“Thank God you’re building the ballroom,” says rep. Joe Mitchell.
Joe Mitchell: “Thank God you’re building the ballroom. Thank God you’re getting rid of those awful bike lanes. We don’t ride bicycles in Iowa.”
Please note Iowa has extensive cycling infrastructure including bike lanes and trails, plus RAGBRAI, the world’s largest multi-day bicycle tour which has crossed the state annually since 1973 with thousands of riders.
Are Iowa farmers really concerned about the ballroom?
Mitchell Is Toast
That’s all I needed to see to kiss IA-02 Mitchell goodbye.
Anyone praising the ballroom deserves to lose. And so does anyone trashing bicycles in a huge bicycle state.
Let’s take a look at the rest of Iowa.
Split Ticket Iowa
- IA 01: 85 percent Democrat Flip
- IA 02: 66 percent Democrat Flip
- IA 03: 85 percent Democrat Flip
- IA 04: Safe Republican
That’s +3 for Democrats.
Iowa Senate
- Split Ticket: 50-50 Tossup
- Nate Silver Deluxe: 60.4 percent Democrat
- Nate Silver Classic: 57.3 percent Democrat
- Nate Silver Lite: 59.6 percent Democrat
- Kalshi: 58 percent Republican
- Polymarket: 57 percent Republican
Iowa Governor
- But Nate Silver Deluxe: 93.3 percent Democrat
- But Nate Silver Classic: 91.9 percent Democrat
- But Nate Silver Lite: 93.0 percent Democrat
- Kalshi: 86 percent Democrat
- Polymarket: 89 percent Democrat
Iowa Senate Oddball
It will take a lot of split ticket voting to see the Governor’s office to go strongly Democrat and the Senate to go reasonably strong the other way.
I am unwilling to buck the betting markets by that much. I like Split Ticket’s tossup call.
Decision Desk Split Ticket Voting
Cook Political
The Cook Political Report moved Iowa’s U.S. Senate race from “lean Republican” to “toss up” and the governor’s race from “toss up” to “lean Democrat” in August.
In October, Cook pollsters also shifted the 1st Congressional District from “toss up” to “lean Democrat.”
Senate Polls
Radical House Effects
It is difficult to get a Democrat 60 percent chance of winning out of that. But Silver does.
The only way to do so is very strong House Effects.
Once again, Silver should show us what he does with house effects but he doesn’t. This one is so bad that one has to wonder what he is doing elsewhere.
What the Hell Is Nate Silver Doing with His House Effects?
On October 19, 2026 I asked What the Hell Is Nate Silver Doing with His House Effects?
Whatever it is, he should explain.
Silver does not explain nor does he answer emails.
All things considered, I side with Split Ticket that the Iowa Senate race is a tossup.
One can also arrive at tossup by taking an average of the betting markets and averaging that result with an average of Nate Silver’s models.
Will Kansas and Iowa Go the Same Direction?
My seat-of-the-pants idea is Kansas is a bit more likely than Iowa to flip (say 55 Kansas and 50 Iowa).
The betting markets do not agree, so this is a Mish audible. We will see.
For discussion, please see If the Polls Are Correct, Democrats Will Win the Kansas Senate Race
But with two near 50-50 flips any outcome is statistically equal.
Related Posts
October 21, 2026: Republican Voter Preference Drops to Record Low -11 Percent in New National Poll
Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by 11 percentage points in New York Times/Siena poll.
October 21, 2026: Cook Political Reports Democrats Lead Senate Races in Ohio, Texas, and Iowa
We are nearing the “stick a fork in it” stage.
October 22, 2026: Ramaswamy’s Pedophile-Defending Ad in Ohio May Be the End of His Political Career
Even Ohio’s Republican Governor Blasts Ramaswamy.
October 23, 2026: Department of Justice Moves to Block Alaska Certification if Republican Loses
In a laughable lawsuit, Trump’s DOJ makes fools of themselves again.
