So, we held another city council election in Iowa City. As usual, we can pull a few lessons from the results.
But first, let’s talk about the big picture. Three incumbents ran for office – Megan Alter and Bruce Teague in the At-Large race and Shawn Harmsen in District B – and they all won. Who’d they defeat? Newman Abuissa and Clara Reynen in the former race and Amy Hospodarsky in the latter.
At first glance, it feels mundane. The voters gave a new term to three popular incumbents. Big deal.
But to many Iowa Citians, the race held interest for its impact on the factions the six supposedly represent. Progressive and activist circles took this as a loss, with most backing Abuissa, Hospodarsky, and Reynen. And those who oppose them chalked it up as a win, because they backed Alter, Harmsen, and Teague. Even though more than a few of them would’ve opposed Alter, Harmsen, and Teague in the not so distant past.
As it goes.
However, I find this all very misguided. I’ll say a word about why the three challengers lost. But in the process of getting there, I’ll need to deal with all this folderol about ‘factions.’
No Factions, Only Candidates
Many voters think there’s a ‘progressive’ (or ‘left’) faction and a ‘moderate’ (or ‘liberal’) faction in Iowa City politics. I criticized the two factions view in early 2025.
It has many problems. Chief among them is that there are only small differences between the councilors. And to boot, these differences aren’t important to most voters. They relate primarily to the ‘abolition‘ label – a label central to activists and their opponents, but not central to most voters. While voters care about some issues under the label, they’re less worried about the label itself and its broader implications. Voters care most deeply about housing, mental health, the affordability of basic goods, the availability of jobs, and so on.
So, we need to think about local politics differently. Luckily, we have better frames.
A special election early this year came from a realignment of Iowa City politics. Our politics now move along a spectrum from social progressivism and pro-developer growth politics, at one end, and social progressivism and social democracy (publicly owned housing, public utilities, public banking, et al.), at the other.
For a starting point, I placed Bruce Teague in the former camp and Oliver Weilein in the latter, with the other 5 councilors sitting in between.
I think that frame can help us explain this week’s results, but perhaps in a way that complicates my starting point.
Why the ‘Left’ Lost
And so, right away, I’m impressed neither by ‘progressive’ cries of defeat nor ‘moderate’ crows of victory. Certainly voters didn’t elect Alter, Harmsen, and Teague because they’re endorsing a ‘moderate’ policy slate. Just as voters didn’t elect Weinlein and Laura Bergus because they endorse ‘abolition.’
Voters aren’t attached to either faction because they’re not into the factions in the first place. People vote for candidates like Bergus and Josh Moe because they like Bergus and Moe, not because they serially can’t make up their mind which faction they prefer.
What does this mean for our topic? It means the supposed ‘left’ lost for conventional reasons. I’ll make a short list of those reasons in order of importance. And, along the way, I’ll show how Iowa City’s political realignment comes to bear on those results.
1. The Advantages of Incumbency
Never overlook the obvious.
The fact of the matter is that Alter, Harmsen, and Teague were incumbents, and incumbents usually win in Iowa City. That’s the largest reason they won. The voters know them, and the voters like them. Iowa Citians are upset about the state and federal governments, but most believe their city council fights for them.
The incumbents had a long list of wins to tout – fare-free transit, funds to affordable housing, city development of land, funds to excluded workers, and so on. It’s been a busy 4 years, and the council got things done.
No matter how strongly rooted in the community, the challengers couldn’t match this.
2. Candidate Performance (Hospodarsky)
Of course, one challenger almost won: Hospodarsky. She took 46% of the vote and lost by less than 1,000 votes. Among the three challengers, she had the broadest support base when she entered. And her opponent (Harmsen) wasn’t the strongest of the three incumbents (i.e., Teague).
I’d go so far as to say Hospodarsky entered the race as a slight favorite to win. She comes from a politically powerful segment of Iowa City – non-profit leadership and the professional classes. Her buzz was something Abuissa or Reynen would’ve loved to have.
