Analysts Shift Iowa’s Democrat-Held House District Heavily Toward Republicans

Zach Nunn Wins Republican IA Primary for House Seat (Zach Nunn U.S. Congress)
Zach Nunn U.S. Congress
Jacob Bliss

Analysts from two separate groups that predict the probable outcome in U.S. House of Representatives races released their predictions, moving Iowa’s Third Congressional District, held by a Democrat, to “Lean Republican” from “Toss-up.”

Following Republican state Sen. Zach Nunn’s “decisive” primary win in Iowa’s Third Congressional District on Tuesday night, University of Virginia Center for Politics and the Cook Political Report shifted their House predictions in favor of the GOP. Nunn’s win means he will go against vulnerable Rep. Cindy Axne, the state’s lone congressional Democrat, in November.

University of Virginia Center for Politics and the Cook Political Report shifted their House predictions to “Lean Republican” from “Toss-up.”

Virginia Center for Politics’ Kyle Kondik wrote that the rating change to “Leans R” follows the “apparent primary victory by state Sen. Zach Nunn (R)” since he “is [the] most proven of potential R challengers and Axne holds a very narrow Trump district.”

University of Virginia Center noted that Axne won her second term last cycle, and former President Donald Trump narrowly carried her district, but redistricting did not help her. In the new map, “Trump would have carried the new 3rd by about 1,500 votes.”

“While Axne retains a sizeable cash-on-hand advantage, the terrain may be too red,” University of Virginia Center acknowledged. “In 2020, Axne was possibly aided by the presence of a Libertarian on the ballot — she was reelected with 49% that year. This cycle, it appears that the race will be a 2-party contest.”

Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman said, “Rating change alert: following Zach Nunn’s decisive win in the GOP primary, @CookPolitical will be moving #IA03 Rep. Cindy Axne (D) from Toss Up to Lean R.”

Nunn walks into the general election race against Axne with $223,290 cash on hand, while the Democrat has $2,840,312.25 cash on hand, according to their respective FEC reports.

Axne is a vulnerable Democrat national Republicans are looking at as an easy pickup seat. The NRCC has gone after Democrats, like her, hoping that they would either retire or be weak enough for a Republican to flip the districts.

After striving to win back the House in 2020, the Republicans left the Democrats with the slimmest majority in modern history and gave themselves the upper hand in the midterms.

To win the majority requires a net gain of only five Republican seats in November, and a lot is on the line in both the House and the Senate. Losing either one could mean the Democrats and President Joe Biden will have a more challenging time passing their partisan agenda items before the next presidential election.

NRCC spokesman Mike Berg noted that “Cindy Axne is in deep trouble because she voted for reckless spending that caused the inflation crisis and was busted illegally failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock trades.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

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