The people of Iowa only care about the ballroom and getting rid of bike lanes. Bike riding is a precursor to gender affirming surgery and the bike riders are too lazy to get off the couch and vote and bike riding Dems are the worst of all. Abandon all hope.
pitch perfect analysis.
Plus Dems are using the bike lane to ride their bikes to polling stations. Not only are they voting for the devil, they are not supporting Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ agenda.
I read Mitchell’s comments as sarcasm then I had to read them again. Clueless ****
Just get their corn out of my gasoline.
Should the democrats win the election it will be a massive rebuke of Trump and GOP. It will be an endorsement and mandate for DEI, open borders (i.e. cheap unregulated, untaxed labor), pro-woke, pro-LGBT policies, and pro-abortion rights.
I know this because I was told when Trump won that Americans were tired of all that stuff so logically, they must be tired of the current policies and want to switch back.
bwhahahaha.
Or want new things altogether.
democants arent offering anything new, maybe socialism on steroids.
The bigger the democrat win in the House, the less leverage the DSA members will have. And a handful of socialists in the senate can’t do too much damage. Thank God for divided government. The CIA makes all the important decisions anyway.
Even a handful can do lots of “damage” to restoring equity and re-framing debates. They will insert lots of amendments in bills that mainstream Corporate Democrats would prefer not to publicly vote against. Sure, DSA types won’t get much passed, but it sets the stage for 2028. Bring on the “damage”!
Socialism on steroids sounds pretty new to me, which is similar in spirit to FDR’s New Deal, which Republicans have never ceased undermining since those days with budget cuts and privatizations (think Medicare Advantage).
FDR
Medicare
Discuss
What are you Americans so frightened about with socialism? Your corporations love it and indulge in it in spades, why not a bit for the little guy?
You left out one giant factor: even if a Dem vote reverts toward that old stuff, that IS now a change from NEW stuff Trump introduced, (at least at levels and types) voters did not specifically ask for: foreign war, foreign policy breakdown globally, family corruption, a new kind of inflation …. So the choice is maybe what you said, versus this new Trumpworld.
Should the Democrats take Congress —The massive Fraud and illegal immigration will put the Gang back to their old habits—This time I plan to open a DayCare even an NGO to get my share of the collapsing dollar
I have what it takes to open a Leering Center. I can leer with the best of them. Nothing can approach the greed and fraud of the military industrial complex, though. These are people who advocate for killing on a mass scale just for lucre.
If you start making bank with your Leering Center lots of envious people will be lining up to leer at you. I’d establish the first Leering Center far away from General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, and Sierra Nevada. They hate competition. They’d probably offer to buy you out.
Highly unlikely. American businesses desperately need cheap immigrant labor. The southern border has been a major source since the Alamo fell, but especially since after the Civil War. Southwestern conservative politicians actively fought legitimizing wetback immigration until Trump. When I moved to Oak Cliff in Dallas in 1983, there were illegals all over the place. Tens of thousands of them had moved into Oak Cliff. Little Mexico, a neighborhood NW of downtown (I believe WW2 era formation for defense plant workers from Mexico) Dallas was too full. Every city of any size in Texas has a version of Little Mexico. Democrats tried for decades to get immigration reform passed. Now they can do it. By keeping the border closed. Businesses in all 50 states will force it to happen. Right now they are begging Trump to lay off deportation of “their” workers. Trying to get back to the old true way. Cheap wetbacks. Their children are US citizens. The notion that Democrats are primarily responsible for illegal migration across the Southern border is total BULLSCHMITT.
bingo. we have a winner. i can confirm this to be true, from my 18 years out west, plus my family out there since the spanish empire ruled CA and AZ……..a wonderfully funny film to watch, is “the baron of AZ”. part of my family were part of the spanish conquistador bloodlines………just ridiculous but true. one of my pals went back to Rome and Spain to get his peerage rank.
The Democrat traitors brought in 11 to 12 million illegals even by Air to build a new voter base as they did with the Great Society voter base of Black voters in 1964. Democrats won Congress for 30 years until 1994. The Great Society destroyed the black family today only 25% marry but have children for welfare 43% whites do the same. The illegal voter block they wish to establish with illegals will give the gang perpetual Congress if successful.
