Republicans enlarged their domination of state politics in Iowa Tuesday.
Unofficial results Wednesday showed Republicans increasing their numbers in the 100-seat Iowa House of Representatives from 60 to 64 and in the 50-seat Iowa Senate from 32 to 34.
One closely watched state Senate race saw first-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott of West Des Moines defeat three-term incumbent Republican Sen. Jake Chapman of Adel. Trone Garriott received 51.5% of the 29,340 votes cast. Chapman attracted attention in January as president of the Iowa Senate when he opened the legislative session with a speech denouncing the “sinister agenda” of public school teachers and the news media. The evil ones, he said, were “calling good evil and evil good” and seeking to “normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest.”
In Perry-area polling, Republican incumbent Rep. Carter Nordman of Panorama soundly defeated Democratic challenger Gary Overla of Dallas Center for the newly drawn district 47 seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. Overla won all three Perry voting precincts but could not overcome Nordman, a protege of Chapman and former Iowa House member Ralph Watts of Adel, who garnered 65% of the 11,949 votes cast in Dallas, Greene and Guthrie counties.
In Dallas County races, five-term incumbent Dallas County Supervisor Brad Golightly, a Republican from rural Perry, turned away a challenge from Democrat Robert Greenway of Redfield. Golightly, who represents supervisor district 1, captured 56% of the countywide votes.
Dallas County Supervisor Kim Chapman, an Adel Republican, won a sixth term of office. He ran unopposed, as did Dallas County Attorney Charles Sinnard, an Urbandale Republican, who won a second term and Dallas County Treasurer Mitch Hambleton, a Dallas Center Republican, who will start his third term in January.
Republican ReNae Arnold of Adel defeated Democrat Benjamin Litton of West Des Moines in the race for Dallas County Recorder, an office from which Recorder Chad Airhart is retiring after three terms.
Five trustees were elected to the Dallas County Hospital Board of Trustees: Ervin Joseph Shelly, Dennis Cochran, Marc Meyer, Joelle Miner and Pat Steele.
Eric Wessels outdistanced Veronica M. Lack for a seat on the Dallas County Soil and Water Conservation District Commission.
