The indefatigable editor of this fine online publication has asked us peons to split up responsibilities for covering the Senate races, and I definitely got the best races to cover.

Not the best races to get the desirable “clicks” that pay the bills, but desirable in the sense that I can casually cruise the web looking for interesting things to kvetch about. My races are Wisconsin (going Red) and one of the easiest races in the country to cover, Iowa (going Red).

Wisconsin at least is vaguely competitive, in the sense that Ron Johnson might lose if a meteor strikes the earth. Chuck Grassley would win even in that case, assuming anybody is left to vote. Even the Sweet Meteor of Death (SMOD) couldn’t deny him a return to the Senate.

I may be getting ahead of the actual polling, which still shows Grassley under the magic 50% mark, but that is just a technicality IMHO. Grassley is a shoe-in, although don’t let Ed Morrissey know that or he may throw more work at me, and I have some internet cruising to do between now and November 8.

If you go to RealClearPolitics you would hardly know that there was a Senate race going on in Iowa. I still am not certain, given how little coverage the race gets. I honestly double and triple checked to make sure that the scant coverage out there isn’t for some prior race I missed. No, I am not kidding. I really was mildly surprised that Iowa had a Senate election this year.

In the RCP race for the Senate map they hardly acknowledge that there is an actual Senate campaign in Iowa:

Notice how Iowa gets no mention in the seats up for election? Grassley is so safe that they don’t bother to mention the race even on the map. They just paint Iowa red and they are done with it. Why bother? Not even a “Likely Republican” notice.

I like it this way. It makes my job easy.

Just for giggles I should note that a poll was done there and did come out last week. It showed Grassley at 49% and his opponent whatshisname at 38, 11 points back.

Whatshisname, by the way, is a guy named Michael Franken. No relation to Al Franken, I think. At least they don’t look similar.

In some ways it’s too bad that Franken is being put up as a sacrificial lamb, because he is actually an impressive guy, at least on paper. He was a Vice Admiral in the Navy, and his final posting was as deputy director of military operations for the United States Africa Command. He ran in the 2020 primary to face Joni Ernst, but lost to his opponent Theresa Greenfield, who lost to Ernst. I’m not sure why he wanted to run against Grassley, although he would have been an interesting candidate against Ernst.

Iowa isn’t as safely Red as we tend to think. Ernst only got 52% in 2020, but Grassley just crushed his opponent in 2016.

You probably won’t be hearing a lot about the Iowa race, although Wisconsin still bears watching. I am confident that it will go Red, but at least it remains somewhat competitive.

A caveat: I am no better at picking winners in elections than I am in horse racing, and I don’t bet on the horses. So YMMV, Caveat Emptor, and all that.