Bullshit. Before Biden was President there were at least 12 million undocumented aliens in the United States. You believe evidence-free crap. Their children born in the US are American citizens. They grow up and become voters. Millions of them are conservative and vote Republican.
Exactly there are now 25 to 30 million illegals in the USA following Biden adding more–stupid
Ring a ding ding. Treating Mexicans with some dignity would mean not being able to pay them a dime a week, and we can’t have that can we?
I think the TV ads can sway public opinion. Lots of dirt to dig up.
How realistic or beyond the pale is this?
6 year incumbent congressman (not mentioning political party here) running non-stop ads to “eliminate stock trading by Congress – because he’s seen it too many times from both sides!”
The opponent appears to be a neophyte without appearance of personal financial connections or ambitions, but that’s just my take.
Knowing that McConnell and Pelosi have been around forevah, with hundreds more in on it, does this issue even make the top 20 right now?
At this point you have to ask, “Do the Rapeublicans really want the house and senate in their hands as the AI bubble bursts and economy collapses”? This way they can blame the Democrats when it implodes just like they blew it up between the election and Obama’s first term.
The global damage to the U.S. credibility as a fair and just nation is nearly complete and our former allies and many groups of citizens are aware that our president and his handlers no longer represent us. They represent the corporate interests that provide deadly food, deadly drugs, and expensive – fossil based energy.
Trump should remove the Statue of Liberty and turn Ellis Island into a deportation facility as a symbol of his version of America. Fox News should pay for it.
you are giving them way too much credit. these, are vile and nihilist warmongers. reds and blues alike. from the heartland to the big city slickers. like the folks that vote for them. hat tip to the ancient greeks and romans who invented democracy and republics. it works.
People are selfish, and the founders knew it. They tried their best to create a dynamic system that could optimize for that fact. It was a shaky experiment, and they knew it. Now it has scaled up to a point where agency problems are rife, and we haven’t even fully loosed the AI agents into that arguably unmanageable complexity. The alternatives are forms of crushing micromanagement from the top. Not appetizing either. Nassim Nicholas Taleb idealized city-states. But would anyone rather be Dubai right now? these can only exist rich by the kindness of strangers.
nope. the framers of the us violent insurrection waited for the french and indian wars to end, and then made their move to RECREATE the old roman empire under the guise of a republic. the proof is in the actions. how many years did it take for them to VOTE to invade spanish empire land in FL and towards the west. it was always designed to be an empire. FFS in the 1800s it was common among ruling class and the newspapers to call the USA an empire. the modern post ww1 fools were bamboozled with public school propaganda as great as the USSR schooling propaganda
My 6th Great Grandfather built a fort on the Virgina frontier to protect his community during the French and Indian War. The commanding officer of the frontier forts, the rest were built by the Virginia Colonial government, was George Washington. Small world. The French and Indian War started the American Revolutionary War.
that is a wonderful connection. thanks for sharing. i love that kind of stuff. one of my best pals family clear cut the northeast with a huge lumber company. family donated the largest private acreage to state of FL. and also gifted to VA what was then gifted by VA to USA, shenandoah forest……..down in charleston SC i was pals with the namesake of the first gov of the mass bay colony. his family owned hundreds of thousands of acres in maine etc. he was a mench. he spent his years trading stock, and planting trees everywhere, and flying off to all the board meetings he sat on. down to earth old fashioned NE gentleman.
Way before the election. Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15th, AIG blinked it was drowning on the 16th. TARP passed on October 3rd.
bear stearns went out during what i call the st pat’s day massacre weekend. i sold the stock in summer of 2007 over 100 and shorted it in spring of 2008. i cleared trades there and knew how stupid the managing directors were. after Ace Greenberg left the place went to shit.
I’ll be voting for the democrat (Peggy Flanagan) for senate because she’s not a Zionist and to punish Trump for attacking Iran. That ballroom is another reason to despise Trump.
