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Democrats say the 2018 Iowa Governor race may be last chance to win back Iowa voters. Jason Noble/The Register

Iowa state Sen. Nate Boulton will announce his candidacy for Iowa governor early Thursday morning.(Photo: Jason Noble/The Register)Buy Photo

Nate Boulton, the Democratic state senator who gained prominence this year by pushing back against Republicans agenda in the state legislature, is running for governor.

Boulton, an attorney from Des Moines, rolled out his candidacy with a video early Thursday morning and a formal announcement in his hometown of Columbus Junction. Hes planned a six-day trip that will take him to 16 cities around the state.

In an exclusive interview with the Des Moines Register, Boulton pitched himself as an advocate for working families who would prioritize support for education and worker training to make the state more economically competitive.

We need to start doing the things that take care of the individual men and women who make our economy run and secure our long-term economic future by doing that, he said.

Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines, speaks Monday, March 27, 2017, during debate on a workers' compensation bill in the Iowa Senate(Photo: William Petroski/Des Moines Register)

Boulton, a first-term senator elected last November, attracted publicity during the legislative session earlier this year by railing against GOP moves to curtail bargaining rights for government workers and rollback legal protections for injured workers.As an attorney specializing in labor and workers compensation law, Boulton had expertise on both issues. (The legislation passed over near-unified Democratic opposition, as Republicans currently hold both legislative chambers and the governors office.)

More: Dems: Governor race may be last chance to win back Iowa voters

Ive been standing up for working Iowans one by one when theyve needed someone to stand up for them, when theyve suffered disabling injuries, when theyve been wrongfully terminated, Boulton said Wednesday. Now, they need someone standing up for them in terms of our states long-term planning for our economic future.

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Boulton, 36, joins an expanding field of Democrats seeking Iowas highest office. Former party chairwoman Andy McGuire announced her candidacy last month and state Rep. Todd Prichard has formed a fundraising committee to explore a candidacy.

Polk County Conservation Director Rich Leopold and party activist Jon Neiderbach have declared candidacies as well.

Boulton declined to draw any immediate contrasts between himself and those likely Democratic opponents, but described the 2018 race as a make-or-break moment for the state, in which the party must offer a meaningful alternative to the current Republican leadership.

Were going to determine the soul of the state in this election cycle, he said. When we look at the things that need to be done for Iowas long-term economic growth, this is the election to actually start turning things around.

He also pushed back against the most obvious criticism of his candidacy: that at 36 years old and with four months of elective-office experience, hes not ready to run for the highest office in the state.

Its not like I was just born and went to the Legislature, Boulton told the Register, noting a decade of legal experience that includes work on a 2012 case successfully challenging Branstads veto authority.

The Democratic primary is taking shape as Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad nears confirmationas ambassador to China, a transition that will elevateLt. Gov. Kim Reynolds to the states chief executive and positionher as the incumbent in the 2018 campaign.

Boulton is expected to draw support from Democratic legislators and key labor organizations around the state. In a candidate announcement released early Thursday, he boasted of endorsements from state Sens. Pam Jochum and Joe Bolkcom, the head of Iowa's trial attorney's association, a former Iowa UAW political director and Des Moines businessman Mike Draper.

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Democrat Nate Boulton announces run for governor - DesMoinesRegister.com

VOL. 132 | NO. 90 | Friday, May 05, 2017

Through two meetings in less than a week, the leader of a reorganization of the Shelby County Democratic Party has heard one discussion more than any other issue raised in the gatherings.

Corey Strong is part of the committee working to reorganize the Shelby County Democratic Party. The group is meeting with local Democrats this month with a goal of holding a local party convention in June.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

Who is a Democrat? attorney and former local party chairman David Cocke said in defining the issue at the start of the second forum in Midtown Wednesday, May 3.

The committee Cocke leads was appointed by Tennessee Democratic Party leaders to rebuild the local partys structure and set up its convention this summer. That follows the state groups decision to disband the Shelby County Democratic Party last August after years of dysfunction and turmoil within the local executive committee.

The open meetings, which continue Tuesday, May 9, in Germantown, are a first step toward the process.

Wednesdays gathering in Midtown, along with one Saturday in Raleigh, each drew groups of 30 to 40 people some new to politics since last years presidential election and others veterans of the local political scene.

London Lamar, president of Tennessee Young Democrats, speaks at a meeting of Shelby County Democrats in Midtown.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

Attorney Carlissa Shaw, a member of the partys reorganizing committee, served on the disbanded executive committee for about three months.

It was chaotic, she said of the experience. Nobody could give me an answer on what I was looking for: What is the rubric for the Democratic Party to support a candidate?

Censures of Democratic elected officials and even two former local party chairmen Jim Strickland and Sidney Chism were a regular feature of the executive committee toward the end.

Chism, a former Shelby County commissioner who intends to run in the Democratic primary for Shelby County mayor next year, said some candidates got into Democratic primaries to conquer and divide Democrats, sometimes with Republicans financially backing their candidacies.