But, at the end of the day, she underperformed as a candidate. This really stood out at the League forum, where she spoke in abstraction and buzzwords. This works at a non-profit board meeting, but not in an election. Had I played a drinking game with her ‘c’ buzzwords, I’d have died an hour into the forum and you’d be reading my eugoogly rather than this article. By contrast, Harmsen connected with voters and got into specifics. He shined. As a result, he regained the lead and never looked back.
Look, it’s not easy to run for office. I’m not bashing Hospodarsky for it, nor am I saying I’d do better. I’m just saying she turned a winnable race into a loss. If she runs for office again, she has some lessons to learn.
3. Candidate Selection (Abuissa and Reynen)
I wrote about Hospodarsky first, because her performance was far more consequential. That is to say, I think she lost a winnable race.
Abuissa and Reynen started with far fewer advantages and a steeper hill to climb. And I think Reynen did her best to maximize her chances of winning a tough race. She effectively raised funds and volunteers, and she excited people. On the whole, she did well.
Reynan also did the best job of the three in taking to heart the realignment in our politics.
That said, her candidacy wasn’t perfect. A bias against young students sits at the heart of our politics. And she’s a student. I don’t know how old she is, but having met her, I’d say mid-20s. She also made a remark in her closing statement at the forum that sounded disparaging to older voters, though, of course, no doubt that’s not how she intended it. And she compounded the problem by highlighting her age in her campaign and endorsements.
Abuissa’s candidacy never got off the ground. He seemed engaged and deeply caring about federal and state issues, but he came off as less engaged and generally not informed locally. He emphasized Palestine in his signage and campaign, which energized a few activists, but isn’t centrally relevant to a city council race in Iowa.
On the whole, I think Abuissa probably chose the wrong office to seek. He was never in the race, and he finished a distant last place.
4. Bad Analysis
As I wrote above, progressives and activists miss the mark in their analysis of local politics, as do their ‘moderate’ opponents. Both sides elevate ‘abolition’ into a wedge issue that voters just aren’t very invested in.
Many in progressive and activist circles used the label and its association to forge a slate that, in the end, didn’t have much in common. Once we move past issues of police budgets, they’re three totally different candidates.
This made for awkward politicking. Abuissa, Hospodarsky, and Reynen just didn’t look all that comfortable with one another. And I think it’s mostly because they have very different backgrounds and politics.
Reynen did the best job taking to heart the lessons from the early 2025 realignment. But her status as a young student running against popular incumbents made it tough for her to go anywhere with the lessons. Abuissa showed shades of getting it, but his lack of interest in local issues and immersion in state and federal issues blocked him. And Hospodarsky showed little, if any, interest at all in social democratic ideas. I think her politics probably better fit with the other side of the realignment.
We can draw a contrast to Mayor Teague.
While earlier I identified Teague with the pro-developer side, he sounded like a social democrat at the League forum. Listen to his answer on the housing question, for instance, where he called out the role of the city as a public entity developing housing. After that, listen to the answers from Abuissa and Hospodarsky, where they sound like textbook YIMBYs who talk about ‘supply’ and sound like ‘hip’ neoliberals.
That’s a masterful bit of politics from Teague, who is our city’s most skilled politician. I’m not the Mayor’s political adviser. But, if I were, I’d have told him to say exactly what he did on this topic. Teague has an intuitive feel for the political moment, whether or not he explicitly understands the realignment.
No other local politician plays in his league, with the possible exception, at times, of Bergus and Mazahir Salih.
Final Thoughts
So, the ‘left’ lost this week. But there are reasons not to be too upset about it.
For one, it wasn’t really the ‘left’ that lost. It was, instead, a set of candidates facing a tough climb who didn’t have much in common with one another.
They lost to three popular incumbents who Iowa City voters see as having won major victories for ‘progressive’ causes. And those incumbents won, in part, by perceiving and adapting to a realignment that two of the three ‘left’ candidates failed to adapt to.
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