Sportscasting is great prep for job of Senator. /s
Promising to give everyone a $5K post-election bribe if the Rapeublica s keep the House and Senate is also a reason to despise Orange Julius Caesar.
Mish, you put a lot of stock in the betting markets. Theoretically they should be predictive. Often “theoretically” means “not in the real world”. You yourself are making a good case that people voting D for the House won’t vote R for senate. On that I agree with you.
With people like Musk visibly putting hundreds of millions into campaigns this season, I contend that betting markets in this season invite more skepticism than usual.
Iowa soy and corn farmers do not stand a chance of making a profit this year regardless of current crop or fuel subsidies. Fuel and fertilizer stacked on top of increased labor costs stack the financial losses.
Fuel is only going to get worse…
But, they are Stickin’ it to the Libs! And that makes it all worthwhile.
Food prices are not very elastic. People will have to buy fewer snacks and processed foods, as well as rely on the strategic energy reserves around their waists. Demand will rebalance.
Haha ive driven through iowa a couple of times. From what i recall, it seems more of its citizens need to use those bike lanes. If diesel gets more expensive they might be forced to.
Oh man two zingers! Got an aunt in Ames, but you get an upvote…🤣
Could apply to anywhere and myself included.
I don’t know them, let me conjure straw men, but to their MAGA-conditioned ears and minds, a national monument attracting young men to be employed fighting abroad and at our borders for their fuel markets and gas guzzlers and the keep the covetous foreigners out, might make more sense than some dang hippie bicycle thing. Isn’t that what they had in red China? Will the Dems make them get out with hand plows to save the environment? Never mind the cancer corridors showing up in some of those states.
Lot easier to get an 18 year old to pick up a gun and go fight for his country. Than a 50-year-old. Well more like fight for the corporations who want to profit from some country. That is pretty much the norm for the us. Go to war to bring freedom to the people. Whereas China, etc., just bribes officials for corporate influence.
I have wondered why people dislike road bikers. Prob a lot of reasons combined. Tight clothes / exercise for fun / hating different mindset. Sometimes i think it just boils down to being in the way big vehicle mentality.
I think it comes down somewhat to a wrong purchasing decision. Purchased a huge vehicle to be cool. Then has to drive that huge vehicle in city traffic/ park normal size spaces/ have to slow down on curves and such. In general a daily pain in butt.
The RAV4 I inherited gets driven more daily than my old midsize frontier and old Dodge Dakota. Its zippy easy to drive park and at these gas prices the money saved in gas pretty much pays for the added ins and taxes.
Plus it spreads milage over vehicles so i wont have to buy a new crappy ice or an electric vehicle for oh least 15 years.
i thought all the farmers in Iowa were on the gov teat like those welfare queens with cadillacs………i’ll make a bet with mish and company. not a shot anyone here including mish could pass a blind test of which party was in power in executive or congress, if given a test of policies the past 66 years. borrowing. spending. tax rates, wars, prison industrial complex……war on drugs……..and on and on. nobody could pass it. it’s all a symptom of the common affliction of a rotting world wide empire……with bases and armadas and submarines and satellite trackings…….all over the planet earth………..not to mention bipartisan fascism like patriot acts……….guess what. donald j. trump. from queens nyc, my birthplace is just a great amerikan. he is a nihilist and entertainer. just delivering the evil empire with some nasty one liners like a vaudeville comedian. i’m still laughing at his schtick. oh, my exhibit A as to why it is a uniparty of evil. Trump wasn’t locked up after jan 6h insurrection in 2021. too many blue and red team billionaires and politicians on the epstein kiddy diddling black mail CIA / Mossad operation……….
That’s actually a strong point. One of my dad’s favorite points he liked to make was that despite their reputation, Democrats were better at the economy than Republicans.
He still voted Republican, which agrees with one of your other favorite takes…
yup. it’s more professional wrestling than it is college football.
Unregulated market penetration has been turning college football into a gangster infested operation too.
