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By James Q. Lynch, The Gazette

CEDAR RAPIDS Its still the economy, stupid.

Koch brothers, climate change, accusations of a scandal-a-week gubernatorial administration and the need for renewable fuels standards in a perfect world may be making headlines. But voters say the economy is their top issue going into the Nov. 4 midterm election.

That doesnt portend a Republican wave election, but Bill McInturff, a leading Republican pollster who, together with Democrat Peter Hart, conducts the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, said it is good news for Republicans who believe economic data and the publics sour perception of the economy are moving voters their direction.

Its going to be a very good year for Republicans with a 50-50 shot of taking the U.S. Senate, McInturff said.

Not so fast, counters Celinda Lake of the Democratic Lake Research Partners, which, with the Republican Tarrance Group, conducted the George Washington University Battleground Poll of 1,000 likely voters that was released this week.

It found that Democrats get better marks (43 to 35 percent) than the Republicans for solving problems, standing up for the middle class (54 to 36 percent) and representing middle-class values (52 to 39 percent).

Most attention has focused on the U.S. Senate, where Republicans need a net gain of six seats to gain control. The GOP is expected to pick up a handful of seats in the House it outnumbers Democrats 234 to 201.

Overall, Republicans see their chances of controlling both chambers of Congress improving because polls show voters disapprove of President Barack Obamas handling of the economy. Also, by a 36 to 29 percent margin voters told the Battleground Poll the economy is worse than it was four years ago.

If Republicans can tie Iowa Democratic Senate hopeful U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley to the presidents unpopular policies, that may hurt more than actual economic conditions, according to Chris Larimer, an associate professor of political science at University of Northern Iowa.

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Republicans heartened polls show economy still top issue for voters

A new Senate report on alleged targeting of conservative groups largely continues an argument that Democrats and Republicans have been having since the controversy erupted in May of 2013.

Not surprisingly, the two sides couldnt agree on what the report should say, so theres a majority version and a minority version.

In their majority report, Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations argue again that the controversy has been unfairly depicted, because the Internal Revenue Service also targeted liberal groups such as ACORN, the community organizing group, and the Occupy movement, as well as conservative tea-party groups.

A 2013 IRS inspector generals report should have taken that into account, but instead focused on how the IRS handled applications from conservative groups and excluded any comparative data on applications filed by liberal groups, producing distorted audit results that continue to be misinterpreted, the majority report said.

After reviewing nearly 800,000 pages of documents and conducting nearly two dozen IRS and [inspector general] employee interviews, the investigation found that the IRS used inappropriate selection criteria, burdensome questions, and lengthy delays in processing applications fortax-exempt status from both conservative and liberal groups, said the subcommittees chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.).

The IRS inspector general, J. Russell George, said Friday that he stands behind the audit report and that his offices review of IRS treatment of groups that applied for tax-exempt status is ongoing.

Republicans say in essence that Democrats are comparing apples and boulders, and that conservative groups were far more frequently and heavily burdened by the treatment they got at the hands of the IRS.

The majoritys interpretation of the evidence fails to capture the extent of the IRSs bias against conservative groups and flagrant abuse of power, said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the subcommittee. The minority report adds: The inclusion of a scant few liberal groups by the IRS does not bear comparison to the targeting of conservative groups.

Each side, however, downplays some facts that might be inconvenient to their case.

The majority report, for example, tends to minimize the extensive evidence that the IRS really did start collecting tea-party applications for what turned out to be lengthy and intrusive review, starting in early 2010. IRS officials in Washington referred to the matter in emails as tea party cases for months, until they decided theyd better broaden its scope.

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Republicans, Democrats on Senate Panel Issue Duelling Reports on IRS Controversy

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