Free Republic

... Quinnipiac University released a poll today showing Ernst and Braley split 47-47 with 4 percent of voters undecided. ...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Saturday urged progressive activists to get out the vote for Bruce Braley, calling Iowa crucial to Democratic hopes to keep the Senate. “If we win Iowa, we’re going to do just fine,” Reid said on a call organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Iowa is a key for what we do.” During the call, Reid said Joni Ernst, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, would be a disaster for issues key to progressives, like protecting Social Security and raising the minimum wage. Ernst, a state senator, and Braley, a four-term congressman, are...

In a poll released Wednesday by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group [Link at URL], Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) holds a commanding lead with early voters in Iowa's open Senate race compraed to his Republican opponent Joni Ernst. While the poll shows the race to be a dead heat, which is consistent with recent polling [Link at URL], Braley holds an impressive 15-point lead with those who have already voted. The poll also shows that Braley has a 10-point lead with independent voters. ...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton swiped at Republican Senate hopeful Joni Ernst on Wednesday for canceling a meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board last week, telling a labor audience that not answering "tough questions" is "disqualifying" in the state. "I have concluded that Iowans take politics really seriously," Clinton said. "You test your candidates, you actually force them to be the best they can be and they have to be willing to answer the tough questions." Democrat Bruce Braley "has been willing to do this, and his opponent has not," she said. ---snip--- Clinton also knocked...

At first glance, it’s tempting to think that Mark Leibovitch is calling various Republican candidates stupid in his New York Times article, The Bumpkinification of the Midterm Elections. It would be an easy and understandable mistake to make, given that the introduction focuses almost entirely on Joni Ernst, with a generous sprinkling of Sarah Palin and other, almost exclusively GOP figures throughout the piece. But a closer reading reveals that even though the author might be thinking the candidates are toothless, drooling hicks, he’s really casting stones at those of you stupid enough to fall for their homespun, down on...

DES MOINES, Iowa—Marilynn Wadden, a retired elementary school teacher, was smiling as she settled into her seat at a Democratic field office here and began making calls for Senate candidate Bruce Braley. "We love this," Wadden says of the computer system that is doing the dialing for her. "It is just such a joy." Two years ago, when Wadden was making calls as a volunteer for President Obama, she had to punch numbers into the phone herself, write down voters' answers on paper, and then hand off the sheets to a data-entry team. "Now, we're kind of doing the data...

Senate Democrats are pleading with donors to give to Rep. Bruce Braley’s campaign as they struggle to pull off a victory in Iowa and save their endangered majority. But there’s one key player holding onto his campaign cash: Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. Despite direct appeals from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other top Democrats, Harkin has refused to transfer money from his $2.4 million campaign account to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to sources and campaign finance records....

<p>Last night trial attorney Bruce Braley and Iowa State Senator Joni Ernst squared off in a final debate before voters heads to the polls in November and choose their next U.S. Senator from Iowa.</p>

Yes, seriously. Not one, not two, but three prominent media figures are floating the idea that Michelle Obama (and Bill Clinton, apparently) intentionally butchered Iowa Senate candidate Bruce Braley’s name seven times last Friday. Let’s begin with the third hour of NBC’s “Today.” NewsBusters reports that during a discussion of Michelle’s name flub, co-host Willie Geist noted that Michelle would have had a teleprompter with Braley’s name on it. “But now he’s getting a lot of name recognition,” he pointed out. “Maybe it was like evil genius move, who knows?” Meanwhile, Politico’s Hadas Gold independently reached the same conclusion on...

