For over a decade I’ve been pitching an Interstate 29 corridor strategy to any democrat that will listen. Campaigning in western Iowa and the Dakotas I’d noted that the eastern population centers of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas were trending blue and western Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota had potential too. Here within a days drive are 14 senate seats, a dozen congressional seats, and seven governorships, and most of them were competitive. I envisioned a string of full time dem campaign offices from KC north to darn near the border, swinging these swing seats into the democratic column.
Instead the Democratic Party abandoned most everything west of Minneapolis, Des Moines, and St.Louis and much of that turf turned red by default. But this year is different- 5 (MN1, IA3, NE2, KS2, and KS3) of the 20 congressional districts 538’s “deluxe” congressional predictions classifies as “toss up” are on the I-29 corridor, and Heidi Heitcamp’s North Dakota seat is one of three in 538’s senate predictions “toss up” category. 538 don’t predict gov races, but surf over to 270’s gov pundit ratings and you’ll find the pundits rate one or two races along I-29 as tossups too.
Normally about here I’d be chastising D-Trip and similar beltway big D Democrats for ignoring the 1-29 corridor, but this year they got the memo and heck, even D-Trip has every one of those 5 “toss up” congressional races on the corridor supported via their “Red to Blue” program. But beltway Dems, don’t forget us… Make those campaign offices and staffers permanent because our I-29 corridor will be a political fulcrum in 2020 too!
Sassy Democrat 