Candidates for the Iowa House and Senate have filed their final campaign finance reports before tomorrow’s election.
The reports cover the last two weeks of the campaign and they show how hard both parties are trying to win some key Senate races.
If Republicans pick up two seats, they’ll wrest control of the Iowa Senate from the Democrats. In the last two weeks alone, the two parties have paid for close to one and a quarter million dollars in advertising and other help for their candidates in the four most competitive races. Going back to July, the total reaches more than 2 million dollars.
In the last two weeks alone, in the four races help from the Democratic party for their candidates exceeded three-quarters of a million dollars. The Republican party offered half a million dollars in help for their candidates.
Republicans are spending big bucks to promote Ken Kreyenbrink who is challenging Democratic incumbent Daryl Beall in Senate District 5 in Fort Dodge. Democrats are tapping their coffers to help challenger Steve Siegel of Ottumwa who’s hoping to knock off Republican incumbent Mark Chelgren.
In Senate District 15Democrats have made 444-thousand dollars in so-called in-kind contributions on behalf of former Newton Mayor Chaz Allen in his race against Republican Crystal Bruntz.
The two parties are also contributing to their candidates in races for the Iowa House where Republicans hold a 53 vote majority.
The GOP is helping out its challengers against Democratic incumbents they consider vulnerable because they’ve only served one term .