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary with a 55 per­cent major­ity. He will be chal­lenged by Repub­li­can Dale Bruegge­mann of Guadalupe County, who defeated five chal­lengers and then won a runoff, plus a Lib­er­tar­ian and an Inde­pen­dent. There has been no mean­ing­ful polling. The Dis­trict has a Cook PVI of D+3.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 23, in the south­west­ern part of the state, has the one seat gen­er­ally con­sid­ered to be com­pet­i­tive. The incum­bent, fresh­man Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Quico Canseco (R-​​San Anto­nio), won his seat in 2010 by just shy of five points. This Cook PVI R+4 dis­trict has moved between the two par­ties since its cre­ation, to the Democ­rats in the wave of 2006 and to the Repub­li­cans in the wave of 2010. Canseco’s chal­lenger is state Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pete Gal­lego. Canseco has out­raised Gal­lego by a two to one mar­gin. This race will prob­a­bly depend heav­ily on Pres­i­dent Obama’s coat­tails. Roll Call and Sabato both see this race as a tossup, but The New York Times thinks it “Leans Republican”.

My sec­ond home dis­trict when I’m in Cor­pus Christi is Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 27, which also was heav­ily redrawn. For­merly, the Dis­trict ran from Cor­pus Christi down to Brownsville and was heav­ily Demo­c­ra­tic and His­panic, with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Solomon Ortiz (D-​​Corpus Christi) serv­ing since its incep­tion in 1983 until los­ing by 800 votes out of 100,000 to cur­rent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Blake Far­en­thold (R-​​Corpus Christi) in 2010. With the new redis­trict­ing, it now runs from Cor­pus Christi north into what was for­merly Dis­trict 14, which is served by Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son), and north­west into Bas­trop. As a result, the Dis­trict lost many of its His­panic vot­ers, down from 70 per­cent to less than 50 per­cent, and picked up many of the Libertarian/​Republican Paulis­tas. Far­en­thold was con­sid­ered vul­ner­a­ble pre­vi­ously, but the change is con­sid­ered the most favor­able of all dis­tricts, with respect to retain­ing the incum­bent, mov­ing to R +7. Far­en­thold is expected to retain the seat against almost token oppo­si­tion. In the pri­maries, the Repub­li­can Party held a 38,000 to 20,000 vote advantage.

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