Midterm election causes mixed emotions
Polls in Iowa opened at seven in the morning on Tuesday and closed voting at nine in the evening. However, due to people still in line the Iowa gubernatorial election was not finalized until around eleven.
November 8, 2018
As the 2018 midterm elections wrapped up on Nov. 6, the Iowa elections went into a late night with Republican Governor Kim Reynolds coming out on top over Democrat opponent Fred Hubbell. With polls closing at nine, part of the night views were told to keep the lights on and drink some coffee because the election was too early to call.
Once the polls started coming in, Hubbell had been ahead of Reynolds for part of the night, filling supporters with the hope of Iowa joining Illinois in the “blue wave”. Iowans awoke to the news that Reynolds will return to Des Moines for the next two years, beating Hubbell 50.4 percent to 47.4 percent.
So what does this win for Iowa Republicans actually mean? Iowa Republicans control the State Senate 12 to 13 and the State House 44 to 51. Government teacher Jodi Zimmerman believes that Iowa is going completely red, which could be dangerous for the state.
“We were definitely not a part of the blue wave. Typically you want to have one of the parties have a check so one party doesn’t run ramped. It helps keep them a little more responsible to each other,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman believes since three out of the four Congressional Districts went blue, and yet the governor went red this election, displays how divided the state is.
Senior Michael Chalupa voted for his first time after he turned 18 and was overall satisfied with how the election turned out.
“I want to see an improvement in general welfare and I feel like recently everyone has been more divided than together, so no matter who wins I want to support them and find ways to make the community better,” Chalupa said.
Chalupa believes what would help improve the state of Iowa is privatized healthcare and more funding towards education.
Senior Mia Nelson voted for her first time and was not satisfied with the state elections, but thinks there is only so much the Democratic party could do.
“We did have more people vote. I knew three or four people that were adults that registered for this election, so I think the blue wave was sort of successful considering our president is Republican,” Nelson said.
According to social studies teacher John Kealey, this was a pretty normal election and it was expected that Democrats would take back the House because of the Republican president. Trump never expected there to be that big of a blue wave, he said.
“In Iowa we were like ‘you have to get out to vote,’ but we weren’t about who to vote for and why you should vote. I think we missed the blue wave because we didn’t collectively have a good message,” Zimmerman said.
