09/02/2026
Critical thoughts from Representative Sean Bagniewski
Deja Vu All Over Again
As the chair for the Polk County Dems back in 2018, that election night was one of the most surreal nights of my life. Democrats flipped two Congressional seats in Iowa, held another, and came 2 points away from winning all four. We flipped seven statehouse seats. It should have been a celebratory night, but everyone was still in tears. Many of us had assumed that polling and online discussions about a blue tsunami were reality. Our candidate for governor and Senate came up a couple points short. Instead of flipping 80 seats in Congress, we only flipped 40.
We cast that experience aside and assumed that the same thing would happen in 2020 and Trump would easily be defeated. Even though poll after poll before the election showed us sinking with working class voters, young voters, and voters of color, many of us thought we had it in the bag. And then it was a nauseating few days before the election was called because we were unexpectedly weak with those three groups of voters. And then in 2024, we lost the election largely because we did even worse with those voters.
For the last few months, I’ve been starting to worry about a similar level of over-confidence. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise for me to see analysis from CNN’s data guru Harry Enten. He noted that in 2006, Democrats were up by 12 points at this point in the election cycle in generic national polls. In 2018, we were up 10 points right about now. This year, we’re only up 4 points. That could mean even just flipping the U.S. House isn’t a guarantee and gives us a lot of room to slip between now and the election. He noted that it would take between a 3 and 4% victory nationwide to just reclaim the House because of Republican redistricting efforts this year.
Now, I’m not saying all hope is lost. Gas prices are high. Inflation is still bad. The job market is rocky. Trump’s war in Iran is plummeting in polls of even his base. His nonstop drama, falling asleep in meetings, and endless vanity projects has made him one of the least popular presidents since polling began. His election conspiracies will depress his party’s turnout. Many Republican voters don’t vote when he’s not on the ballot. Our folks certainly show up in midterm elections like this one.
But we shouldn’t kid ourselves into ignoring that they still have a number of advantages. While Democratic redistricting efforts were overturned in Virginia, most of his party’s gerrymanders are still on the books. They’re expected to raise far more money than us nationally. Across the country, they have better infrastructure for voting by mail, early voting, and experienced campaign veterans – all are especially so in Iowa.
So, what can we do to make sure we stay on the path toward victory? Knock doors. And support the candidates we’ve recruited over the last year and a half who personally knock the 10,000 doors of independents, infrequent Democrats, and the moderate Republicans we need to win. My friend Kenan Judge perfected the method and he won his statehouse seat by 11 points in 2024, even though his county also voted for Donald Trump.
If you don’t want to knock doors, you can drive candidates who are knocking doors. Or you can make calls. Or support your county party and their neighbor to neighbor block captain programs that are turning out the base. You can register voters. You can make sure they know how to vote early. You can donate. Or you can just share the Democratic message.
Again, I think we’re going to do well this fall and take back at least one chamber in Congress and many seats in the Iowa legislature. As you may have seen, though, the relatively trustworthy Suffolk poll has Iowa’s major races now within the margin of error. We just need to heed the wake-up calls now in the summer rather than getting a surprise in October when there’s little we can do.
This isn’t going to be a cake walk. It’s going to be a dog fight. And the sooner we all realize it, the better November is going to be.
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