Bad news for Chuck Grassley

| 11:00 pm EDT March 16, 2021
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Bad news for 87-year-old Senator Grassley (R-IA). Polling shows that his constituents hope that he decides not to run in 2022. While he has been a popular politician, his voters would prefer that another person represent them in the Senate.

Maybe some people feel that his age is difficult, especially since Senators are elected for 6 year terms. He has been in political office continuously since 1959. And this is his 7th term in the Senate.

While the poll shows that only 28% of Iowa voters hope that Grassley runs again, 55% say they hope he does not, and 17% are not sure. Some of those 55% might vote for him even though they hope he doesn’t run, so you cannot take these percentages as votes against Grassley. Thirty-five percent of the Republicans hope he will step aside. Unsurprisingly, only 11% of the Democrats hope Grassley runs again and 77% hope that he does not run.

Senator Grassley is deciding about whether to run for Senate again. He thinks he is in good physical shape to continue serving Iowans since he gets up early to jog a couple of miles before work and thinks that people in Iowa should consider this. “If I can do that every day, I hope nobody has any questions about my ability to conduct a campaign,” he said. “It’ll be up to the voters to decide whether or not I should be reelected. But I hope they won’t say I can’t conduct a campaign.”

The US Senate is split 50-50 this year, with Vice President Harris capable of breaking any tie vote. But there are already five Republican Senators who are retiring: Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Richard Shelby of Alabama.

This could be an opportunity for the Democrats to gain some of these Senate seats. I am quite sure the Democrats are looking around the landscape for good challengers for these Senate seats and planning vigorous campaigns. The poll of 775 Iowa adults was conducted March 7-10 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.