Campaign finance data shows parties fighting for Driscoll, Kinney

WASHINGTON — As votes around the state and country are cast, campaign finance data shows state political parties investing heavily in the race for Iowa State Senate District 46, between Republican Dawn Driscoll and Democrat Kevin Kinney.

Both candidates are incumbents, formerly occupying separate senate seats before the 10-year redistricting process put them on the same ballot. The close contest has made for one of the of the highest-budget state legislative races in Iowa, totaling over $1 million of party expenses on ad buys alone since primary election night.

Most of that money comes in the form of in-kind donations from statewide political parties, which buy ads on the candidates’ behalf. With final campaign finance disclosures submitted Friday, the total ad expenditure comes to $709,787.16 from the The Republican Party of Iowa, and $446,693.39 from the Iowa Democratic Party on the district since July 15.

The sum of over $1 million makes Iowa Senate District 46 one of the most expensive races in the state for the two parties.

Andy Suchorski, Executive Director of the Democratic Party’s Senate Majority Fund, said amounts were considerably higher this election cycle than usual.

“Our committee, we spent roughly $300,000-400,000 for a targeted senate campaign last time,” he said. “This cycle, we’ve spent $500,000-plus.”

Almost two thirds of the post-primary ad buys for Kinney’s campaign happened during the season’s home stretch, between Oct. 15 and the Tuesday preceding Election Day. Suchorski said the push was a response to even higher Republican spending on the race.

“The Republican Party has reported the most in-kind contributions for Dawn Driscoll, she’s a top recipient,” he said. “They have gone all-in on this seat for sure, and I think that’s a reflection of Kevin Kinney’s strength, that they see this as a race that they have to spend so much money on.”

Suchorski said ad buying campaigns were highly effective in shaping election outcomes, even if they don’t seem influential to voters themselves.

“You can just tell based on attitudes and polling and favorability ratings, etc., how people are responding, whether they say they agree with the ad or not,” he said. “The reality is the same as non-political ads, they work. There’s a reason people buy products, there’s a reason why people have favorable, unfavorable opinions of candidates.”

Driscoll, for her part, credited the high spending to the stakes of a race between incumbents. While the area has more registered Republicans than Democrats and largely favored Trump in 2020, she said the district contained more of Kinney’s home turf.

“Both parties want to protect their seats,” she said. “With the redistricting, I only retained Iowa County, and Washington is new and the rural Johnson part is new, so we needed to get our message out to those people. And we had a short amount of time from December until now for me to get to know the people of our district, and for people to get to know me.”

Jeff Kaufmann, Chair of the Iowa Republican Party, said there was also a personal element to the high spending.

A Gazette fact check in July found that Kinney voted with his party on non-unanimous issues 81% of the time in the 2022 session. Kaufmann said the amount was in “lock step” with progressives.

While Kinney pitches himself as a moderate and boasts endorsements from the district’s sitting Republican State House Representatives (Jarad Klein and David Maxwell,) Kaufmann said he and other conservatives rebuked the centrist label.

“We have an opportunity to knock out someone who we believe has been fooling their constituents,” he said. “To a certain degree, there’s an element of being offended, that a Democrat in rural Iowa votes with the leader of the party … superficial misrepresentation makes it real easy for me to sign checks.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com