Chism doesnt see Republicans backing Democrats they agree with. He sees Republicans trying to split the Democratic primary vote to elect the weakest Democrat.

Most of them are paid to get in the race. Most of them have someone giving them something to get in the race, he said at the Raleigh gathering. Why would we need two or three Democrats running for the same position? You are talking about Democrats being in control. You are not going to ever be in control if you allow people to put money into these races, to put a less-qualified person in the race. We are trying to get rid of that scenario.

But others argue rules on the front end could discourage good candidates with changing views from getting involved and defeat the purpose of a primary.

If youve got two strong Democrats running against one another, Im not sure thats bad, Cocke said.

But even Democrats urging less restrictive rules worried about candidates who run as Democrats then vote with and for Republicans.

The focus should be more on what can we do to get the right person in office, said Corey Strong, one of the state party executive committee members named to the reorganization group. You can run, but you wont get out of the primary that could be the response, he told the Midtown gathering.

Shelby County Schools board member Stephanie Love is a Democrat holding a nonpartisan office who doesnt see the party at all at her level of local government.

I dont see a lot of political people in school board meetings unless they are trying to get a contract or unless they are supporting someone who has a contract. Nobody comes to me, she said. The only people that come to me are constituents. Nobody has come to me and said, This is our plan.

Cocke and the others reorganizing the party say that is where the local partys efforts should be aimed primarily.

Were all attracted to national politics, he said of the surge in political activism in a county carried by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in a national election won by Donald Trump.

But the way to win over a long period of time is local elections, Cocke added.

Meanwhile, Republicans have emphasized the crossover potential of their candidates for countywide office that contributed to Democratic voter crossover in 2010 and 2014.

Republican candidates swept every countywide office on the ballot in 2010. Four years later, they swept all but one: the Shelby County Assessor of Propertys office, which moved to the election cycle because of a county charter amendment.

Those leading the local Democratic Partys censure efforts heavily backed retired Criminal Court Judge Joe Brown as the Democratic nominee for district attorney general in 2014 and made Brown the tip of the spear of a Democratic slate.

Cocke is among Democrats who say the strategy, along with Browns distracted and at times bizarre campaign, also took down him and everyone other Democrat on the slate except Assessor Cheyenne Johnson.

A lot of candidates, when they get the nomination, stop working and rely on the party to deliver them, he said. Everybody who is an elected official who is a Democrat, we think should be challenged to support the Democratic Party. You cant discipline an elected official. They have their own constituency. But if we are going to support a candidate, theyve got to bring something to the table enthusiasm or money or name recognition or competency.

Part of the difference in the approach of Republicans and Democrats to the local campaigns comes from the countys Democratic majority, which Republicans acknowledge.

Democratic Party leaders perhaps counted on that majority too much, putting up nominees who could repeatedly win low-turnout primaries. The demographic numbers are still a potent battle cry in the party reorganization.

We are coming to take back over Shelby County, said local Young Democrats leader Alvin Crook at Wednesdays Midtown gathering. You are a Democrat or you are not.

Crook and other younger Democratic organizers emerged in the decertification of the local party to build a database and volunteer campaign. It not only delivered Shelby County for Clinton by a two-to-one margin but was also a factor in Democrat Dwayne Thompson upsetting Republican incumbent Steve McManus in a state House race in the Republican suburbs last year.

The goal of the reorganization is a local party convention in June to elect a new executive committee, which would in turn elect a new party chairman and adopt new bylaws.

Cocke and others have suggested also having a larger advisory group of Democrats to meet quarterly.

There probably will be changes in the financial responsibilities of the party, too. Cocke says the local party finances operated more like a political action committee in the recent past, with requirements for regular reports to the state. And those reports not being filed triggered fines from the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance.

A new structure might leave campaign fundraising to candidates and other campaigns.

Still pending is state legislation that would bar members who served on a disbanded local party executive committee from serving again for two years after the party is dissolved and reorganized. The state party chairman could grant exceptions to the ban.

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Shelby County Democratic Party reorganization struggles with enforcing loyalty - Memphis Daily News

Tom Perez

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez laid out the moraland politicalconsequences of Republicans managing to pass Trumpcare, saying in a statement thatTrump and Republicans will own every preventable death, every untreated illness, and every bankruptcy that American families will be forced to bear if this bill becomes law and millions lose access to affordable health care.

Perez highlighted the number of Americans who would lose out and what it is that theyre losing outfor: a tax cut for the wealthiest.

The 24 million who would lose access to health care is not just a numberit represents fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and even newborn babies with heart diseases or cancers that are too costly to treat without affordable insurance.

Trump and Republicans are telling the parents of children with special needs that theyre on their own. Theyre telling insurance companies to go ahead and use lifetime limits to decide when someone with a chronic illness has had enough health care. As if this attack on ordinary Americans werent reprehensible enough, Republicans in Congress might keep Obamacares best protections for themselves and their staffers, as they rip them away from their own constituents. It seems the only people who will truly benefit from this legislation are the uber-rich, who will pocket hundreds of billions in tax breaks. Trump and Republicans will be held accountable.

