Iowa Democrats warn House is on the line if Joe Biden writes off the state

WASHINGTON — Iowa Democrats are warning the national party that writing the state off in 2024 could jeopardize their ability to win back the U.S. House of Representatives and put President Joe Biden's agenda at risk.

Iowa Democratic Part Chair Rita Hart says she sent the Democratic National Committee a letter dated August 23 explaining why the national party needed to invest more heavily in Iowa, regardless of how the state votes in presidential elections, to help Biden's party retake the House of Representatives.

A decade ago, Iowa was considered a swing state and heavily contested by both parties, but it has become more conservative and did not go for Biden in the last presidential election. In response, Biden led the charge to strip Iowa Democrats of their first in-the-nation contest status, arguing that battleground states and states with more diverse populations should play larger roles in the nominating process.

Congressional races in and around Iowa could still determine control of the House of Representatives, though and the Iowa Democrats are pressing the DNC to pump more money into the state party's operations.

"When we have these media markets that bleed into other targeted areas...on the borders of the state, that's, I think, really crucial to President Biden's effort," Hart said in an interview. She added, "It's a much different thing to be able to be successful and get his agenda accomplished. He needs the United States House in order to do that."

The GOP has a narrow, four-seat advantage in the legislative body, and Biden is about to be locked in a showdown with House conservatives over his budget priorities. His top legislative accomplishments were passed into law prior to this year, when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

His party is eyeing two congressional races in Iowa that are listed as top pick-up opportunities by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to help move them back into the majority. And several swing congressional districts in neighboring states share a border and media markets with Iowa, where Republican presidential candidates are campaigning hard against the Democratic president and his leadership in the lead-up to the Iowa Caucus, which is still the first GOP nominating contest.

They include a Democratically-held seat in western Illinois that is on Republicans' target list and GOP-held seats in eastern Nebraska and southwestern Wisconsin that Biden's party is hoping to win.

At a July meeting of the DNC's rule-making body, Iowa's representative on the committee, Scott Brennan, shared a document that provided examples of how each of Iowa's nine media markets "bleeds into at least one county of our neighboring states," including the presidential battleground state of Wisconsin.

Those media markets are being "saturated" with coverage of GOP candidates and TV ads from their campaigns and political action committees, the one-page document that was provided to USA TODAY argued. It pointed to reporting from KCCI-TV that showed far more money, $20.8 million, being spent on advertising in Iowa by Republican presidential hopefuls than in other early voting states. The next closest state was New Hampshire at $12 million, according to the report.

The Democratic National Committee did not provide a comment on Iowa's push. But a DNC official said the national party gives Iowa $12,500 a month to conduct its operations and fully funds a communications position in the state that is dedicated to rebutting GOP presidential candidates when they visit.

The party also receives $2,500 a month from a special fund for states that typically vote Republican, and the DNC says is it committed to spending more than $500,000 to support Iowa Democrats across the state in 2023 and 2024.

With limited resources in a presidential election year and the White House on the line, non-battleground states such as Iowa face an uphill battle in convincing the Democratic Party to invest more money in their operations.

Hart says the state needs more money for organizing, voter education efforts and locally-targeted messaging that resonates with the state's voters if Iowa is going to be competitive. "All of those things take a considerable amount of money, a considerable amount of people, of boots on the ground," she said. "And so we're making the case that every bit that they invest here in Iowa is going to really make a difference."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iowa Democrats warn Biden US House is on the line without their help