The primaries are over and we now know who is running in November. But astute local voters may notice that many of these races look very familiar. What is going on?
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There are several notable races that are exact repeats from the last election cycle. For example, state representative Brooke Boden is once again going against Democrat Spencer Waugh. In District 22, Rep. Samantha Fett is once more up against Democrat Rory Taylor. Even some new candidates have familiar names. In Iowa, Senate District 11, Republican Hollie Zajicek is running against Sinikks Waugh, the wife of Spencer.
Perhaps the biggest rematch is for federal office. Democrat Christina Bohannan is running against Congresswoman Miller-Meeks for the third consecutive election cycle.
What is going on and why are there so many rematches?
On the Republican side it is quite clear why these candidates are running again. Boden and Fett are both successful, popular incumbents. So of course it would be normal for them to run again. Miller-Meeks is also an election-tested incumbent. The GOP is simply running their incumbents again, as is often the case.
What is going on with the Democrats? Why do they keep fielding the same candidates over and over again despite their repeated defeats? There are at least two possible reasons.
One is that in this area of our state, Democrats have a very weak bench. There simply are not that many Democrats with the name recognition and funding to run for office. So for the most part Democrats in our area simply have to take what they can get.
But secondly, this does perhaps reveal a sort of strategy on the part of the Democratic Party. Given that they don’t have an over abundance of candidates, it seems their strategy is to simply have the same people run over and over again. Perhaps the idea is that by using the same candidates in these elections again they may garner enough name recognition to pull off an upset. If they hit the same wall with the same hammer enough times, maybe they can break through.
Republicans have a sizable majority in Warren County. But this majority is only relevant if Republicans are engaged voters. Democrats hope that if low information voters see the same yard signs again and again every couple of years they will eventually be swayed to vote for them.
November will reveal how well this strategy will work. Make sure you have a plan to vote on November 3, 2026.
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