Elections 2012: Braley, Lange, Fight for Same District With New Voters

Just 4,209 votes kept Ben Lange from taking Congressman Bruce Braley's job as Iowa’s 1st District Congressman in 2010.

Redistricting has changed the makeup of the district, such that it now stretches further south and incorporates Marion and Cedar Rapids.

This year's heated, neck-and-neck race between Lange and Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley has reached points of outright hostility. Des Moines Register columnist Kathie Obradovich called Wednesday's debate, "uncomfortable."

"You’re damn right I read the bill," Braley said during the debate in response to Lange's suggestion that the congressman did not read the text of the affordable health care act.

Ben Lange

Lange is an attorney from Independence, Iowa. He gained popularity through the wave of tea party challengers in the 2010 election. The cooling of tea party favorability, however, spells trouble for the independence lawyer.

His campaign has focused on the national debt, painting Braley as an entrenched Washington insider.

"You went into Washington saying the national debt was your highest priority and yet you nearly doubled it under your watch," Lange said in the Oct. 10 debate, according to the Muscatine Journal.

He’s known as a social and fiscal conservative. Lange has been outspoken in challenging the constitutionality of the national health care reform, has advocated for the legal rights of equal protection and due process for unborn fetuses and hopes to reduce spending and balance the federal budget.

Bruce Braley

Meanwhile Braley — who was first first elected in 2006 — has consistently attacked Lange for his tax proposals, which the incumbent said favors the upper class.

"He has proposed changing our tax code to a two-tiered tax system that would result in an increase in taxes on the middle class and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires," said Braley in the Oct. 10 debate.

Most recently he’s tried atypical measures to pass the farm bill in congress and was hit by two ethics complaints from Lange, which his campaign has claimed are frivolous.

2012

The results of the 2010 election might be as close as Lange gets to the seat, if the events after 2010 mean anything.

That’s because redistricting in 2011 has changed the face of Iowa’s 1st district. The district lost a heavily populated GOP leaning county — Scott County — and gained a heavily populated Democratic leaning county, Linn County.

The addition of Linn County is significant because because it holds 28 percent of the new district’s population.

All along, Braley has been considered a solid favorite to hang onto the seat. Just last week, the Gazette cited internal Lange polling numbers that Lange has pulled to a 1.5 point lead, which is well within the margin of error.

According to the Gazette, this new district is one-third comprised of Democratic registered voters, 28 percent Republican party, with 38.5 percent that haven’t registered a party.

What's more, Braley has vastly out-raised Lange. According to the Des Moines Register, Braley has thus far raised $2.3 million, while Lange has brought in $834,115, but stands $20,632 in debt.