Great, succinct comment
I would just add the words “intellectually lazy citizenry outsources democracy to plutocracts” and you have it nailed
that is a great point. and that is nihilism. nobody gives a damn. about anything important like bombing poor countries since at least 1898. to understand the how and why, watch the best documentarian, 4 part series free on youtube, adam curtiss, “century of the self”. his documentary on how russia failed at communism and democracy is also spot on and the best on the subject of old ussr……to the present.
Been years since I was back to Iowa, but lots of humans rode bikes when I was there, and not just during RAGBRAI.
I somehow doubt that anyone in Iowa or anywhere else is wondering whether to fill the tank or their kids’ stomachs (they can’t afford to do both) but hey, at least Trump has his ballroom and that makes it all worth it!
The only downside to see the Grey Old Pedophiles go is to put up with the Dems. Yet, one after another pedophile campaigning makes it worth it.
“Thank God you’re building the ballroom.”
This guy is approaching Trump himself for hilarity.
That’s literally a sentence no human has ever spoken before.
Trump might be God’s gift to ballroom notoriety.
He does not possess spheres of adequate magnitude.
I could see Kansas flipping and Iowa staying R. Marshall is not a good candidate and Hamilton seems strong, like Talarico. In terms of perceived moral character and both of them having strong Christian bone fides. I think both legitimately carry deep faith, and it’s not for show. Hinton on the other hand doesn’t seem to have too many skeletons, except for her awful turn on Iran war support. She’s definitely struggling to dodge the Trump attachment. However, she seems more likeable than Marshall, and she’s also easy on the eyes. The differences are small I think, but small differences matter a lot in close elections.
“she’s also easy on the eyes.”
I thank God the shadow of reproductive fitness, as translated to TV-ready good looks, entered into politics.
And I thank the pioneers of that, Warren Harding and JFK. And the sexy decades they were figureheads in: the 1920s and the 1960s.
We all know about JFK’s extracurricular adventures. And Warren? AI: “Warren Harding fathered a child out of wedlock named Elizabeth Ann Britton with his mistress Nan Britton. This was confirmed through DNA testing in 2015,”
Clinton and Trump are Epstein-era wannabees. Seducers. Trump is a 1980s figure, another sexy expansive decade, Studio 54 and all that, a creative decade again, but again with fundamentally flawed finances. And with similar delusional hangovers in their wake.
I never heard that about President Harding.
The creative endeavors of the 80’s benefit greatly from survivor bias. I remember it being a pretty gross and tacky decade overall… and it smelled like Marlboro lights and hair spray.
Nature of the beast. Most men will notice an attractive female candidate. Drumpf of course takes this to the nth degree and hires attractive women for as many posts as he can fill, especially the mothpiece spokes model roles. Not only the vacuous blonde who left after five days as press model, but there are also probably a half dozen or so pretty young 20 and 30 somethings filling communication posts.
TBH I think that’s more of drumpf being a disgusting old man vs a political play on his part.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he believes he has the “right to run again” for president, despite acknowledging that the Constitution appears to bar him from seeking another term. Trump suggested he nevertheless had grounds to seek the presidency again because of his continued false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
if Rs win the house in November of 2028, they could appoint trump speaker of the house. he could rule the roost there and no doubt if the Rs win the POTUS same year, little marco or JD fake hill billy will sit on the couch while donald sits behind the oval office resolute desk. just spitballing funny scenarios in this crumbling evil empire
Trump runs Obama runs that would be fun
He is, after all, mommie’s special little boy.
I used to think that the democrats were more likely to participate in various issues of malefeasance. However, there is no question that trump is responsible for recent and continuing episodes of misbehavior while using various government resources at his disposal.
All our governments, D or R, leak money to unfaithful agents. Every organization has that kind of involuntary value transfer. Who would your rather have eating that leaking seed corn, dodgy daycares and elder care chiselers, or sharp-tongued high-level speculative gambling predators? It’s not quite so simple, but that’s an illustration. Clinton was a sort of creative hybrid and balancer of these forces. Hence, “centrist.”