TargetSmart are charletans who cleverly wormed their way into the election analysis.
Iowa-1 (Blum):
11/07/16 - D: 66,399(43.2%) R: 46,951(30.6%) I: 39,735(25.9%)
11/05/18 - D: 55,089(45.0%) R: 38,123(31.7%) I: 28,340(23.2%)
Blum won by 7.6% in 2016. He has a little leeway here. Since 2016, D’s up 1.8%, R’s up 1.1% and I’s down 2.7%. I think this is close but incumbency helps and the Dem is only marginally better compared to 2016. Plus the Indies in Iowa usually swing left so fewer Indies is good overall also. Dems cannot assume this pick-up at all.