AMES, Iowa -- The last poll on Iowa's gubernatorial race back on Sept. 23 found former Gov. Terry Branstad (R) holding a commanding 18-point lead on incumbent Gov. Chet Culver (D). A lot can change in nearly a month and two Iowa State University political scientists differ on whether the race has changed.
Steffen Schmidt, a University Professor of political science, announced that "Gov. Chet Culver Can Win the 2010 Election," in an editorial in InsiderIowa.com last week.
But just a few doors down from Schmidt's Ross Hall office, Dave Peterson, an associate professor of political science, predicts a Branstad win.
"I think they're going to call it [for Branstad] the moment the polls close," Peterson said.
Schmidt said the reason he thinks Culver can still win is this: most races tighten up as election day draws near. And Schmidt points to more focus and better arguments from Gov. Culver of late, particularly during Iowa Public Radio interviews conducted with both candidates on Oct. 13.
"Culver is actually very well informed and has his arguments well lined up on all kinds of issues when you hear him on radio," Schmidt wrote in his InsiderIowa column.
"Culver made his case for Iowa being in much better shape than most states, as well as explaining why a 10 percent across-the-board cut was an efficient and effective way to address the budget shortfall," he continued. "He correctly pointed out that this had to be done quickly and program-by-program cuts would have brought interest group lobbying and lots of politics into this budget crisis."
Peterson acknowledges that Culver has worked under really difficult circumstances as governor, but says the damage to his reelection bid was already done by his budget cut decision.
"The cuts were deep enough and they hurt enough, particularly in K-12 education," said Peterson, who authored a 2009 paper on campaign learning and vote determinants in the American Journal of Political Science.
"People vary in terms of what they believe is important, but since he cut it all, everyone felt that what they thought was really important got cut," he said. "And then he ran the budget surplus, too."
Schmidt predicts Culver will get a boost from Democrats voting early in much greater numbers than Republicans.
"Independents usually wait until the end because they are less partisan, more curious; they 'pinch the fruit' more before buying so to speak," he wrote. "That means that a more effective Culver message and a repetitive Branstad campaign message could benefit Culver with independents."
But Peterson says research on voter behavior suggests that it just may be time for the nation's political pendulum to swing back to the right -- and that favors Branstad.
"People see changes in how the government is going and they adapt their attitudes and preferences to what the government is actually doing," Peterson said. "It's like a thermostat, so to speak, so if the government gets a little too warm on one side, we pull it back down -- and vice versa.
"When there's unified control [like there is now with the Democrats], the government can get a lot more done, but there's also a systematic move in one direction which produces relatively systematic and large movements in the opposite direction by the public," he continued. "That's also what creates some of this dissatisfaction among voters. People say, 'Not only are they [the party in power] not solving all the economic problems that we want them to, I'm unhappy with the direction you're pushing government.'"