What’s in a name? For Michelle Obama, a whole lot of confusion. While campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa Friday for Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley, she referred to him multiple times as “Bailey” before she was corrected by someone shouting from the audience. The flub came despite a huge array of signs in the hall where she was speaking, all spelling Braley’s name correctly

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/karl-roves-group-blasts-bruce-braley-agreeing-karl-rove

Should election campaigns and the candidates themselves - be it in Iowa with Bruce Braley (D) saying his rival Joni Ernst (R) is tied to the hip of the Koch Brothers or be it Tom Cotton in Arkansas (R) saying his rival Mark Pryor (D) is tied to the hip of Obama - eschew such tactics? In summation... Should both sides (be it the candidates and PACs on the Republican and Democrat side) eschew this political tactic, or should both sides continue to employ this tactic - and how is the MSM figuring into the dissemination of this political tactic?

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- For a small band of supercharged Democratic organizers, the pleasant Des Moines neighborhood of Beaverdale goes by another name: Obamadale. The moniker was bestowed three years ago by a motley crew of Democrats who first met as strangers over martinis at a local restaurant in the early days of President Obama's re-election bid, brought together under the aegis of the "neighborhood team" model that defined the campaign's bottom-up volunteer structure.

The one-day GreenStorm campaign blitz raised more than $250,000 for Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, along with Senate hopefuls Bruce Braley of Iowa and Rep. Gary Peters of Michigan. ... The GreenStorm fundraiser was also supported by ProgressivesUnited PAC, the Voices for Progress PAC, the National Resources Defense Fund PAC, and the Population Connection Action Fund..

Only one percentage points separates Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Joni Ernst in the race to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate. If the election were held today, 49% of likely Iowa voters say they would vote for Braley and 48% say they would support Ernst, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. That means the contentious race is within the survey's overall sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The electorate is far from solidified. Twenty percent of likely voters polled in Iowa said they could change their mind before Election Day in November. The Braley-Ernst race has...

Brooklyn, Iowa — The battle for control of the U.S. Senate could come down to a dispute between two neighbors in this heartland hamlet over four plump, wander-prone hens. This spring, Pauline Hampton’s chickens roamed onto Bruce and Carolyn Braley’s vacation property on tranquil Holiday Lake. Hampton said she did not know this until she walked over one day to offer Carolyn a dozen fresh eggs. To which she said her neighbor replied, “We aren’t going to accept your eggs — and we have filed a formal complaint against you.” Carolyn took her complaint to their neighborhood homeowners’ association board...

Rep. Bruce Braley (D., Iowa) threatened to sue a homeowners’ association after a chicken crossed onto his vacation home property in Iowa, again raising concerns that the Senate candidate is out-of-touch with farmers in the state, the Iowa Republican reports. The dispute started this spring after one of his neighbor’s chickens appeared on his vacation property in Holiday Lake, Iowa: Braley’s wife Carolyn attended a May 8 meeting of the Holiday Lake Owner’s Association to complain about the fowl. The dispute escalated, causing the association to incur nearly $1,700 in legal fees after Braley called the association’s attorney with an...

Republicans are seizing on a video that appears to show Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley claiming to be a farmer -- even though he's an attorney and U.S. congressman. The web video was flagged by the conservative America Rising PAC, and later by The Des Moines Register. It comes after the same candidate got in a bit of trouble earlier this year for making remarks seen as disparaging to farmers. In the latest video, Braley is seen walking along an Independence Day parade route when he approaches two kids and gives one a high-five. Someone can be heard saying:...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) A coalition of environmental groups is going after Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R), tying her to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) and Charles and David Koch in a new ad. The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund are backing the spot, part of a planned $1 million push to help elect Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) to the Senate. The ad features footage of Palin's endorsement of Ernst during the primary, before attacking Ernst for her calls to shut down the Department of Education and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. "That's why extremist Sarah...

On the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, decried the Obama Administration’s proposed rule giving work permits to the spouses of certain H-1B visa holders. He said Congress did not authorize the Administration proposal. “They act on their own,” Sen. Grassley said. “And, they do it to the detriment of American workers.” Sen. Grassley argued the proposal will allow more foreign workers “to come, work, and compete with U. S. workers in high-skilled fields despite the well-documented fraud in the H-1B program.