Iowa 1st District race shapes up as boatloads of cash roll in

Ed Tibbetts is the QC Times point man on a race that promises to be one of the most hotly contested in the country:

There’s still a year to go before Iowans elect a new congressman in the 1st District, but already the seven candidates vying for the job have raised more than $1 million. None has been better at it than Bruce Braley.

The 48-year-old Waterloo lawyer, a Democrat, raised $305,629 through September. That’s about $37,000 more than the nearest Republican and about $77,000 more than the next closest Democrat.

Braley’s fundraising prowess has turned heads already. And so has the source of his money. Of the $253,000 in individual donations itemized on campaign finance reports, $227,000, or 90 percent, comes from lawyers. It’s a wide base, too. Donors from more than three dozen states have given money.

Of the $23,250 in political action committee money he’s received, half came from attorney-related committees, including $10,000 from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or ATLA.

Braley and his backers say that should come as no surprise. The former president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association, Braley has been active in groups composed of attorneys and he’s also a member of the ATLA board of governors.

“People who know me think I would make a very good representative,” he says.

However, one of his challengers says the volume of money coming from lawyers, as well as the fact that 85 percent of his donations are from outside the district, are potential targets for Republicans.

“The Republicans will jump on that like a big dog,” says Rick Dickinson, an economic development official from Sabula. “If we make ourselves vulnerable to the point we’re damaged goods in the general election, we make a mistake.”

The 2006 congressional race in Iowa’s 1st District is one of the most closely watched in the country. U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, the incumbent, is vacating the seat to run for governor next year, and seven candidates want to replace him.