Iowa Field Report has learned that Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley and House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl will report record-breaking fundraising reports for the 2020 election cycle. Legislative fundraising reports are due on October 19 which really gives us the final snapshot of how Statehouse campaigns are shaping up.
Iowa Field Report can confirm that Speaker Grassley will report a fundraising haul of $1.5 million during the 2020 cycle, shattering the previous record of $1.43 million set by former Speaker Linda Upmeyer during the 2018 cycle. Sources also told Field Report that Grassley has amassed a significant cash on hand balance for the final push over the last two weeks of the cycle.
Meanwhile, Majority Leader Windschitl reported raising $562,000 during the 2020 campaign. This is another record-breaking performance, with the previous mark belonging to former Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, who raised $538,000 for the 2018 cycle.
Something that shouldn’t be overlooked… these previous records were set over the course of two years. Grassley and Windschitl did it in just one. That is very impressive.
Again, they broke these records quite substantially and did so in just half the time that a leadership team typically has.
“We are incredibly grateful to the thousands of Iowans who have been supportive of House Republicans this election cycle. We are seeing tremendous support from folks all across the state who share our priorities of returning to a healthy economy, responsible budgeting, and lower taxes,” said Grassley.
Another important point is the fact that Grassley and Windschitl don’t have to spend their resources on themselves. As Iowa Field Report noted a few weeks back, House Democrat Leader Todd Prichard is in the race for his life and has had to spend significant money just to get himself re-elected. So far, Prichard is slated to spend about $400,000 on TV for himself. That doesn’t even include other spending on things like mail, radio, and digital campaign advertising which will add up to even more.
Records show that House Republicans have devoted significant resources in the obvious swing seats that are competitive each year. But they’ve also played a large amount of offense and have been able to expand the map of play further than Democrats and pundits were ever expecting just a few months ago.
With just two weeks until Election Day, it’s clear that House Republicans came into this election cycle with a solid game plan to go on offense and then put in the hard work that was necessary to fund this strategy to protect and grow their majority in the Iowa House.
