Oct 15, 2026 · 49 min · 17 segments
Twenty days before Election Day, campaigns are making their closing arguments. On this Politics Day episode, we get analysis from Jonathan Hassid of Iowa State University and Wayne Moyer of Grinnell…
In-person voting, uh, opens, opened this morning every- at every county auditor's office, uh, 20 days before the election.
[lips smack] And i- if you want to vote by mail instead, your request has to reach your county auditor by 5:00 PM Monday, October 19th.
And, uh, that ballot has to be back before polls close on, at 8:00 PM on November 3rd.
Find your own county auditor at sos.iowa.gov. And there's a, um, a, a wonderful early voting piece, uh, put out by my colleague Isabella Luu at ipr.org, a lot of FAQs there that, uh, she answers.
I mean, one thing it does is it shifts money s- patterns, right? So if, if a lot of your constituents are gonna be voting early, it doesn't make sense necessarily to have a huge ad dump at the end of the campaign.
And so I think that's at least part of the reason why we've seen campaigns move advertising a little bit back in the cycle, 'cause, you know, people are voting early.
The other thing, of course, is that it, you know, reduces the possibility of a so-called October surprise, [laughs] right? This is the, you know, sometimes mythical creature that appears late in election cycles to shift the race.
Um, you know, if, if, if a half or, you know, 40% of the electorate has already locked in their votes, then that's obviously gonna be substantially less impactful.
And so, you know, really one of the things it does is it kinda... [laughs] It, it, it lengthens a, our incredibly long election seasons even further.
In-person voting, uh, opens, opened this morning every- at every county auditor's office, uh, 20 days before the election.
[lips smack] And i- if you want to vote by mail instead, your request has to reach your county auditor by 5:00 PM Monday, October 19th.
And, uh, that ballot has to be back before polls close on, at 8:00 PM on November 3rd.
Find your own county auditor at sos.iowa.gov. And there's a, um, a, a wonderful early voting piece, uh, put out by my colleague Isabella Luu at ipr.org, a lot of FAQs there that, uh, she answers.
I mean, one thing it does is it shifts money s- patterns, right? So if, if a lot of your constituents are gonna be voting early, it doesn't make sense necessarily to have a huge ad dump at the end of the campaign.
And so I think that's at least part of the reason why we've seen campaigns move advertising a little bit back in the cycle, 'cause, you know, people are voting early.
The other thing, of course, is that it, you know, reduces the possibility of a so-called October surprise, [laughs] right? This is the, you know, sometimes mythical creature that appears late in election cycles to shift the race.
Um, you know, if, if, if a half or, you know, 40% of the electorate has already locked in their votes, then that's obviously gonna be substantially less impactful.
And so, you know, really one of the things it does is it kinda... [laughs] It, it, it lengthens a, our incredibly long election seasons even further.
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