Perezalso recorded a robocallasking people to call Congress to oppose the bill.

Trump and the Republicans will own it morally. Ordinary voters need to make every Republican who votes for this own it in a way they actually feelby making them face angry constituents every time they show their faces and, in 2018, at the polls.

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Top Democrat on Trumpcare: 'Trump and Republicans will own every preventable death' - Daily Kos

The June 20 election for the suburban Atlanta seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price remains tight, with a survey from a Democratic polling firm finding Democrat Jon Ossoff one point ahead of Republican Karen Handel well within the margin of error.

The poll, conducted early last week by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, found Ossoff up 48 percent to 47 percent over Handel, running strongest among those who voted in 2016, but had not voted in 2014. In April 18s closely watched first round, Ossoff won 48.1 percent of the vote; Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state who has narrowly lost two recent bids for statewide office, won just 19.8 percent of the vote.

In a tweet, the pollster celebrated the numbers as good news for the first-time Democratic candidate.

But Republicans, surprised by their underdog status in a seat that has been deep red for more than 30 years, are encouraged by any sign of Handel consolidating votes.She has not nabbed the endorsement of Dan Moody, a former legislator who ran fourth in the primary, but she enjoyed a burst of donations after the first round and a burst of attention when President Trump arrived in Atlanta for the National Rifle Association of America conference and a fundraiser.

Youd better win, the president joked to Handel, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Heading into the runoffs third week, Handel also had the endorsement of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce, which went on the air with a TV ad attacking the Democrat as a Hollywood candidate, a theme in ads from the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

But none of that has budged the numbers in the Ossoff-Handel showdown. In polls taken before April 18 that asked about a hypothetical runoff, Ossoff either trailed Handel or led byone or two points. But polls underrated Ossoffs first-round vote total. The final pre-primary surveys put Ossoffs runoff vote projection at 42 percent; he outperformed that and came within a few thousand votes of outright victory. The final pre-election poll, conducted by Opinion Savvy, found Ossoff and fringe Democrats getting 42.1 percent of the total district vote; on Election Day, the partys candidates won 49 percent of the vote.

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Poll: Democrat still leads in tight race in Georgia - Washington Post

New OMB Director Mick Mulvaneys old 5th District, which takes in populous suburbs of Charlotte and stretches south, is not prime territory for Democrats. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

The Republican primary for Mick Mulvaneys old House seat will go another two weeks after the candidates forced a special-election runoff Tuesday night, giving Democrat Archie Parnell a head start in his long-shot bid to make a conservative stretch of South Carolina competitive.

Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs tax expert, cruised through the Democratic primary with about three-quarters of the vote while state Rep. Tommy Pope and former state legislator Ralph Norman advanced to a runoff on the GOP side, since no one got a majority of the vote. Pope had 31 percent and Norman 30 percent in the crowded field when the Associated Press called the runoff Tuesday night.

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Pope and Normans runoff will be in two weeks, on May 16. The general election is June 20, the same day as a closely-watched special election to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in his old Georgia district.

Mulvaneys old 5th District, which takes in populous suburbs of Charlotte and stretches south through rural areas to the outskirts of Columbia, is not prime territory for Democrats: President Donald Trump carried it with 57 percent of the vote in 2016 as Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget, also won easily. The district does not have a big urban center or recent history of supporting Democrats down-ballot since Mulvaney knocked longtime Democratic Rep. John Spratt out of Congress in 2010.

But Democrats note that any gap in voter enthusiasm could impact a deep-red district as it did in Kansas in April, where a sleepy special election briefly troubled Republicans who worried their voters were not engaged. The swing that happened in Kansas, if that happens here, we win, Parnell said.

Parnell has a net worth in the millions, which he could use to pay for TV advertising in the special general election. In an interview before the election, Parnell didnt deny he could put more of his own money into the contest.

Yet outgoing South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore said that the party primary should engage Republicans in the district in a way they werent engaged in Kansas or Montanas upcoming special election, where party leaders picked the candidates. I will eat my shoes if a Democrat wins South Carolinas 5th District, Moore said.

Before someone can take on Parnell one-on-one, its possible that national Republican groups will turn their attention to the runoff between Pope a former prosecutor-turned-state legislative leader who earned national press attention for prosecuting a woman for drowning her two children and Norman, a real estate developer and legislative hardliner who became famous for being on the wrong side of 124-1 votes in the state House.

Norman has said he would gladly join the House Freedom Caucus, and could receive the backing of the conservative Club for Growth. Business-oriented groups are more likely to back Pope, who has already received a donation from the corporate PAC of Boeing, a major employer in South Carolina.

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Democrat gets head start in deep-red special election to replace Mulvaney - Politico