Iowa has one less district this cycle. The current representative in about half of the district is the obnoxious Steven King. The other half of the district includes Iowa State.
Former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack moved to Ames and began exploring running for this seat. In order to raise money, she established the requisite exploratory committee, which I believe was in operation for 42 days. And how much did she raise in that time?
Christie raised $424,339, well over the target figure i was given at a DC fundraiser a few weeks back of $350,000.
The Des Moines Register has this story on the staff blog run by Jennifer Jacobs.
Vilsack has a campaign manager, to whom I introduced some of you at Netroots Nation. He is experienced in running a successful challenger campaign. So far there is just this barebones website, but this campaign is for real.
This will be an opportunity to pick off an incumbent Republican.
Stay tuned.